PANAMA CANAL Fri. Aug 2

            You surely know how a lock works. At least have a basic idea. When I woke up about 6.30am this morning Bruce was already up and dressed and out on the balcony for the beginning of the Panama Day. Hutch (the Ports Lecturer) was already up on the Bridge with the Captain and the Canal Pilots and ready to begin his commentary to take us step by step through the whole process.

            With the TV in the cabin fixed on Hutch on the Bridge I alternated between popping out onto the balcony in my nightie and coming back in to hear what Hutch was up to.

            We were getting organized for entering the first set of locks – The Gatun Locks. There were three of them in a row and they had to lift the Sea Princess 26 metres up to the level of the man made Gatun Lake. We were in the approaches and aiming at the first set of ‘gates’. There’s a lot of apparatus on a  fixed ‘wharf-like’ thing beside us with a cogged ‘railway’ line for the mechanical engines called ‘mules’ which were attached to the front of the ship on our Starboard side and similarly on the Port side.

            These lines (and others further back on the ship) were stretched taut to keep the ship right in the middle of the lock as we had only 25 inches leeway on both sides of the ship. The idea is to protect the sides of the locks and the ship from damage and ensure a smooth passage.

            We moved very slowly under our own ‘steam’ into the water in the lock in front of us. When we were right in, the gates behind us locked and water flowed in under the ship by gravity from the second lock above us. This was fresh water from the fresh water Gatun Lake above as salt water would damage the apparatus.

            It took a while. It was very smooth with no turbulence at all, and you could see us rising up to the level of the water in the next lock. The gates in front of us opened and we sailed straight into the middle of the second lock. Repeat all of that. Gates closed behind us when we were right into the third lock, and water flowed in from the Lake to lift the ship to the level of the Gatun Lake in front of us, and out we sailed. We were now 26 metres above where we started.

By now it was 8am and we anchored for an hour and a half in this Lake to allow the cargo ship in the parallel locks beside ours to come to the Lake, and to allow the ships coming towards us from the Pacific end of the Canal to reach the Gatun Lake too.

It was time for a break from Canal watching and go to shower and breakfast while we waited for the next part to happen.

Can all ships get through the Canal? Of course not as the width is fixed. Likewise the depth of water in the Canal. Calculations of width and depth of the ship are done. There’s a measurement of a ship’s suitability calculated and ships are declared “Panamax” (the biggest that can fit through) or not when they are built. The other calculation is the ship’s weight and water displacement to be sure it clears the bottom of the canal.

What can they do if a cargo ship is too heavy? They unload part of the cargo onto a train – usually containers – and carry the cargo to the other side of the canal where they load it back onto the ship.  As you can imagine it would be more difficult to lighten Cruise Ships by taking passengers off and reloading, so the calculations for cruise ships are made fully loaded.

This is why the larger cruise ships being built these days can’t go through the Panama Canal. By 2014 the new Expansion Project will be operational – adding new larger approaches and locks, making the Gatun Lake deeper and making other parts navigable by larger ships. So no need to unload and reload. The locks will be bigger and three lanes wide instead of the present two lanes. Along sections of the banks we saw lots of cranes, machines and trucks moving excavated materials.

In the first sections of the Canal from the Caribbean end the rainforest came right down to the water line, and completely covered the many islands. As we went further West and South the vegetation changed to less dense scrub and grasslands.

Now, let’s go back to our journey. When we set off again from the Gatun Lake we headed through a narrow rocky channel called the Culebra Cut where those earlier workers with a bit of blasting, picks, shovels and wheelbarrows cut their way through the hill country. Not quite mountains, but difficult never the less.

We were heading for the Pedro Miguel Locks, the Miraflores Lake and then into the last three  Miraflores locks. All of these locks were dropping the ship towards the Pacific Ocean. Past Panama City on the Port side we went and out towards the heavy rain shower we could see ahead further out to sea. The huge number of ships anchored at this end of the Canal in the Pacific Ocean – like the cargo ships off Newcastle, waiting or a turn on the coal-loader – showed just how many ships go through in 24 hours.

And there we were – through the Panama Canal and out into the Pacific by 4.30pm. We were very lucky to make our transit in fine weather as there had been heavy rain for days recently. A very interesting day enhanced by Hutch’s informative commentary every inch of the way.

By evening our decorative Certificate of Transit of The Panama Canal – signed by the Sea Princess Captain – had arrived in our cabin.

Who actually owns the Panama Canal? Panama took over full operation, administration and maintenance in December 1999 from the USA.  The French began construction in 1880, but were defeated by lack of funds and the tropical diseases. The USA bought the rights from the French and eventually had success with good administrators who attacked the diseases by eliminating the mosquitoes, building proper accommodation for workers, hospitals and brought workers’ families to form local communities. The Canal was finished in1914.  The Expansion Programme is aimed to be complete for the one hundred year anniversary in 2014.