Transiting the Panama Canal and the very long, very humid, very hot, occasional rainy day!

This is what the cruise is all about!  It’s a cruise through the Panama Canal!  We've been to a couple of lectures about it – watched a couple of documentaries on the subject, read a bit about it in the Princess Patter (the daily ship bulletin) and today is the day!  SO….you set a wakeup call for 6:30 a.m. (yikes – really? We are on vacation, aren't we?) Yes, 6:30 a.m. and it was fine. Another beautiful day and we awoke to find ourselves in the “canal” but still awaiting the Pilots (3 or 4 of them for our size ship) to come aboard and actually begin traversing through the lock system.  The tugboats were getting ready to assist us and, bottom line, we had not missed a thing.

It really was a fascinating day, especially going through those first set of locks. Seeing how they attach the ‘mules’ (train-like engines that guide the ships through); our ship had two mules at each end, both port and starboard. After hearing and reading up on the history of the canal a bit, pretty humbling to realize what men went through to make this canal a reality.

Princess provides a historian to narrate all day long, either through your stateroom television or up on the outside decks, which, of course, is extremely helpful. He helped bring all the sights we had read about to life.  Ginne Hooper had told me to bring something to do as it’s a long day – so I brought along some cross stitch which I have not picked up in years (I figured bringing a quilt to humid South America would not be a good plan).  And I’m happy to say to Ginne – I never touched it. I carried it around with me all day but never really settled down to do any stitching. Between watching from either side of the ship, taking pictures, dodging a few rain showers, eating lunch, and jumping in the pool to get cool – there was no time to settle in on anything else. And did I mention how humid it was?  Then, add to the day time to head inside and/or return to your stateroom just to cool off.

The lake that we entered after going through the first set of locks, Gatun Lake, is man-made and was rather beautiful. It was a very still day and at times was so very quiet as we slowly floated over the water and past vegetation and islands that you really felt you were out in the middle of nowhere (well, maybe we are sort of out in the middle of nowhere). In fact, it’s not a noisy business at all going through the canal.  If it wasn't for the narration from our historian, you could have easily napped on deck without distraction. I do need to clarify that it was a holiday in Panama the day we went through – so it’s possible there would have been other noise around the locks with men working on the new, wider canal, etc. – but the actual movement of the ships through all the locks and gates is a very quiet process.

The land surrounding Gatun Lake is basically a rainforest and left untouched.  The water in most places is murky and brown due to the constant run-off from the land. It’s a continual struggle against the dirt that slides back in to the canal, especially during the rainy season, so often times they are out dredging parts of the canal. BUT it’s the rainy season (over 100 inches of rain each year) that builds up Gatun Lake with the water necessary to operate the Panama Canal, so the rainforest must remain- the circle of life!

But all in all, an amazing feat of engineering that was created by those who came before us and with all the container ships and barges we saw traversing the canal, it’s hard to imagine life without it.  We also were able to see the area where they are building the wider locks as well as some of the new gates that had been delivered and were awaiting installation – this project is due for completion in 2016 and is on schedule.  It will allow the much larger boats that are being built today and in the future to use the canal as well.

At the end, as we entered the Pacific Ocean, we were treated to a beautiful view of Panama City!  And it was still daylight – an amazing day! How blessed we are to have had the opportunity to experience the Panama Canal.

Next blog?  Zip lining through the Costa Rican rainforest!