AOK kids, here is your pop quiz for today (and no the answer is not Soda, go see the Principal)
If you go to Panama you must:
A: Visit Manuel Noriega's former mansion
B: Pee your pants on a zip line
C: Be intoxicated before 9 am
D: Go see the canal
Well by Day Three we'd already scratched the first three off our list, so that left us with C: Be intoxicated by 9 am .. no, I mean, go see the Canal
A full transit of the Canal takes you from the Pacific to the Atlantic and even for a small craft such as a sail boat, costs tens of thousands of dollars and pretty much takes a day. We were going to do a Partial Transit, going from the Pacific side, through 2 of the 3 lock systems and ending up on Lake Gatun, a enormous body of fresh water created for the canal.
We began our trip just outside Panama City
Shortly as we got underway we met up with a small boat from the Canal Authority. As required by law, the pilot of our cruise boat could not take us through the canal, only a specially ticketed canal pilot can dot hat. That is true of any vessel that goes through the Canal
With the new pilot aboard, we cruised along the Amador Causeway where we saw a building with a Toronto connection. Panama's new Museum of Biodiversity has been designed by local architect Frank Gehry the (ahem) genius behind the Crystal the (choke) beautiful and (cough) progressive addition to the Royal Ontario Museum. Even our tour guide suggested that perhaps Mr Gehry was having one over on the people of Panama
On our way to the first locks, we passed under one of the two beautiful bridges (there are three in total but we see only two) that span the canal. The Bridge of the Americas was completed in 1962 by the US and was considered an integral part of the Pan American Highway
Crossing the Canal is an expensive endeavour. For the largest ships currently allowed in the canal, called Panamax ships, the expense could run to 400,000 dollars for a passage. For some a more economical alternative is offload their cargo on one end of the canal and ship it by train to the other end. To that end, we passed a lot of giant cranes designed to pluck containers from ships and deposit them on to the trains
We soon approached the Miraflores locks a two stage lock system that would raise our boat up to about 54 feet in total. The length of the locks are about 950. Our boat would fit in there were two other vessels but only one Panamax container ship can fit in the lock at the same time
Once in the lock we were pulled against the wall and lashed to in order to prevent us from being pushed around; our boat was big but the water coming into the lock can be that violent. We were about to be raised up 27 feet, displacing something like 26 million gallons of water ... in eight minutes. In my video I use a time lapse but I didn't speed up the video by all that much. If a small vessel is not secured, it will spin around in the lock like a top.
All of this is basically by gravity, using a technology that is over 100 years old. Very things have changed in the locks since they were built in the 1900's. Back then large ships were guided into the locks by mules, today the "mules" are electric machines but not much else has changed. The giant lock doors were not welded together, that technology did not exist back then. They used thousands of rivets to give these massive doors their strength.
After passing through the second stage of the Miraflores we made our way out into the Gaillard Cut. This is a seven and half channel actually cuts through the continental divide, the only place on Earth where this has happened. There were a lot of big Panamax ships in this relatively narrow channel. Traffic was not particularly heavy so ships where able to pass in both directions but when there are a lot of Panamax ships, the Cut is so narrow they restrict them; so that for half a day only westbound ships go through, for the other half only eastbound ships
Passing through the Cut we could see where they are working on a new channel and a new set of locks that will accomadate Super Panamax ships, even bigger than the ones that currently use the Canal. It's a massive project, one of several underway in the country. They're also building a new international airport out by the Decameron Resort and Panama City's first subway.
On our way the Pedro Miguel locks, we passed under the beautiful Centennial Bridge. We got to know this bridge pretty well during our stay but mostly we drove over it
We passed through the single Pedro Miguel lock which put us out onto Lake Gatun. This is a huge body water created, through damming, to provide the Canal with all the fresh water that gets the job done.
After having gone under the Centennial Bridge we drove over it now to go back to the DeCameron. Collette was a bit disapointed that we didn't see any wildlife on this excursion (aside from birds) so a local iguana rectified that for us
Here's the video
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