Point of Interest: Panama Canal, Take 2

On Thursday, Feb 24th, 2022, we entered the Panama Canal for the second time, this time starting at the Miraflores Locks and heading north to the Atlantic side.

In case I didn’t clarify in the first Panama Canal post, even though the Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, this does not mean the Canal runs east and west. It actually runs northwest to southeast going from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or, as we are doing today, it runs southeast to northwest to go from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Panama City is the only city in the world in which the sun rises over the Pacific, and sets over the Caribbean Sea.  It’s a small part of the Pacific that reaches far enough north to fulfill this fact, but this is true! OK, enough trivia for now.

As we approached the Mira Flores Locks we now get to pass all of the cargo ships waiting their turns. There are many on our port side…

…and more on our starboard side.

Once we enter the channel to the locks we can once again see Panama City rising above the trees like we did the last time we came through.

We approach the Bridge of the Americas.

Just as we pass the Bridge of the Americas, a small picturesque bay pops into view. (I intend to try to paint this in an upcoming  art class.)

Masked me as we pass the Bridge of the Americas.

This wasn’t obvious to me before, but this is the primary cargo ship port for Panama City. Since there are shallows leading to the citiy’s waterfront, the big ships have to come here to exchange cargo.  Here we see a container ship and a car carrier. It looks like the car carrier is offloading a lot of white cars!  Pay attention to the ramp on the back end of this ship. I’ll explain why later.

We get one more peek at the many skyscrapers of Panama City competing for a view between the legs of the cargo cranes.

And now we see the entrance to the new canal. This monster container ship is slowly being nudged into place by several mighty tugboats! I totally missed this on our last pass through – I’ll blame it on the weather, but perhaps I didn’t know what I was looking for…

The entrance to the new locks is on the left, and the channel splits to the right for the entrance to the old locks. We learn from our narrator that since the original locks were designed by military engineers, the entrance to both the old and new locks are angled off from the main channel so that torpedoes cannot be launched straight into the channel at ships awaiting the locks, or even at the locks themselves. I’m not convinced that really helps now, with the technology that exists for tracking the target. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

We get a glimpse of the buildings at the entrance of the new canal.  When we came through the canal last time I said we really didn’t get to see the new canal. Part of that was due to weather – we had a lousy rainy day. But like I said earlier, I can say that another part of the reason is I didn’t know what I was looking for. It is clear to me now.

And now the old locks come in to view on the left!

We line up for the left lane. We came through the right lane last time, so now we get to take credit for transiting both sides! (Actually, when we transited in 2003 we came through the left lanes, so we already got to take credit for transiting both side after the previous  crossing! Our Oceania Cruise International Ambassador, Cella Baker, was excited to check both sides off her bucket list today!)

I mentioned a rowboat they talked about the last time we came through. This time I finally get to see it! The rowboat is the means by which the mule control lines are connected to the ship on the long side of the canal pier. The guest narrator explained many other methods were attempted, including a power boat, but the good ol’ fashioned rowboat beats them all for safety and reliability.

Lined up and hooked up to the mules we see the first Mira Flores lock opening up for us. The goal is to raise us 85 ft to the level of the Gatun Lake.  Two locks at Mira Flores and one lock at San Pedro Miguel will get us there!

On the right I realize this bridge goes a long way into the trees. Looking closer I realize this is a road, and must have been part of a fixed bridge or drawbridge system to connect to a similar section on the other side of the waterway prior to the Bridge of the Americas. I wonder why it was never just fully removed? There isn’t even a roadblock at the edge (just in case…)!

Coming in to the first lock we get a good view of the central Mira Flores operations building and the visitor viewing center. A bunch of the people on the ship were standing up there yesterday as part of a train tour that took them all the way to the other end of the Canal and back!

We go to grab breakfast and see this sight out the very dirty dining room window – a crew is mowing the lawn with weed eaters. They use the tarp to minimize the grass blowing onto the mule tracks and into the water, and the man on the far right has a leaf blower ensuring nothing gets through! Interesting operation! A few folks on board with allergies complained about this operation as it affected them pretty severely! Lots of runny noses and sneezing today!

After breakfast we head back to our fantail veranda, and discover we have company in our lock – two tugboats join us on this ride up to Gatun Lake!

We decide to get a different view and go to the Deck 5 promenade and watch a lock operation from here!  This is a view looking forward along the side of the ship as we enter the San Pedro Miguel lock – our last of three locks to Gatun Lake.

Looking aft we watch how the lines are connected to the mules that don’t have the benefit of a rowboat. A line is tossed out of the ship onto the pier, and the mule line is attached by the pier crew and hauled up by the ship crew.  (We later learn that about16 people are on board assisting with the lock operations, including the pilot. They leave via boat once we’re in Gatun Lake, and more come on board to assist with Gatun lock operations.) Within 30 seconds we hear the “ding ding” of the mule bell and it is operating! I guess the first connection requires more flexibility, hence the rowboat, and once a ship is “in the lane” the “tossed line” is achievable.

