We had a wonderful day passing through
this marvelous engineering feat. Because
the land was not flat, the canal had to be built by flooding three cities and
making lakes and then using a lock system based on gravity. Since we last came through this canal, they
have made another new canal next to it.
Two pilots boarded the ship at about 6 am. We then entered the first lake, the Gatun Locks at about 7.30 am It took a couple of hours to clear this lock
and then we were put in a holding bay for about an hour because one of the two
lanes in our passage was being cleaned and so had all the water drained out of
it. At about lunch time we entered the
Pedro Miguel Lock followed by the Miraflores Locks,, which we exited at about 6
pm. There is a viewing platform at this
exit and many Panamanians and tourists had come down to see us exit the
Canal. The guy in the cabin above us had
decorated his balcony with a boxing kangaroo and Australian flags. We watched most of the day from our
balcony. We had a champagne breakfast
delivered to our room. There was so much
food that we ended up eating half of it for lunch on the balcony as we watched
the rainforest drift by. Our ship is
what is called a Panamax ship. This
means that it just fits into the locks with only about 25 cm to spare in each
direction. The ship uses its own power
to move forward but there were three mules attached to each side of the ship to
prevent sideways movement which would cause scraping of the vessel. The mules are not animals but rather vehicles
made by Mitsubishi. Cables link these
mules to our ship and guys in rowing boats row out to attach the cables to the
ship. Evidently they have tried all techniques
to do this but the rowing boats have proved the most efficient. Our destination lecturer Hutch gave a running commentary over the ship's PA on the Panama Canal from 7 am to 7 pm - an incredible effort.
After a most interesting day we had a
Canadian magician, Jean Boucher, to entertain us. He was very good and related well with the
audience. How do they manage such
sleight of hand. He gave one lady a red
ball which she had to hold in her closed fist.
He said some magic words and her eyes opened in surprise when two balls
were there. A moment later her
expression was classic as the two balls turned into twenty balls dropping all
over the stage.
