A man, a plan, etc. etc, Part Dos

We encounter our first Pacific-bound ship

On the last episode of my day passing through the Panama Canal, we ended at the Continental Divide, heading from the Pacific to the Atlantic.  The Isthmus of Panama is quite narrow -- 'tis the reason for a canal being here -- and it doesn't take a long float to get from Pacific to Continental Divide to Atlantic.  Ten hours in transit total.

Once we emerged from the Culebra Cut (Corte Culebra), the canal can handle two-way traffic.  The Culebra Cut is the narrowest part of the canal.  They said 70 percent of all excavation work on the canal was done in the short section that is the Culebra Cut.  Once out of that section, on the high water of the mid-canal, the canal becomes a two-way street.

Good-bye Maersk container ship.  Hello, Atlantic Olive.

And hello to you, M.S.C. container ship home-ported somewhere in Asia:

The Atlantic bound ships are coming at us fast furious.

And here's the B.W. Kyoto, all the way from Singapore:

And then, emerging from just around the bend, was that Celebrity Infinity cruise ship.  No, Celebrity Infinity, you are NOT going to beat us to the Atlantic Ocean.

Maybe it was the fact that the people standing at the rail right here was talking in thick British accent, but when I saw this I immediately thought "Dinsdale!"  The reference is to the Monty Python skit about the Piranha Brothers, whose life is chronicled on the TV show "Ethel The Frog."  Long way for that reference.  Anyway, Dinsdale Piranha is haunted by an imaginery giant hedgehog named "Spiny Norman."

In fact, every time that cruise ship emerged from wherever, I would say "Dinsdale," then laugh hysterically to myself.  Yes, that is what amuses me on long solo trips.

We are now in Gatun Lake, the large freshwater lake in the middle of the canal.  Well, not the middle of the canal.  It cheats a little to the Atlantic/Caribbean side,

And soon we are approaching our last set of locks, the three-stage Gatun Locks.  Three locks on the Pacific side, in two segments, and three locks on the Atlantic side, all in one segment.

Selfie in a lock!

The next two pictures are taken a minute or two apart.  It's a large cargo ship dropping in the lock.

Still at maximum height:

Now dropping down:

We are sharing our lock with the Tsingtao.  And, no, I don't believe it is a Chinese beer ship.

Getting closer:

Dinsdale!  (Yes, that's the Celebrity Infinity waiting in line.  Behind us,

In this lock, we tie down to a tugboat:

Let's watch the Tsingtao drop through the magic of still photography.  Up:

Down!

Into the next lock and we again tie down.  Whirlpools, y'know.

And now we race out of the last stage of the Gatun Locks:

And here's the Tsingtao emerging, too, with the help of some "mules."

And it's being stalked by the Celebrity Infinity!  Dinsdale!

And thr tugboat takes off:

Motoring impressively.

Leaving ... Dinsdale ... stuck back in the last lock, not to be seen again this trip.

And here we approach the area where the tugboats hang, waiting to help ships through the locks.

Notice anything "off" with this last bridge we cross under?

Yes, it is missing segments of road.

It is under construction.

And soon we arrive at Colon, the port of the Atlantic side:

And that means it is time to exit the Pacific Queen and take luxury buses back to Panama City.

It's dark by the time we get there:

No time to ride the tourist train.

I love these things even though I've never ridden one wherever it is I travel.

The day ends where it begins:  At Las Letras.

A man, a plan, a canal

Panama!

Today was the day to accomplish the whole purpose for making a stopover in Panama City:  an all-day cruise through the Panama Canal, Pacific to Atlantic.

We queued up for a 7:30 a.m. departure.

And this was our boat, the Pacific Queen:

Not long after our scheduled departure time, we are on our way.  This one was taken one minute into the 10-hour journey:

This is a view of Flamenco Marina, our point of embarcation, which is a word despite the fact that blogger.com software has flagged it as a spelling error:

The Panama City skyline is somewhat visible in that picture, although it is largely obscured by ominous stormclouds, it being the rainy season after all.  Foreshadow!

We were now motoring up the canal side of the Amador Causeway.  That ugly multi-colored monstrosity is a Frank Gehry.  It is the only building in Latin America designed by "star-chitect" Frank Gehry, whose claim-to-fame is designed these horribly ugly monstrosities that clash with their surroundings.  See, e.g., the Brain Building in downtown Las Vegas.

This building I recognized because we were about to go under the Bridge of the Americas.  It is the Country Inn, which is where I stayed my first two times in PTY.  ("PTY" because all the cool kids refer to every city by its three-letter airport code.  Except "LAS."  No one calls Las Vegas that.)

And here we go under the Bridge of the Americas.

Which means we soon come upon the Port of Balboa, which is where ships unload and load if they have only a partial load that needs to go through the Panama Canal.  Think of it as the "Atlanta-Hartsfield" hub of the Panama Canal.

The top deck immediately filled up with the cruisers.

There was even a band up there, playing what I believe was Colombian cumbia music.  Cumbia serves the same purpose in Colombian culture as polka used to in Pennsylvania of the 1970s.  It's the lively, fun dance music that only old people and the rurals will admit listening to,  In the cities of Colombia, if you want to dance, it's salsa salsa and more salsa.  I don't know if the band was part of the ticket price or just a bonus, seeing as the band disembarked at the midpoint of the trip.

And then ...

The skies opened up and it was pouring buckets.  I hid in the lower forward deck, which gave me a nice view of this:

A giant Celebrity cruise ship, the Infinity if you keep track of these things, going through the Miraflores locks, next lock over, at the same time as us.

I had a decent view of the work being done tying us down for the trip through the lock.  The boat has to be tied to the sides, or another vessel that is tied to the sides, when the water comes in because there will be whirlpools and otherwise your boat will spin which is not good for so many reasons.

This is the giant Infinity, pulled up next to us.  It is big enough that it got a lock to itself.  We shared this lock with two other smaller vessels.

We're all tied down so there's nothing to do but wait to float to the top:

And the wait is over.  Back to work.

You can see the little train cars in this picture:

They are called "mules."  They don't pull the massive ships through the lock.  They just steady them in there so they don't bang up against the walls.

The Miraflores locks are a series of two locks.  We got through one, so it was time to tie us down for the second one.  Rain stopped for a bit at this point.

And, again, nothing to do but wait to float to the top of the lock.

And then we and the cruise ship with whom we shared a moment together were off into the heart of the canal.

And we start putting some distance between us and the Celebrity.

And then the cruise shippers were left in our wake.  Or were they?

This is looking back at the Centennial Bridge, Puente Centenario:

With the sun out, it was time to try to enjoy the view from the forward upper deck.  But it was mighty crowded.

We were now arriving at the third and final lock on the Pacific side, the Pedro Miguel lock, the only single lock on the canal.  Here you can see those train-car-like mules:

We are locked and loaded:

This is a tugboat that we were tied to, sharing a lock together:

And in the lock:

And now the lock is filled:

Time to untie, this time being the view from the back of the boat:

At this point, we were now at maximum water level inside the canal.

And the band played on.

Emerging from the lock:

Crossing under the Puente Centenario:

And this is the Continental Divide, Panama style.

We are now in the Atlantic.  And at this point, we will pause in our journey through the Panama Canal and resume with a second post.