We get an “up close and personal” view of some of the lock gates.  We are told the locks go through thorough and regular maintenance every 6 to 9 months, but personally we’re not seeing it.

This “depth gauge” is embedded in the side of the lock. Our goal is 85 feet! The crud accumulated on the lower part of this tile makes it illegible. A good scrubbing is in order, hence I’m not convinced the “regular maintenance” they tout they perform is really significant.

We are now fully connected in the San Pedro Miguel lock. You can see the Mira Flores locks in the distance, and the water in between is the Mira Flores Lake. The big ships in the new locks totally skip the Mira Flores lake and join is in the Gatun Lake once we clear the San Pdero Miguel lock.

As we work our way through the San Pedro Miguel lock we can see the new lock waterway above us. They are already at the Gatun Lake level.

We’re now about to leave the San Pedro Miguel lock!

It’s not obvious we are at the same height as the new waterway to our port side, but we are!

We bid adieu, er, adios to the San Pedro Miguel lock!

Then before we know it, we’re under the Centernario Bridge. Masked me in another selfie! Sorry I don’t look happier, but I am smiling under the mask

Happiness is the Centenario Bridge in the rear view mirror, or in this case, the view from our aft veranda.

Next we’re in the Culebra Cut. This is the major excavation that was required to make the Gatun Lake  passable.

As we approach the Gatun Locks to drop back down to the Atlantic Ocean level, we see several ships at anchor awaiting their turn to leave Gatun Lake. This one caught our interest. It is a car carrier, likely carrying Japanese and Korean cars to US and European markets. But look at the ramp on their aft end! Remember I asked you to pay attention to the ramp on the back of the car carrier in Panama City?  Do you think this looks like a good news story?

We have one more look at the Gatun Dam, the other part of the Panama Canal design that made Gatun Lake passable.

We approach Gatun Locks, but strangely we are way off to the right. We should be lining up behind that container ship.

We make a huge corrections and overcorrect to come in on the left side again.

Once again we see the now famous rowboat! I’m so happy to have seen this twice today!

We’re gonna go through a little more detail on the Gatun lock passing just because we can. There is an interesting twist in this passage. We are joined by a sailboat! Oh, yeah, and a pelican!

Before we actually “enter” the first lock a sailboat motors in ahead of us!  We had the tugboats behind us. Why did the sailboat have to go ahead of us?

But its OK. It gave us something else to look at! The shore ops folks ensure the sailboat was secured to shore while we were waiting for the lock to open.

The container ship ahead of us reached the second lock, and the double gates were almost closed here.

Once the water was raised to our level the gates opened for us to enter.

Four shore ops people physically walk the sailboat forward, like the mules do a ship!

Once at the front of the lock they tie off the four mooring lines and leave.

Once the lock’s water level drops they start paying attention. It looks like the water in our lock is lower than the water in the next lock, doesn’t it? But it’s all at the same level! Otherwise the doors wouldn’t start opening.

They lower the blue lines and the attached brown lines are used for the next stage. This was interesting – the people on the boat pulled in the blue lines, then the brown lines were all that were used to walk the sailboat into the next lock. I wanted to see the people walk down the steep ramp, but didn’t see that happen!

We say our greetings to the Gatun Locks operations center!

As the gates close behind us in the second lock we are puzzled at the fact the gates are still not fully touching. We thought the workers crossing the top would do something to pull the two gates together, but they didn’t! They were simple leaving for their shift change! As it turns out, the water pressure behind the doors pushed them together when water level in the lock we are in began dropping.

Awaiting our final lock, 15 seconds after the port door, 16, began closing the starboard door, 15, still hadn’t started. You can see the operator standing above the door waiting for it to do something. Once it starts he heads back into his hut.

After 15 closes and the water drops we notice it appears to have multiple cracks and holes in it. This means it is taking on water and is not as boyant as it needs to be to properly operate. This may be why it was slow in starting to close, and we guess the operators know this. So much for the regular maintenance! This door has had this crud on it for more than 6 months!

While we’re talking about maintenance, I was shocked to see plywood being used to cover gaps in the edge of the canal! We’re gonna figure out where to send these photos to get the administration to do more on repairs!

We finally bid the Panama Canal farewell! We’re still not happy we had to come back this way, but it was a pleasant passage!

Thanks for joining us on this adventure!

We bid Panama Canal adios for the last time (we hope) on this whirled cruise.  Next stop – Curacao. Not! As I write this we had to cancel Curacao due to weather that kept the ship from making the speed it needed to get to Curacao on time. Whirled! Curacao was cancelled. Next stop – Bonaire!