Panama

Good morning, Panama! It's January 13, the day of our south-to-north transit over the Continental Divide from Pacific to Caribbean. The Captain informed us last night that the ship had been assigned a 6AM slot. Given the slowness of the transit, and all that we have planned for the day, it is best to get an early start.

We leave a 6AM wake up call that never happens, but Debby awakens at 6:20 and I struggle to the top deck by 6:30 to find passengers lined up 5-deep at the front of deck 10. I find some shorter people to position myself behind and take my first picture at 6:38 AM.
The locks are not yet in sight, just around that next bend. Each end of the Canal has three pairs of locks. Locks are paired to enable two-way simultaneous transit, although traffic through the narrow Galliard Cut is alternating one way, since two larger ships cannot pass each other safely there at speed.

Each set of three locks serve to raise entering ships 85 feet, to the level of the Gatun Lake and the Gaillard Cut canal, where they can cross the Isthmus and Continental Divide through fresh water before making a like descent at the other end. The lock fill water is gravity fed from Gatun Lake, which is fed by rivers carrying Panama's prodigious rainfall runoff. Without the rain forest climate, the Panama Canal would not function. (Wikipedia and other online resources provide in-depth discussions of Canal operations.)

Teddy Roosevelt ensured the Canal's locks were designed to handle the largest ships in his Navy, the WWI battleships. This ship size, referred to as Panamax, has dimensions approaching 110' wide and 1000' long. The Vision of the Seas is a Panamax vessel. Because of its size, it will pay ~$300K to transit the canal.

The Pacific end of the canal is a little complicated, due to physical constraints on lock construction there. Thus the Miraflores locks encountered from the Pacific side only consist of the first two pairs of locks, lifting ships to the level of Miraflores Lake, a small lake that leads to the third pair, the Pedro Miguel locks. We are approaching the Miraflores Locks when I take the following picture at 7:12 AM.

Aside: My photos are digitally processed by the Nikon CaptureNX software before publishing. I am fascinated by how their largely automated functions change the visual characteristics of the image. As an example, check out the following picture, which I took just four minutes earlier and is shown here as it came out of the camera. I don't know which is more true to what my eyes actually see, but I expect the answer is in the middle somewhere.

We are just entering the left-side Miraflores locks at 7:22 AM.

I see Mr. and Mrs. Frigate Bird sitting on some lock-side hardware. Although I don't have my birding lens with me, I snap them at 85mm. Here is the cropped result.

A ship is guided through the locks by 'mules', small powerful electric locomotives that keep the ship centered in the lock and assist with braking forward motion. The ships use their own propulsion to go forward. Below is a view of the median platform between the pairs of locks, containing two mule tracks. The tracks have a 'third rail', a ladder-type structure that fits the loco's cog drive.
There have been three generations of mules. The current and previous generations, similar to the ones in the next picture, were produced by Mitsubishi. Note the round table used for switching locos around.
The original mule locos were built by GE in Schenectady in 1914. Following is pictured an example, still preserved at the Gatun Locks for public display.

At 8:32 AM, we are about to leave the Miraflores locks into Miraflores Lake. Pedro Miguel locks are seen in the distance across the lake.

We arrive at the Pedro Miguel locks at 8:57 AM. Notice the orange-green arrow is pointing to the right, telling the pilot of the next ship which side he should use. Notice the two small row boats tied up in front. This is where the canal operations really get high tech.
Two men are seen rowing out to the entering ship to pass them a line, via which the heavy steel mule cables are pulled over and secured. I imagine if someone swiped the row boats, these guys might get to swim across with the line in their teeth to keep the Canal traffic flowing. HaHa.

We are now about to enter Pedro Miguel locks. Notice the miter doors opening for us. These doors do not quite close to a straight line, but have angled edges which press against each other as the water fills the lock chambers.

