PANAMA CANAL

I was up bright and early this morning – 5.00 am to be precise. I sure as hell didn’t want to miss our entry into the Panama Canal. Some would say I was crazy (Julie included) but I don’t care; I WAS THERE!

It was dark as we entered the Canal Zone and as day broke we commenced our entry through the first of the lochs. Some information  I gleaned from a crew member was that fees for transit are based on some complicated formula; for the Queen Victoria to transit it cost in the region of $380, 000 with a further $53,000 ‘premium’ to be ‘the first of the day’!

We were closely followed by a container ship sailing in the parallel channel to us. This gave me some good shots of the lochs workings. It was an awesome sight watching these behemoths rise as the waters flooded the lochs.

The ‘mules’ as the tugs are known as do not pull the ships through the lochs; rather, they simply keep them central in the channels and away from the sides.

Occasionally the tugs are used to shove the ship through narrow channels but usually she was under her own ‘thruster power’.

Once we arrived at the third loch and passed through we were then in the largest man-made lake in the world.

The scenery was incredible as we traversed the lake. Bandwidth and time prevent me from uploading the photos I have of this and all I offer here is but a small sample of the views.

They are building a new set of lochs to accommodate the larger ships now on the seas. The current ships are known as the ‘Pre-Panamax’ and the new, larger ships are the ‘Post-Panamax’! We frequently passed the dredgers and massive diggers employed in this work.

The trip through the canal took most of the day and we were given an on-going running commentary as we progressed.

As we approached the Pacific end of the canal the building work of the new lochs became evident. The concrete supports for the new gates are pretty well in place and the new gates are currently being manufactured. It is reported that each of the gates will weigh in excess of 700 tonnes each.

As we approached the end of the journey we traversed the final lochs and dropped into the Pacific Ocean having passed through one of mankind’s greatest achievements.

This was without doubt one of the real highlights of this trip. Perhaps the most amazing thing for me was the knowledge that the whole raising and lowering of these mighty ships is accomplished by the use of gravity and the water used for the process is not pumped. Ah! The power of nature!

As this section of our journey came to an end we were left with a magnificent view of the city of Panama in the distance. A perfect end to a perfect day.

WHAT A RIDE! - Next stop HUATULCO, MEXICO!