After reading Dobie's account of her trip, viewing a special recently on the building of the canal, and seeing Panama featured on a few editions of Survivor, I'm wondering if anyone can talk about what's it like to actually go through the canal.
Well, after just standing outside on the ship while transiting the Gatun Locks, and getting baked in sun and being drenched with sweat without doing anything, I was in great awe of the people who built it! It definitely is a true marvel of engineering and construction.
This is kind of long, but it is a chapter from my cruise journal, without the pictures. It will give you an idea of what I was thinking during a Panama Canal transit on MS Amsterdam.
Tuesday, 07 May 2002
This was the day we made a daylight transit of the Panama Canal. Panama is also in the Eastern time zone, and like Columbia, on standard time. It took about eight hours to transit the Canal, so most of the daylight hours of this day were spent in the Canal.
I had my alarm set for 6:00 AM, but I awakened about 5:40 AM. I got up, showered, shaved, and got dressed. I went on deck about 6:30 to find that we were inside the breakwater of the Cristobal Harbor. That is the Caribbean end of the Canal. It is always tempting to say the "Eastern" end of the Canal, but that is not true. The transit of the Panama Canal, from Atlantic (Caribbean) to Pacific, is in a south-southeasterly direction. Panama City, at the Pacific end of the Canal, is actually east of Cristobal. You really have to look at a map to understand this, and a globe is even better.
Anyway, we had taken aboard the Panama Canal pilot about 6:15 AM, according to the ship’s log, and we were making way through a large number of anchored or drifting ships, on our way to the Gatun Locks. I’m not sure why we were moving ahead of ships that had obviously been in position longer than Amsterdam. I think it had something to do with having made a reservation earlier, and paying a reservation fee in addition to the regular toll. We were told that the toll for passing MS Amsterdam through the Panama Canal was approximately $130,000. The toll paid by a ship is determined by the capacity of the vessel to carry cargo, not by the amount or type of cargo actually being carried. They made a big deal of the lowest toll ever paid. Author and adventurer Richard Halliburton paid $0.36 (thirty-six cents), in 1928, to swim the Canal from one ocean to the other. It took him ten days.
Lest you think the Canal would run out of water, as much as flows to the sea with the passage of each ship, you need to know that the supply of water comes from Gatun Lake and the rivers that feed into the lake. Gatun Lake was, for many years, the largest man-made lake in the world. More importantly, the average annual rainfall on the watershed is about 200 inches. There is little likelihood that the Canal will run out of water, but some precautions are in place to prevent a lock from staying open and draining the lake.
Mary joined me on deck about 7:00 AM. It was already quite hot and humid. It took several minutes before we could use either the binoculars or the cameras. The lenses, coming from the cool, dry air of the air conditioned cabin into the hot humid air outside, immediately fogged up and the fog could not be wiped away. We had to allow time for the temperature to equalize. It took a good fifteen to twenty minutes. We had also lavishly applied sun screen before going on deck, and we already needed it. The tropical Sun is brutal. We were but 500 or 600 miles north of the Equator, and later we were to get even closer. Our closest point of approach to the Equator was about 400 miles.
We staked out a good vantage point on the Verandah. During the Canal transit was the only time the Verandah came close to being crowded. They also opened up the focsle, the open deck area on the Promenade Deck, as far forward as one could get on the outside of the ship. That area is normally off-limits to passengers. It is an area of some activity during arrival in and departure from ports, but that activity is limited to ship’s crew. The focsle, on Deck Four, the Promenade Deck, "our" Verandah, on Deck Six, the Verandah Deck, a similar open area on Deck Eight, the Lido Deck, and the Crow’s Nest, an enclosed, air conditioned lounge on Deck Nine, the Sports Deck, were the most popular spots from which to observe the Canal transit. There was an open area on Deck Ten, the Sky Deck, but the bulwarks were so high that it was almost impossible to see anything from there.
Knowing that the transit of the Panama Canal was the highlight of the cruise, and something no passenger wanted to miss, the staff of the Amsterdam set up tables on all open decks to serve orange juice, coffee, and sweet rolls. The stuff was barely edible, but it staved off the hunger pangs until we cleared the locks and felt we could go to breakfast and not miss anything important.
We entered the first of the three-part Gatun Locks at about 8:00 AM. It took nearly two hours to get through all three of the locks. The ship is lifted from sea level to the level of Gatun Lake, about 85 feet above sea level, in three steps. That would be about 28 feet in each step. All of the lifting is done by gravity. Water is allowed to flow from the higher level to the lower until the two levels are equalized. Then the gates are opened to allow the ship to pass between the chambers.
