Cap'n Dave had warned us that we were making an early start to the passage through the Panama Canal, bit of a shock for those of us who have fallen into bad habits. We don't often hear the sparrows clearing their throats, or whatever else it is they are reputed to do early in the morning these days. But we made an effort today and were up at the crack of sparrows, well it felt like that to us.
However, you will not be surprised to know that as we emerged on deck at about 7.15, yes I know some of you have done half a day's work by then and Matthew is regularly over the Dartford Crossing before sun up, but we're in a nice comfortable rut here.
Anyway most of the loungers and chairs had already been positioned and reserved in strategic locations. Your seasoned cruiser could see off a Panzer division of German holidaymakers without breaking sweat, they are mere babes alongside your average Portunus Club Frequent Cruiser Gold Card member. We decided the trick was to keep moving around, to get different views as the ship moved along, and spectacular it was.
Not at all like the Suez Canal, note the casual name dropping of the seasoned traveller. Did we tell you by the way that we have been promoted, accompanied by much celebration on our part, to the dizzy heights of Sapphire in the Portunus Club, quite overcome we were. You'll be amazed by what we are now entitled to, or maybe not, we at least feel honoured to have been able to contribute our few 'pennorth to P&O's profit. Anyway, I digress slightly.
Where the land around the Suez is mainly parched desert, around Panama it is mostly pretty green, lush rain forest, and hilly, thus you need locks to raise you up and some impressive cuttings to get through the hills. At its highest the Canal is 26 metres above sea level and 80km long bisecting Panama and passing Panama City at the Pacific Ocean side and Colon on the Caribbean/Atlantic side. The waterway uses a system of locks with 2 lanes that operate as water elevators and raises the ships from sea level to the level of Gatun Lake and then lowers them to sea level again at the other end of the canal.
The first set we negotiated were the Miraflores Locks. There are two lanes of locks, side by side, with small locomotives on the lock side to provide motive power and stability to the ships. Each ship is attached to six locomotives, three on each side. The locomotives are called mules, and one dear, gullible lady spent best part of half the day looking for long eared quadrupeds before her husband acknowledged his role in the wind-up. She is reputedly now enquiring as to whether Cap'n Dave can undertake divorces as well as weddings.
The second lock was the Pedro Miguel which raised ships to the Culebra Cut, a man made channel some 8 miles long. Vessels convoy through in single file. From here we sailed through Gatun Lake, used as a holding area for ships waiting their turn for the locks, and it is here where the water is drawn to raise and lower vessels by gravity.
The third set of locks is the Gatun locks close to the end of the canal on the Atlantic side.
Oriana squeezed herself into each of the locks with little room to spare. Each lock basin is 305 m long and 25m wide, leaving a mere 70cm on each side of the ship. There are 2 road bridges across the canal near Panama City but at the Colon end there is a single track road which folds out from the side wall of one of the locks when the lock gate is shut, with a railing the water side and the gate on the other side. Ships have priority so traffic can be held up for a long time. It is rather odd to see vehicles disappear under the canal and appear the other side a few moments later because it is not apparent that there is any means to get across. You have to be high enough up on the ship, and at the front to be able to see it over the lock gate.
There is a massive construction project being undertaken to build new cuts to bypass the existing locks with bigger lock systems thus enabling larger vessels to make the passage. Scheduled for completion in 2014 the new system will come into operation almost 100 years after the Canal was first opened.
Vessels are charged for passage by weight or passenger capacity, Oriana's passage cost $380000; the largest passenger vessel to pass through, one of those floating apartment blocks, racked up a bill of around $500,000 and one maniac, who swam it, was apparently charged $0.80, although I understand he completed the swim a few hours ahead of schedule due to a late burst of speed when approached by an amorous lady crocodile with an evil glint in her eye!
Where was I before the informational bit? Oh yes, up on deck at 7.30, approaching the first set of locks with one ship already in the set of locks we are heading for and another ship about to enter the other set. Busy, busy busy. It takes best part of an hour to pass through one run of locks, up to ten minutes for any one of the individual chambers to fill or empty as the case may be. Two of the ships photographers have disembarked to keep popping up from time to time through the day on the banks of the canal, dockside and hillside to take an impressive array of photographs which are on sale before nightfall; the profit motive never sleeps. Another intrepid member of the photo team has, we subsequently discover, climbed up the funnel to get bird's eye views of the lock systems. (Roast photographer on the dinner menu, an acquired taste much loved in the forests of Borneo I believe).
As we pass on to more open stretches of water many passengers toddle off for breakfast, ice creams or whatever other free foods they feel entitled to and so the crowds on the deck thin.
At the pointy end of the ship there is a webcam beaming images to a spellbound world. Not the highest of tech, it apparently manages to crank itself up to send one still image every three minutes or so, if it feels like it. Anyway we station ourselves under said camera, Ian resplendent in bright pink, suits you sir, purely to aid identification you understand, and proceed to text home so that people can rush to their computers, engage P&O site on tinter-net, and lo and behold there we were three minutes ago. Not entirely successfully but some blurry images were apparently received, if not of us then certainly of the gentleman standing alongside us wearing orange - dreadful colour.
As we said earlier, an impressive passage, the vegetation has some amazing colours around now, trees with bright purple and yellow flowers, there are buzzards and many other birds circling overhead. Can you tell there was a guy on board giving a commentary as we passed along? Eventually we reach the Atlantic side around 5pm and pass out into the Caribbean through the busy port of Colon, Panama's second city. Stacks of containers on the docksides here bear witness to the fact that despite the canal there is a flourishing traffic along the rail line connecting Panama City and Colon, indeed as we passed along the Canal we saw several double decker container trains headed in either direction.
So now we are back over into the Atlantic side and really do feel we are headed home. Four more stops only. Is the sea really a different colour from what it was in the Pacific? Is it time to start making the to do lists yet? As we write this we are headed resolutely east towards Curacao (time to brush up on the Dutch), Isla Margarita (where the the onboard excursions team, laughably misnamed The Explorers, constantly warn us of man eating, killer sand flies and urban no go areas, sales must be a bit slack!) and Barbados, before five sea days to Madeira.