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Today we are transiting the Panama Canal. We have already crossed it once from West to East on a Regent Cruise from Los Angeles to Ft. Lauderdale, Christmas 2007. I wanted to get up early today to stake out a spot on the deck 12 for my tripod setup. My plan was to take time released photos of the Panama Canal crossing — going through the locks and such. However, I woke up a bit late, got dressed quickly and headed up with all my gear. The crowd was already about 4 deep so I went back to the room and setup the tripod on the balcony and aimed the camera as much as I could towards the bow of the ship. We were already close to the first locks, Gatun, so I set the camera for intervalometer mode and set it to take a picture every 15 seconds for about 500 pictures or about an hour and half. It came out OK and the link to it is below.
Usually the two locks are going the opposite directions. This time, however, a four masted schooner was in the lock to our starboard side. It had Russian text on the stern. She was going the same direction as us, although moving through the locks faster than us. Turns out this ship has an interesting story and I will update it as I get more details. After the war Germany had two of these ships that they used for naval training exercises. Since the US and Russia were splitting up war spoils, they each took one of the schooners and have been using them for their own naval training exercises ever since. After transiting the canal, this Russian vessel unfurled all the sails and were sailing about a mile off our starboard side. I have a picture of them in the Picture Gallery.
The Panama Canal was originally started by the French in the 1880’s. After 20,000 people died trying to build it using a completely different engineering approach than the current canal the operation went bankrupt in 1889. In 1904 Teddy Roosevelt purchased the French rights for $40 million and, after investing $352 million to dig the “Big Ditch”, it was opened in 1914, closed again due to landslides and the war and formally re-opened after WWI in 1920. There are three sets of locks with one set of three on the Atlantic side and sets of single and double locks on the Pacific side. They are connected by Gatun Lake and Miraflores Lake. There is a bridge that crosses the canal at the Continental Divide where we pass through the Calebra Cut which was one of the monumental tasks required to build the Canal. You go “up” heading to the divide from the North and then “down” from there. If you want some more info on the canal check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal. It’s a pretty amazing story.
In the old days they would hook mules up to the ships and they would pull the ships through. Now they have very powerful electric vehicles which are still called mules for obvious reasons. They are on both sides of the ship and it gives a very smooth ride as we traverse the locks.
When the canal was originally built the engineers esimated that the size should be a certain size (research this more). However, due to budgetary constraints and politics in general, they decided to make the canal significantly smaller. They figured, “why would we ever need to move a ship of that size through the canal?”. Well, of course, ships continued to get larger but at this point the largest a ship can be is the exact size of the canal locks less a couple feet. These maximum size ships are, of course, called “Panamax”. And, they want to make even larger ships. So, Panama has started a project to build another locks system that will be approximately the size that they original engineers wanted to do. The picture above shows part of the construction project. In this picture you can see a drilling mechanism drilling holes at an angle. They then stick what looks like PVC pipe into those holes. At some point, they put dynamite into those pipes and detonate them all at once to widen the channel. There was significant construction going on in many parts of the Canal. Check out the Picture Gallery for more pictures of this.
We have a neighbor, Ed and Jerry who left a couple weeks before us on the Crystal Symphony heading from Rio up North through the Canal. We had kept in touch via email and it appeared that we would cross somewhere in the Canal Transit! While we were in Gatun Lake I happened to look out our suite window and saw a cruise ship less than a mile away. It was headed in the opposite direction. Figuring this was them, I threw on some clothes, grabbed my D200 and ran up the stairs. By the time I got to the 12th deck the Symphony was abeam us. I started snapping pictures as fast as I could and sure enough, there on the top deck taking pictures and waving were Ed and Jerry! I zoomed in a got the picture above. Continuing to snap I took an impromptu panorama series of their ship. Strangely, when I stitched them together in Photoshop it appeared that the Symphony gained about 100 feet! Jerry and I traded a couple of emails and I sent them the pictures. Pretty cool to get a picture of yourself on the top deck of your cruise ship in the Panama Canal!
The rest of the day everything went smoothly and quickly on our transit and our view of Panama City, including a bit of haze is above. In the second to last lock I made one more time lapse movie from my originally planned spot on the 12th deck. The afternoon heat kept the crowds down on the deck but, unfortunately, at that time we were only going through a one lock system. And, the heat got to me as well!
We had a nice dinner in Compass Rose and finished off the magnum of 1988 BV Reserve. All the sommeliers enjoyed tasting it.
Tomorrow is a sea day off Columbia where we will not stop on this trip. We stopped in Columbia on the other side of Central America the Regent Cruise mentioned above. Next stop…Manta, Ecuador.
For the Panama Canal Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Panama-Canal-Jan-18-2010/25153072_j8L3DC#!i=2062582436&k=tBZQzHh
Timelapse Movie 1:
Timelapse Movie 2:
Geoff - Hey guys! Hope you’re having fun. I’ve been trying to email you guys but all of my messages fail to send. I am getting your emails, can hear when you call, but its only one way communication. I’m guessing its something screwy with the ships internet. Let me know if you find out whats wrong. Have fun!
Jon & Linda Schweitzer - We have been thinking of you and your companions. We are really glad that you are safe and back on board. What a harrowing experience. We’ll buy you a drink when we see you in New York or Seattle.
Go back to enjoying the “good Life” and be careful of what other excursions you go on.
We’re looking forward to seeing your pictures. And, once again, we’re so happy that you are ok.