A very large, orange ship was going through the Gatun locks at the same time as Amsterdam. It was a car carrier. It was probably on its way to Japan to get a load of Toyotas, or Korea for a load of Hyundais. Although there are two sets of locks, they are not necessarily one for each direction. All the way through the canal, we were paralleling the big orange ship. In the Gatun Lake channel, the big orange ship was just behind us, as they were for the last run to the Pacific Ocean.
The ship moved into the first lock and from lock to lock under its own power. Several electric-powered locomotives were attached to the ship with cables, but they only served to hold the ship in position and away from the walls of the locks. The locomotives provided no, or very little, forward motion to the ship. While the Amsterdam nearly filled the lock chamber, it is not really a "Panamax" ship. Panamax is the name given to ships that are constructed specifically to the largest possible dimensions that allow Panama Canal transit. I believe a true Panamax ship has 10 inches of clearance on each side and about 3 feet of clearance fore and aft when in the lock chamber.
Once the ship was clear of the third lock of the Gatun group, and sailing free in Gatun Lake, we went to the Lido restaurant for some breakfast. We took a table by a window and watched the lake shore and islands slide by. It was more fun watching while sitting down, and in air conditioned comfort. About 11:00 AM, we shifted to the other side of the Lido Restaurant and continued our comfortable viewing. The Canal Authority (ACP) provided a narrator who periodically, but not constantly, provided information about the canal. His comments were heard in every portion of the ship, and proved quite informative and interesting.
Mary and the Gogols had light lunches, but I was still satisfied from breakfast and skipped lunch completely. We thought that the Crow’s Nest would be a good vantage point to watch the rest of the canal transit, but it was full, so we went to the Verandah to watch the passage of the Gaillard, or Culebra, Cut. It is sometimes called Gaillard, in memory of David Du Bose Gaillard, the engineer in charge of the project, and sometimes called Culebra, the Spanish word for snake. With either name, it is an impressive piece of earth-movement. The passage through the Cut, not the passage through Gatun Lake, is what most people expect a canal to look like.
The air temperature was quite warm and the Sun was brutal, but it was not too bad if you could find shade. We stayed on the Verandah, in the shade when possible, until the ship entered the Pedro Miguel Locks. We went to the cabin to rest and cool off for a while, and then to the Lido Restaurant where we took a window seat in the air-conditioned space to watch the passage through the Miraflores Locks. Shortly before reaching the Pacific Ocean, the ship passed under the Bridge of the Americas, a high level span that carries the Pan-American Highway. We went out on deck as the ship passed under the bridge and then back inside to watch the rest of the Panama Canal passage.
We spent about an hour resting in the cabin and getting ready for dinner. It was a casual dress night. When I saw that a 16 ounce Porterhouse steak was on the menu, I knew that would be my entrée. I think I had mushroom ravioli for an appetizer and probably a salad of some sort. The steak was pretty good, but I would probably not order it again. After dinner we went to the Queen’s Lounge to see Gary Wick, a ventriloquist and comedian who was probably pretty good. But compared to Dave Levesque, he was kind of lame. His sound effects were better than his jokes or ventriloquism.
After the show, we wandered the ship for a while, returned to the cabin for some relaxation, and turned in for the night about 11:00 PM.
We went from Pacific to Atlantic and I loved every minute of it, Not sure why but was fascinated going under the Bridge of the Americas, took way too many pics!!!
As stated it was very hot and humid, my kind of weather, and I was outside all day. The Sun Princess had a wade pool top deck front. It was empty, except for me laying on my belly in the pool looking out over the bow of the ship as we passed through the canal. Great view and kept me cool,
We went from LA to FLL for 15 days. Wished we would have had more stops in the Caribbean instead of Mexico but would still do this cruise again, loved it.
We took the Panama Canal trip in September of 1984 aboard the old Nuiew Amsterdam. We were heading from the Pacific to the Caribbean. I had just gotten my first video recorder There were a few people with the bulky 2 piece VHS recorders but I had the first one piece BETA. By the end of the day I had 6 hours of tape.
As we approched the first lock we were advised that it would be overcast that day but we should still use sunscreen ondeck. By 9 am it was already 95 degrees with 98% humidity. I had the same problem as Captain Larry and had to allow my camera to adjust to the humidity before using them. HAL had the doctor and 2 nurses wandering the decks all day to keep an eye on passengers. The crew circulated with trays of water, juice and ice tea.
Watching the ship enter, rise and exit each lock was and amazing thing to see. Travel between locks was a time to watch from inside to stay cool and relax.
It was a wonderful experience that someday I would like to do again.
Have done the full transits several times. Never get tired of watching the mules work, watching the ship go up or down in the locks, viewing the scenery as you travel through the various sections getting from one set of locks to the next one.
Love it when HAL brings out the Panama Buns in the morning.
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What's it like to go thru the Canal?
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Not sure why but was fascinated going under the Bridge of the Americas, took way too many pics!!! 
What's it like to go thru the Canal?
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