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January 2, 2012
Just before we left, American Airlines called to say they'd canceled our flight from Dallas to Fort Lauderdale, but luckily, Bob got a flight to Miami, where we could take a train. These days, when you fly, you have to roll with the punches, go with the flow, and accept that it is what it is. Whatever.
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| The Coral Princess--built especially for the Panama Canal transit |
January 3 – 5
Coral Princess, one of only two ships built specially to go through the Panama Canal, upgraded us to a balcony room. The two other couples assigned to our dinner table of six were good company. Doug, a retired architect, and Nancy, his wife and retired teacher, are from Illinois; Alvin, an IT expert for a cable company and an amateur photo buff, and his wife, Helen, who works for the police department, are from Vancouver. We were well cared for by waiters Israel and his assistant, Edgar.
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| Left: Doug, Helen, Alvin Right: Nancy, Bob, Stew |
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| Edgar |
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| Israel (with Doug & Helen) |
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| The Horizon Court Buffet |
January 6
During a brief stop at Aruba, a former Dutch colony that is now independent, we simply wandered in the hot and humid air around the port town and checked email at an internet cafe.
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| Aruba |
January 7
Cartagenya (pronounced cart-a-hay-nya), Columbia, was much more interesting. We took a newly instituted catamaran service from the dock to the “old town,” a 15-minute ride, where we wandered the back streets and Plaza de Bolivar including its small gold museum, and Stew chatted with a parrot. We almost asked police for directions to a drug store, but fortunately remembered to call it a pharmacy, where, using sign language, we bought some cough meds.
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| The new Catamaran |
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| Plaza de Bolivar |
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| The Parrot & Stew |
January 8
Around 6:00 am, we watched our ship enter the first lock of the Panama Canal, while having breakfast in the Horizon Court. Then we went down to the relatively uncrowded balcony at the rear of our 11th floor deck. Jenna Rogers provided interesting commentary off and on during the nine-hour, 51-mile crossing.
The French tried to build a canal there beginning in 1880, but after twenty years of financial troubles and around twenty thousand deaths from malaria, yellow fever and accidents, they gave up. The US then instigated a civil war in Colombia which led to the creation of the country of Panama and a deal for us to build the canal.
By then, mosquitoes had been identified as the cause of most diseases, so phase one was to eradicate them. Then construction, pushed by Teddy Roosevelt, took about ten years and included a double set of three Gatun Locks on the Atlantic side, a large man-made Gatun Lake and a smaller Miraflores Lake, and another double set of locks on the Pacific side (The Pedro Miguel single lock and the Miraflores double lock). The first ship sailed through in August, 1914.
In 1999, President Carter gave the locks back to Panama, which now operates them 24/7, and charges as little as 36 cents for the adventurer Richard Halliburton to swim them to almost half a million dollars for a large cruise ship. Ours cost about $350,000, which included a more expensive, guaranteed time slot. About 2/3rds of this income goes to operating the system and continuously dredging it; the other third presumably goes to the government, though much of that apparently makes its way to politicians.
Ships operate all the way through the canals and lakes under their own power, but tug boats and “mules” or small rail cars keep them steady in the locks. Our ship had only 24 inches of clearance on either side. The locks have double gates, so smaller ships can use less water to raise and lower them the roughly 80 feet it takes on each side of the Isthmus. This water all comes from the man-made Lake Gatun, but the new and wider locks, which should be finished in a couple of years, will pump water back for reuse, since the lake can not afford to lose more than twice as much water each day.
We thought that it would be like watching grass grow to see the water rise or fall in the locks, but the process actually went quickly, and it was interesting seeing ships at different levels in the double sets of locks. Among several interesting trivia questions we learned was that the US Navy, which in 1914 was expected to used the locks extensively to create a single Atlantic/Pacific fleet, has rarely used them, because they're too narrow and too vulnerable to enemy attack.
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| Gatun Locks |
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| One of the 'mules' used to keep the ship centered |
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| Gatun Lake showing the Gatun Dam |
January 9
Fuerte Amador, Panama, is a breakwater built on the Pacific side, and after tendering in and wandering a mile or so of its five km length in really hot and humid weather, we returned to our air-conditioned ship. Others took half-hour taxi rides to Panama City and beyond. Having found no internet cafe, we learned the hard way that you need your own computer to make use of free or low-cost hot spots. The way of the internet cafe with computers for rent is fast disappearing.
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| Panama City - seen from our stateroom balcony |
January 10
At sea.
January 11
Puntarenas, Costa Rica, is on a small peninsula with a mile or so of buildings and stalls set up for visiting ships. Since we opted not to take zipline-rides along the tops of jungle trees or visit cloud-capped mountains, we simply wandered around. We found people extremely friendly, and with some help, we located a dive with two antique computers where we caught up on some email. Then, after looking at all the shops, Bob bought a white baseball cap and Stew bargained “Piedra” down from $40 to $35 for two rosewood nut dishes and one small box for paperclips.
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| A street of local merchants |
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| Piedra & Stew - after the 'bargaining' |
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| Rosewood box and bowls |
January 12 – 17
At sea, since the Princess line skips all Mexican ports because of concern about passenger safety. From Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles, we sailed a total of 5,520 regular (not nautical) miles. The ship carried around 2000 passengers and 900 crew. Since we didn't know how long or complicated it would be to get from the ship to LAX airport, we booked an afternoon flight, which gave us plenty of time to disembark and fly the hour and fifteen minutes to Tucson.
