Today we transit the Panama Canal. We were up at 6:30 AM so we could get ready and eat breakfast and make sure we were ready to see the ship approach the first set of locks.
We picked up our pilots at 7:15 AM right on schedule.
We headed up to the upper decks to find the best place to see and take pictures, which was right outside the Explorer’s Lounge on Deck 7.
It was already extremely hot and humid and the sun was strong. We had applied sunscreen, but now we were just sweating. It was slow progress as we approached the first of three consecutive locks called the Gatun Locks. The locks raise ships up a total of about 87 feet so that we will be at the level of Lake Gatun.
We saw the entrance to the section of the canal that the French had originally started in their failed attempt to build a sea-level canal across Panama. It was on the right as you approached the split between the newer locks and the older locks on the Atlantic Side.
Right past that, a large crocodile was swimming in the canal approach. This was verified by the people who were giving us information over the PA system as we went through the locks. Apparently, crocodiles and pelicanes hang out waiting for the fish that come through with the water from the lake as the lock gates are opened. The older locks are in an area that is to the right, and the newer locks for the larger ships are on the left side of the split. The New Locks are the Agua Clara Locks and the older locks are the Gatun Locks.
There was a ship ahead of us going in our direction toward Lake Gatun, and it was already inside the first lock on the right. The left lock had a ship coming in the opposite direction. The older locks have two parallel locks together, but the newer locks are only single locks so they have 12-hour directional shifts, for 12 hours they all go one way and then for the other 12 hours ships go in the opposite direction.
It took about 45 minutes from the time we were close to the first lock to make it inside, be raised up, and then move into the second lock. It is an amazing feat and the ship is held in the middle of the lock by cables attached to the electric engines called “mules”, a name derived from the early days of the canal when they had used real mules for this part of the canal operation.
It was so interesting to see all of this happen in something that was first operated in 1914. For the entire time we went through the three Gatun Locks, we had a tugboat inside the lock with us. This tugboat did not assist in any way, it was only being brought up to the the level of Gatun Lake so it could go over to the new locks where these tugs are used to keep the ship in the middle of the locks. There are no “mules” used on the new canal, the ships are too large for that type of system, they would not have enough power to control the larger, heavier ships.
The entire process from the time we got to the first lock to the exit into Lake Gatun took about three hours.
For a good portion of the transit through locks two and three, we spent time watching from our balcony, and since we are so far forward, we had great views since we can see around to the bow of the ship from our balcony. We also went to Deck 2 at the stern of the ship to watch the gates closing from there. Unfortunately, the tug boat was following us behind our stern, and blocked some of the views of the closing gates.
Once we got into Lake Gatun, there was not much to see other than the various types of vegetation on the shorelines. We did see a few birds, but not much else, and no more crocodiles. Once we got through the lake and into the man-made canal on the other side, it was much more narrow. We did see more tour boats and/or fishing boats for one section.
We then approached the Culebra Cut, which was the highest mountain range the canal needed to pass through and represents the continental divide in Panama, and the most difficult portion of the canal to build due to the instability of the soil. There was a lot of shoreline protection for the erosion, and many of the hills were stepped to help control erosion and add stability. There were signs of dredging piping in many areas, and there was a large dredge operating in the Culebra Cut.
It was starting to get cloudy by this time of the day, and we could see rain showers in the distance. Soon we approached the first of the three sets of parallel locks to lower us to the level of the Pacific Ocean. These locks are not connected consecutively, there is a single pair of locks called Pedro Miguel. Then there is about a half mile or so of distance before we entered the Miraflores Locks, the last two sets of parallel locks that lower ships down to the level of the Pacific Ocean.
It took longer to transit these locks since we had to hook up and detach from the mules at Pedro Miguel, transit the distance to Miraflores Locks, and then hook back up to the mules there for the transit through the last two locks. The extra time was mostly spent with the additional mule hook-ups.
The Miraflores Locks were where we visited yesterday afternoon on our tour. It looked like it was just as crowded out on the observation platforms as it was yesterday. There were no special tour groups out by the locks like we had been able to do on our tour.
Most of the passage through the last three locks was observed from our balcony, and by the last lock, it was raining pretty hard. Once we were through the last lock and heading out toward the Bridge of the Americas, it was raining even harder. We headed up to the Explorers Lounge to watch the passage out to the ocean, but it was raining so hard that we could hardly see the container ships in the port we passed.
The entire transit lasted about 8 hours, it was interesting, but a long day with a lot of standing.
We enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine as we completed the transit and headed out into the Pacific Ocean, now heading toward our next port of call, Puntarenas, Costa Rica.
We headed back to the cabin for showers. We planned to eat up in the World Cafe buffet, we were just too tired from the long day out in the heat to have a long dinner in The Restaurant.
After dinner, we spent some time in the Living Room Bar talking with some of the other people we have met on the cruise. We have not spent a lot of time with the same folks as we did on our last Viking Ocean cruise, we see different people we have met before almost every night. On the last Viking Ocean cruise, we sort of always met up with the same group every night in the Explorer’s Lounge.
We headed up to the Explorers Lounge for one last drink and to listen to the guitar player. We stayed out later than we anticipated, but we have our first time change of the cruise, we go back one hour as we head westward. plus, tomorrow is a Sea Day, so it will be relaxing after three pretty busy days.
It was a great day transiting the Panama Canal
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