Costa Rica Part VI - Through the Canal

A man, a plan, a canal. Panama. I've heard this palindrome many times, but it had never occurred to me to think about exactly who the "man" was. I certainly didn't know that he was a fellow Brooklynite and that I was in fact very familiar with his name. George Washington Goethals was a U.S. Army general and civil engineer who served as the administrator and supervisor for the construction of the canal. The French spent decades in a bungled attempt to build a canal, and after they surrendered (so to speak) the U.S. took over and, under  Goethals' leadership, successfully completed the canal. Today, Goethals is memorialized by a bridge bearing his name connecting Staten Island to New Jersey. I have traversed this bridge (both the old one and the much superior replacement) many, many times without giving its name a single thought. In contrast, while we're on the subject of New York bridge trivia, I do know who Thaddeus Kosciuszko, he of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway bridge over Newton Creek (both the old one and the much superior replacement), was. Go figure.

Anyway, the Panama Canal was completed in 1914 and today is both a key component in the world's trade economy (some 15,000 ships pass through the canal each year) and something of an antique. It also appears to be something of a make-work program for Panamanians (as well as a big money-maker for the country). As I've already mentioned, when you want to pass through the canal the first thing you do is wait. And wait. Eventually, it's your turn and if you're a small ship like us you get paired up with another ship and pass through the locks together.

The Panama Canal is not a single long ditch like the C&O Canal. Rather, from the ocean a series of locks raise ships up into Gatun Lake, an artificial lake created for this purpose, which sits about 85 feet above sea level. Gatun Lake is large - it spans half a continent (OK, the continent is only 30 miles wide at that part of Panama). At the other end of the lake, ships are lowered by another set of locks into the other ocean. So, you go through locks at both ends but most of the passage through the "canal" is actually a traversal of a large, man-made lake. And the 2016 expansion of the canal just added new, larger locks in parallel with the original locks (like adding more lanes at the toll booth) - the rest of the traversal is the same no matter which locks you went through.

Here's an interesting factoid - the Pacific has a much greater tidal variation than the Atlantic, so "sea level" can vary by tens of feet from one side of the canal to the other. I always thought "sea level" was one particular elevation, but I guess it's not.

Line handlers come aboard

So, the process is as follows: as soon as you enter the canal area a pilot comes on board. He directs the ship through the initial approach to the canal. Then fourteen line-handlers come on board. I cannot imagine why a ship our size would need seven people forward and seven people aft to handle the lines, but like I said - I think this is a little bit of make-work for Panamanians. Oh, and the fourteen people don't all come on one boat. Our guys came on about five different boats (each easily big enough to hold fourteen passengers).

As you approach the canal you see the sophisticated signalling system - a big illuminated arrow pointing to the lane you're supposed to head to. They physically rotate the arrow and the angle of the arrow signifies what the ship is supposed to do (more on the arrows on p.80 of this document). As the ship approaches the lock two guys in a rowboat come out and toss over a line. Really, 15,000 times per year these two guys row out to toss a line to the incoming ship. This lightweight line is used by the line handlers to pull aboard the mooring lines, which are then used to tie the ship to the little electric locomotives (referred to as "mules") used  to guide the ship through the locks. Occasionally, as in our case, the line handlers (all fourteen of them) goof up - they dropped one of our lines and a tugboat had to come along and nudge us into place so they could re-do the lines.

The illuminated arrow

The rowboat guys

"Mule" locomotive

Once you are moored into place the locks close and fill with water. The locks fill in under ten minutes, which is surprisingly fast considering that they hold 26 million gallons of water. Then, under the command of the pilot, you start to move forward out of the lock. The ship moves under a combination of its own power and pull from the locomotives. Interestingly, there is only a one-way communication system between the pilot and the locomotives. The pilot gives commands over a radio, and the locomotive operators ring their bells to acknowledge receipt. Remember, this is not some small potatoes operation - 15,000 ships per year carrying 7 million TEUs (equivalent of a shipping container) of cargo, $2 million cost per locomotive, and their only communication method is to ring a bell, like the Trolley on Mr. Rogers. Do they not have Facetime in the canal zone? Skype? Voxer, even?

Anyway, we started our traversal of the canal at about 7 PM. Everyone was out on deck. A bunch of us were on the foredeck at first, where we stayed until they kicked us out to make room for the line handlers. Then we all went out on a top deck normally open only to the crew. It was exciting to watch as we passed all the container ports, saw the other ships going to and fro (Panama has seen a boom in shipping, not just from larger container ships but also from an unexpected growth in the shipping of LPG and LNG - yay, fracking!), pass under the Rt. 1 bridge, and then traverse the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks. Then, as I had said, we were in for hours of cruising through the darkness of Gatun Lake, so we all went to bed. A subset of us who were totally into the canal experience set our alarms for 3 AM to be awake for our passage through the Gatun Locks. It's funny - the canal transit hadn't been a big excitement or "bucket list" item for me in advance of the trip, but I really got into it.

The lock doors close

Miraflores Locks building

It's a tight fit

Gatun Locks. Note how the mules go uphill with the locks.

After traversing the Gatun Locks I tried to get back to sleep but it was 4 AM and I was kind of wired. I went up to the lounge and made myself a decaf latte which I spiked with a healthy dose of Kahlua snagged from the bar (which they don't lock up at night). This did the trick and after tossing and turning in bed for a bit sleep finally came and I was able to get a few hours of rest before having to get up to get our bags out the door and show up for breakfast at 7:30 AM.

McGruff, the crime dog

Visiting the new locks

After disembarking from the ship (which was delayed a little while they had dogs sniff our suitcases - for drug or bombs I don't know) we made a quick visit to see the new locks and then drove back to Panama City. Panama City was unexpectedly modern. A little foreign, to be sure, but a big city feel familiar to city dwellers from anywhere. True, some third-world legacy seeps through, like the "red devils". Apparently, until recently Panama's public bus fleet consisted of end-of-service school buses shipped from the U.S. Individual Panamanian bus operators would paint the buses in wild color schemes and (my favorite part) put gigantic hot-rod style exhaust pipes on them. Today Panama has a more standard and subdued public transit fleet, but you still see red devils here and there.

A "red devil" in Panama City

We were dropped at a hotel downtown - typical, modern upscale hotel, where the cruise company had reserved some meeting rooms for both those of us ending our trip and the next group coming on board to hang out. We had about five hours to kill. This would have been enough time to go out and see a little bit of the city, but once Valerie hit the hotel I think she decided her adventure was over. Familiar-feeling surroundings, snacks, air conditioning, WiFi - she was staying put. I went down and strolled around the immediate area - shopped for a Panama hat but didn't buy one, poked my head into McDonald's (even though Panama uses the metric system they still sell Quarter Pounders), even found a Chinese restaurant. Since it was lunchtime I thought I could lure Valerie to the Chinese place so I went back to the hotel, but she wasn't budging. Instead, we sat. Slowly, our fellow travelers went on their way - to the airport or their next destinations. The new passengers headed for the ship. Eventually it was just us. When the hotel staff began to clear the room I suggested that we just head to the airport, which we did. That gave us a lot of time to kill at the airport, which unfortunately offered surprisingly little food (but lots of duty free shopping). We wound up eating sandwiches from Subway, then it was off into the skies, headed for home.