At 10:08 AM, we have left the Pacific lock system and are motoring through the Gaillard Cut, the ditch that was dug through the Continental Divide. We will pass under the modern Centennial Bridge just ahead. The earlier Bridge of the Americas, by Miraflores Locks, was the only permanent bridge over the canal for decades. It had become overcrowded, so a new six-lane bridge was commissioned, completed in 2004 and celebratory of the Panama's first century. The Pan American highway was re-routed to go over the new Centennial bridge, making it the principal land connection between North and South America since 2005.

A Frigate Bird swoops over me and I get a snap off with the 85mm lens.

When we enter Gatun Lake from the Gaillard Cut, the ship anchors to let the day's excursion passengers off via tenders. Below, Debby catches the ship lowering its tender boats.

We tender ashore, then take a bus to another part of the lake where we board a small boat. Debby and I sit in separate rows by chance, and she takes my picture.

Debby takes some photos of the rain forest jungle flora along the lake shores. The guide and boat driver have very keen eyes and see things I struggle to find, even when they point them out with a laser pointer. They are careful not to shine the laser directly at the critters though.


Aside: I have a hand-held, very slow 560mm lens combo and am in a moving boat, packed with people. The following images struggle to be respectable.

I finally see something the guide has pointed out and manage to get an image; they tell us it's a Three-toed Sloth, barely seen through the leaves, seemingly smiling down at us.

Next up is a Howler Monkey. Several are spotted jumping quickly through the canopy before I manage to find one slowed down to munch on something so that I can attempt an image.

The indigenous people have inhabited this area of rain forest since at least the time of the conquistadors. We see a family gathering of women and children bathing on a distant shore.

A Yellow-headed Caracara is spied and I struggle to get a clear view and an exposure. Its head is turned on the one marginally acceptable image that I get.
Here's a blurred closeup of its head from another toss-away image, to show the Caracara in full profile.

We have seen a Snail Kite flying overhead and into various waterside trees. Finally one appears on an open branch. But I am on the wrong side of the boat, the light is falling, and my ISO setting is now too low. But I take the 1/60 sec exposures anyway before the Kite flies away, figuring blurry critter is better than no critter at all. By the time I then get the ISO changed and attempt to refocus, the boat has moved so that I have no view. Ah, what might have been.

We return to shore and are bused to the Gatun locks, where we view a small exhibit and get to see our ship exit the locks. Debby gets a picture of the main building, and I get her picture next to the old GE loco on exhibit here.


Next I record Vision of the Seas exiting Gatun Locks into the Caribbean. Note the rock-climbing wall at the ship's aft. I estimate it at 35' high. At Debby's urging I climbed it the first day. Pictures are in my 'On Being a Cruiser' post of January 19.

We are bused from the Gatun Locks to Cristobal Pier where we will re-board our ship. I get her picture preparing to dock. It is 5:04 PM; it took ~10 hours to cross the isthmus.
The picture shows the bridge and the two bridge wings on each side. The Captain is standing on the port bridge wing here, which duplicates the controls of the main helm. The ship's V12 diesels drive generators. Both the main screws and the side thrusters use electric propulsion. Note the ship requires no tugs to dock and tie up. But the Captain tells us this one was tricky and he was being very careful. Paint scrapes are handled by the painting crew, but dented metal repair would come out of the Captain's salary. HaHa.

As the ship ties up, costumed Panamanians entertain the people on the pier, and those above watching from the ship's decks.

There is a crafts market on the pier. Debby spies some colorful baskets.

Debby buys a small basket. She poses the two salespersons with the basket, a brother and sister of the Emberá indigenous people, who tell Debby that their mother made the basket. Note the characteristic body painting.

We prepare to bid Panama goodbye and board the ship. Several hundred excursion passengers line up on the concrete pier as the boarding ramp is readied. We wait for 1.5 hours in a large and increasingly angry line as the ship's crew lets passengers leisurely disembark the ship, but will not allow anyone on. There is no explanation from the crew. This is a really strange experience for us, as if we were suddenly transported to a world without logic, a world of randomly bogus behavior. It brings me back to reality. Royal Caribbean is, after all, in the cattle business. Moo.