Day Seven - Panama Canal
The next morning started early, it's around 6am when we are in sight of the Panama Canal locks. Tug boats are on either side of us, and the front bow is opened up for better viewing. Our deck is right beside the front bow, and nicely for us they have that corner of the bow blocked off beside our deck... We couldn't have a better view.
There is 3 steps up to Gatun Lake through the Gatun locks, there is little train engines on either side of the ship that pull cables attached to our ship, and lead us through into the first lock. There is 2 feet of space on either side of our ship as we go through. The doors close behind us and the lock is filled, our ship rises about 9 meters and then proceeds to the next lock. After 3 locks we are 26 meters above sea level and head into Gatun lake, a man made lake formed by a dam for the service of the Canal.
Interesting to note it cost Holland America $405,000 to use the Panama Canal, even though they are just going in to the lake then back out.
There are three sets of locks in the canal. A triple flight at Gatun raises the ships from the Atlantic side up to Gatun Lake;, a single flight at Pedro Miguel, and then a two-step flight at Miraflores, lowers them to the Pacific. All three sets of locks are paired; that is, there are two parallel flights of locks at each of the three lock sites. This, in principle, allows ships to pass in opposite directions simultaneously; however, large ships cannot pass safely at speed in the lake, so they use both "lanes" of the locks in one direction at a time.
Alongside the 2 canals you can see construction starting on a much wider 3rd canal, expected to finish in 2015, this will allow many of the ships that are too large to pass through the existing Canals. This video quickly steps you through the hour long process we had.
From the comfort of our deck we get to watch the whole process, I sneak out onto the bow to get some Panama buns to tide us over until room service arrives, then we have to head out for our excursion, a Panama Railway trip in a domed car, sounds great right?
After dropping anchor we board a tender (ships boat that holds about 80 people) and head to shore to the waiting buses. Immediately we are greeted by our guide, a very loud ex-military Panamanian-American that is part preacher, part philosopher, but constant yeller. He yells into the microphone, someone asks a question, and he yells the answer 2 feet from their face.
He also has no clue when to just shut up... He talks constantly, repeating the same facts over and over, OK, we know it is 50 miles, we know it rises 85 ft., we know that 35-40 boats go through per day, we know that ships pay anywhere from $200,000 up to go, yes, we know that our ship paid $405,000 to go halfway in and then back again, we know it was completed in 1914 by the Americans cause the French went broke, we know, we know, WE KNOW...aaarrggghhh.
Each interesting fact repeated for the 4th or 5th time is split up by his opinions on how great we all are, we are the cream of the crop... Retires should all be moving to Panama... More money should go to education and affordable housing... Then there was the quotes from the bible, from famous authors, all repeated ad nauseam. I think he must be used to touring the crony crowd, they can't hear him, and forget what he said 5 minutes later. He even had to pass around the letters he got from Princess Cruise lines naming him best Tour Guide, maybe their passengers are even older?
Oh yeah, we got loaded into a restored train from Kansas City, the Panama Canal Railway Company. It would take us from the Caribbean port city of Colon through the jungles alongside the canal to the Pacific port of Panama City. It probably could have been very enjoyable watching the scenery on the 1 hour train ride if the Yeller would shut up once in a while, he just loved to hear himself yell, errr, talk.
The scenery along the way is lush and green. When we arrived at the station in Panama City we were handed a flat Subway turkey sandwich (meat and cheese only), and loaded onto a bus to check out the other end of the canal, the Miraflores locks that lead out to the Pacific Ocean. From a 4th floor balcony we watched a small tour boat and a huge freighter get shuttled through the locks one step down at a time.
Back on the bus, a quick detour over the Centennial bridge that looks a lot like Vancouver's cable bridges, then back to the train for the return trip to Colon where our ship has docked after returning through the Gatun locks while we were on our tour.
By the time the train was rolling we were done, he was now repeating what he said very time we passed the same place on the return trip. A short bus ride back to the port, and we finally escaped the loudest most annoying tour guide ever... Even guides that have no idea what they are talking about where better than this. Maybe it was because I wasn't feeling well, but Norine was just as annoyed.
An interesting sight as we roll past, the prison where Manuel Noriega is being held. The former military General of Panama, captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the United States. Noriega was tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering in April 1992, then convicted in absentia for murder in 1995 and money laundering in 1999. The prison was also the location of a number of episodes of the TV show Prisonbreak. I think the jails in Canada/USA are like the Hilton compared to this.
We had just enough time before re-boarding the ship to find a couple unique ornaments for the tree, and then it's directly to the room for some much needed quiet time before dinner.
The ship is delayed from leaving Colon at 6:00 as scheduled, because 2 guests had to be taken to the hospital earlier in the day... Carnival has ship fires and malfunctions, apparently our ship has thrown hips. At least it only delays the departure by a couple hours, hopefully the old codgers are ok.
At dinner we find out that Mr. And Mrs. Poland will no longer be eating with us, apparently 7:45 is just to late for dinner, old people are cute sometimes. The dinner choices were great tonight, crab spring roll starter, crab & cheese soup appetizer, for dinner I couldn't decide, so I asked for the chicken guava with the sides from the Prime Rib. I expected a grilled and stuffed chicken breast with a baked potato and assorted vegetables, instead I get 2 main courses... A prime rib dinner AND the chicken guava. I was stuffed sharing between 2 plates, but that didn't stop me from ordering the chocolate avalanche dessert.
We arrive at our next stop early the next day, so another early night to try and kick this cold. The night is made earlier as we set our clocks back again... We're going to pay the price for that when we head back to Ft. Lauderdale.
