DAY 9 Jan 21 - Transit the Panama Canal

The Panama Canal extends across Panama from Colon on the Atlantic Ocean (Caribbean Sea) side to Balboa and the Pacific Ocean. The canal was constructed in two stages. The first between 1881 and 1888 by a French company, followed by the Americans, with construction completed in 1914.

In 1883 it was realized that the tide level at the Pacific side was almost 19 feet higher than the Atlantic side. Engineers concluded the difference in levels would be a danger to navigation. It was then proposed that a tidal lock should be constructed near Panama City to preserve the level from there to Colon. Eventually it was decided that the original plan should be modified and a lock system should be used.

As an example, when a ship traveling from the Atlantic side reaches the Gatun Locks (see picture) a series of three locks raise that ship about 85 feet to Gatun Lake. Then it's a 40 mile trip to the locks at Pedro Miguel, locks that lower the ship 30 feet. At the Miraflores locks the ship is lowered an additional 52 feet to Pacific Ocean sea level.

On August 15, 1914 the Canal was officially opened by the passing of the SS Ancon through the Canal (see picture below of her entering Gatun Lock).

At the time, no single effort in American history had exacted such a price in dollars or in human life. The American expenditures from 1904 to 1914 totaled $352,000,000, far more than the cost of anything built by the United States Government up to that time.

Together the French and American expenditures totalled $639,000,000.

It took 34 years from the initial effort in 1880 to actually open the Canal in 1914. It is estimated that over 80,000 persons took part in the construction and that over 30,000 lives were lost, due in the main to malaria and yellow fever, in both French and American efforts.

Another picture shown here opp-osite is of the SS Ancon arriving in Panama in 1900. The ship here was carring over 1,500 workers from the Island of Barbados.

During the invasion of Panama by the United States in 1989, in their successful effort to remove the de facto ruler General Manuel Noriega from office, the canal was closed for the first time in its history. Managed for decades by the U.S, the canal was returned to Panama on December 31, 1999.

Today over 14,000 vessels per year transit the Canal. Prior to it opening in 1914, a ship travelling from New York to San Francisco would cover over 14,000 miles by having to go round Cape Horn. Today, using the canal, a ship only travels about 6,000 miles for this journey.

In January 2007 we completed a full transit of the Panama Canal while on our world cruise. Then in April 2009 we undertook a partial transit by entering the canal through Gatun Lock and spending some time in the connecting lake before returning back to the Caribbean Sea.

I think there is always a fascination in transiting this 'wonder of the world' irrespective of how many times it is experienced.

Last nights we lost an hours sleep as clocks were turned forward the hour we gained the previous day. It might have been better for all concerned if they had just left the time the same for the 24 hour involved and worked to ship's time instead.

The seas were very rough during the night and Maria slept very badly. I seemed to snore my way though most of it I'm told.

The sound of a noisy pilot boat coming along side woke me up at 5.15 am. It was pitch black but I decided to go on deck and watch our entrance to the famous canal. A couple of other passengers were also around but the rest of the ship seemed to be asleep.

As it grew lighter more and more people joined us on the top deck of the ship where we had commanding forward views of what lay ahead. I was positioned nicely to view the Captain on the bridge working with Captain Hayes the Panama Canal pilot we had earlier taken inboard.

It was slow progress as the ship hooked up with the little train engines that would pull as along into the three lock basins that would raise us 85 feet into Gatun Lake. We eventually entered the first lock at about 6.30 and an hour later, approximately, we exited the locks into the Lake. Here we would wait an hour before continuing our journey towards the Pacific Ocean.

Traffic is one way in the morning, east to west, then at about noon it reverses and the Pacific traffic has the right of way into the lock system at the Caribbean end of the Canal.

During this transit we have a full comm-entary over the ship's PA system. A mind blowing amount of facts and figure regarding the Canal were announced, they are so numerous that the head begins to spin! Fortunately we were all given plenty of written information about its history and technical specifications the previous night so we did have good reference material at hand.

It was expected to be in the 90s today and we were advised to take skin protection. The captain too was looking for some protection on the bridge.

We remained in this huge lake for about an hour before slowly moving into the canal to continue our journey to Pedro Miguel Locks where we were due in about three hours time. We passed several ships at anchor. They were waiting until noon when they would be allowed to transit the last bit of the Panama Canal out into the Caribbean Sea.They had been here all night it would appear.

Once we were firmly into Gatun Lake we sat on our balcony and took in the view and caught up with sorting out washing needs and my blog.

TO BE CONTINUED LATER IN PART 2