Day 13 – January 11 - Panama Canal Passage

We were up at 5:15 to get a good place on the upper deck at the bow along with hundreds of others. We had a pretty good view point, but no cover from sun. The temperature was about 95 degrees. It sprinkled some around noon which cooled us off, but of course that didn't last long. We pretty much stood there until we completed the passage at about 4:30 PM. We crossed under the Bridge of Americas at 6:30 and entered the first lock eight miles away about 7:45 AM. There is a lot of waiting involved in crossing through the 50 mile long canal as only two ships of our size (Panamax) can use the locks at one time, and it takes a long time to fill up, or let the water out of, each lock.

The maximum size of vessel that can use the canal is known as Panamax. A Panamax cargo ship typically has a DWT of 65,000-80,000 tonnes, but its actual cargo is restricted to about 52,500 tonnes because of draft restrictions in the canal.

Our ship arrived in Panama Bay long before daylight to be sure we were all set for our scheduled entry into the locks at about 6:30 AM. Throughout our trip we rarely saw even more one other ship in the open sea, but this morning we could see about 20 ships awaiting their turn to go through the canal. The canal operates 7x24x365. However, large ships such as ours only go through during daylight hours.

The Canal operates on a 1.2 billion dollar annual budget and employs 9,000 workers.

It was a fascinating experience watching the passage, seeing this historic place, thinking about all the effort that went into the completion of the canal in 1914, and looking at the jungle that we went through.

It’s also surprising that the canal still works for modern ships! The Bridge of the Americas that we passed under on our way from the Pacific to the first locks was high enough to accommodate our modern ship, and the locks were just barely large enough for our ship. They are currently building another set of locks at each end of the canal just for the larger ships to use. This construction began in 2007 and it is scheduled for completion in 2014 -- the 100th anniversary of the original canal.

Surprisingly Panama is in the Eastern Time Zone. Equally surprising is the fact that the canal runs in a southeast to northwest direction as it goes from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Panama City (the second largest banking center after Switzerland) is on the Pacific side. Limon Bay is on the Atlantic side. Columbus landed here in 1502.

There are six pairs of parallel locks. They can be used for one-way or two-way traffic as needed. Since the Culebra Cut is currently too narrow to permit two-way traffic for Panamax ships, they were being used for northbound traffic only when we went through. The eight mile Culebra cut that ships pass through on the way to Gatun Lake in the middle of the canal is 500 feet wide. It only allows one way traffic for ships our size. It is being widened to 730 feet.

The locks are 45 feet deep and ships with a 39 foot 6 inch draft are allowed. From the Pacific, the first and second locks are called the Miraflores Locks, and they each lift ships 27 feet. The third lock is the Pedro Miguel which lifts ships 31 feet.

The locks are 1,000 feet by 110 feet. Ships (except battleships) must have two foot clearance on each side. Our ship just barely fit in the lock as it was 965 feet long by 105 feet wide! The upper decks are significantly wider, so if you look at our ship when it is in the lock, it looks like it’s being stuffed into something way too small!

For a ship our size (a panamax) they normally use 8 electric locomotives -- two on each side front and back to keep the ship positioned exactly in the middle of the locks. The ship moves forward under its own power.

As we got out onto the canal, we noticed how muddy it is. This is because the hillsides have very few rocks to hold the soil in place and it is constantly being washed into the canal by rain. Therefore, the workers need to constantly dredge the canal and haul the dirt away.

The canal is narrow and winding. Tugboats escort the ship to make sure it makes it through the cut. We had two assigned to our ship, but they were not hooked up, just accompanying us. Along the way there are big white “targets” on the sides of the canal near all of the winding turns. These help the ships stay where they need to in the canal. If the ships line up two of the symbols they stay in the middle of the channel. If they line up the other two symbols they stay to the right. During most of the time we were in this channel, the Culebra cut, it was so narrow that we just stayed in the middle since two ships wouldn’t have been able to pass each other there.

After getting through the cut we entered man-made Gatun Lake which takes the ships another 20 miles across the isthmus. From there we entered the three stage Gatun Locks which took us back to sea level on the Atlantic side. When we emerged from those locks we were in Limon Bay, five miles from the breakwater.

The average toll is about $100,000. We paid $360,000 plus tug fees.

click on the slideshow if you want to see bigger pictures