Day 6 : The Panama Canal

 

Yesterday (Jan 10th), we got to transit through the Panama Canal. It was a complex process, both for the boat and ourselves. Our day started at 6am with John jumping out of bed, hastily throwing on some clothes, and running up to the Observation Deck on Deck 12 to snarf a couple of front-row seats. I wasn't the only early riser, but I did get there in time to get two nice seats at the front. Regent was also in the process of setting up a nice breakfast area for the guests and laid out a good selection of food. 

We passed under the Atlantic Bridge, the first of three large bridges that now
cross the canal to provide an east/west road from one part of Panama to the other (long ago, it was all ferries). We then, very, very slowly, crept up on the Gatun Lake locks. So I'd originally thought that the Canal was this mega trench dug to connect the Atlantic and Pacific, much like the Suez was a big dig. Not so! Although there are a few lakes between the two ends, you need about a 90ft elevation to get across. 

The locks are quite an engineering marvel. The first attempt, financed by the French, went bankrupt, so the Americans (Teddy Roosevelt) took over. That's why the canal was owned by the US until 1999. 

On approach, a row boat leaves the center wall of the docks and attaches a couple of guide wires to the boat. These wires are linked to a group of electric mules (trains) that run along tracks parallel to the locks. The guide wires stabilize the boat in the middle of the canal and provide propulsion. That stabilization is important. Although each lock is 1000 feet long, it's only 110 feet wide. Our boat is 95 feet wide, and some tankers are up to 106! See the photo at the bottom for how narrow the gap was.

The mules then take you through the three locks and an elevation of 27m (almost
90 feet) until you emerge in Lake Gatun. Each lock requires 56 million gallons of water to lift a boat to the next step. Over the years, the authorities have added some sophisticated water recycling systems, but ultimately, you still end up spilling water from the lake into the ocean. At the time of construction, and actually up until about 20 years ago, Gatun was the largest man-made lake in the world. You then trundle along through the picturesque lake until you reach the Culebra Cut - which is that trench I imagined cut through the rock and dirt. 

The cut takes you through until you are about 2 miles north of Panama City on the Pacific Coast. Then you hit the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks, which drop you back to ocean level. For the engineering dweebs, like me, it turns out that the Pacific Ocean is actually about 8 inches (20 cm) higher than the Atlantic; it has to do with the lower density of the water due to salinity. Who knew? 

The final sight is the Bridge Of Americas before sailing off into the Northern Pacific Ocean. All-in-all the entire process took about 8 hours.