Panama Canal Transit - Part 1

Thursday, 31 January 2019

We had an all-day transit through the Panama Canal on the small tour boat, the Islamorada.

The Islamorada is a small tour boat that can have up to 51 passengers; fortunately, our tour had only 36 participants.  The lower deck is enclosed and serves the breakfast and lunch buffets and has several tables that are out of the wind.

     The boat has a storied past. Older than the Canal, it was commissioned in 1912 as the Santana by the financier JP Morgan. Al Capone purchased the yacht in the 1920s, renamed it after his favorite Florida Key, and used it to illegally transport rum during Prohibition. Eventually the yacht was seized by the US Government and used as a Navy training vessel during World War II. It came to Panama in the 1960s as a floating boutique hotel. Now it has been refitted for day tours of the Canal. It has made more Canal transits than any other vessel.

Overview of the Canal

An overview of the Canal from Wikipedia. Source: By Thomas Römer/OpenStreetMap data, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19678675

The locks are one-way traffic. In the morning, ships travel from both oceans up to Gatun Lake, where the two directions cross. In the afternoon, ships travel from Gatun Lake out to the oceans. The lake is the only area of the canal wide enough for two large ships to pass.

Pacific Entrance

As we sailed toward the Canal along the Amador Causeway, the "New City" skyline was in the background.

The Biomuseo as seen from the water.

The Bridge of the Americas with container ports in the background.

Container port

Southern Locks: Miraflores, Pedro Miguel, and Cocoli

A "Neopanamax" container ship enters the new Cocoli Locks. The new locks use tug boats to position the ships in the locks.

As a ship enters the old locks, a rowboat crew catches the cables that will anchor the ship to the mechanical engines that help guide it through the lock. A ship can take between 6 and 8 engines to hold it in place.

It's a tight fit with about 2 feet of clearance on either side of a Panamax ship. Here you can also see the one of the engines that keep the ship centered in the lock.

The engines ride on a cog railway that provides good traction and is shaped to keep the engines from tipping sideways.

As I said, it's a tight fit.

Rubber "knuckles" at the entrance to each lock prevent damage to the ship and the locks.

Once the large ship is in the lock, smaller ships and boats fit in behind it. We traveled through the canal with both the large tanker, and the tour boat, Tuira II.

The ship's pennants give important information about the vessel. Every ship flies the Panama flag while in the canal. The red pennant means the cargo is flammable, The red-and-white pennant means that a Canal Pilot is on board. Every vessel going through the canal requires at least one Canal Pilot to be on board. The large ships may have as many as three to help guide the ship. It takes decades of experience to guide the largest ships through the locks.

Looking back at the entrance to the Pedro Miguel Locks (left channel) and the Cocoli Locks (right channel). We've now reached our highest elevation, about 85 feet above sea level.

Panama Canal Visitor Centers

Miraflores Locks

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

The Miraflores Locks (on the southern, or Pacific, end of the canal) has another Canal Museum and visitor center. After going through the museum on a one-way path through four levels, there is an outdoors deck that overlooks the Miraflores Locks. Miraflores is a set of two locks that raise/lower ships from the Pacific Ocean to the small Miraflores Lake. One more lock chamber (Pedro Miguel Locks) raises/lowers ships from Miraflores Lake to Gatun Lake. Tides in the Pacific can vary by as much as 14 feet, so the last Miraflores Lock has to handle a wide range of height differences.

All the Canal locks have double sets of gates. This not only provides redundancy, but also helps during gate maintenance.

The original Canal locks have two lanes. Here two "Panamax" (maximum size to fit in the original locks) tankers are entering the upper lock from Miraflores Lake.

Looking back towards Panama City at the Miraflores Locks.

Agua Clara Locks

Friday, 1 February 2018

The Agua Clara Locks are the new, larger set of three locks on the northern (Caribbean) end of the Canal. They were opened in June 2016, along with the corresponding set, the Cocoli Locks, on the Pacific end. Not only do the new locks handle much larger ships, but they can recycle much of the water used to operate the locks. Agua Clara has a visitor center with a nice viewing platform.

The new locks have sliding gates rather than swing gates, but there are still two gates at each lock.

When closed, the gates are wide enough for motorized vehicles to cross. Right now this is the only way to cross the canal on the Caribbean side - on the lock gates at Agua Clara and then over a swing-gate bridge at the Gatun Locks. A new bridge, the Atlantic Bridge, is nearing completion.

The lock gates opening to admit a ship.

Three tugs help an empty LPG tanker enter the lock.

The tugs help keep the large ship centered in the lock.

In the lock, the ship has a tug fore and aft. The third tug is not needed once the ship enters the lock.

While the empty tanker entered the lock, a container ship left the final lock, and an LPG (liquified petroleum gas) tanker was in the middle lock. The under-construction Atlantic Bridge and the Caribbean are in the background.

A short while later, the LPG tanker had left the third lock.

All sorts of ships use the canal. This is the Wind Star (Windstar Cruises), a 148-passenger sailing ship. (Of course, it goes through the canal on engine power!)

Panama City

Tuesday, 29 January 2019, through Friday, 1 February 2019

Last week we were in Panama for a Road Scholar trip to learn about the Panama Canal. In addition to a full-day transit of the Canal, we also got to see the areas around the Canal, most notably Panama City.

We spent our first morning visiting the second-oldest section of Panama City, known as San Felipe. This area is the oldest still inhabited neighborhood and was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997. (The oldest city, founded in 1519, was burned to the ground and abandoned in 1671. It is now an archaeological site.) The photo above shows the Metropolitan Cathedral and the Plaza Major. The area is picturesque, but its close quarters make photography difficult. Panama City was also crowded with youthful tourists who had come for a Roman Catholic world youth event, including a visit from Pope Francis ("Papa Francisco") the preceding week. The event attracted about 500,000 "peregrinos" (pilgrims).

The remains of the Iglesia de Santo Domingo is part of the lore of the Panama Canal. The fact that these arches had held for hundreds of years convinced builders that the area was less prone to damaging earthquakes than other parts of the Central American isthmus.

The Plaza de Francia has a lovely shopping arcade covered with bougainvillea.

We visited the Panama Canal Museum (Museo del Canal Interoceanico de Panama), which was focused on the history of the Canal. This is the Fresnel lens (designed by Fresnel himself) from one of the many lighthouses that lined the Canal. Most of the lighthouses have been decommissioned, and the remaining ones use electrical lights.

The "new city" is an area of gleaming skyscrapers built post-Norriega.

This twisting tower is one of Panama City's new landmarks. (When we got closer to it, we found out that it sits on an ugly large concrete base.)

The Biomuseo on the Amador Causeway is hard to miss! The plans for the museum were designed by architect Frank Gehry (his wife was Panamanian) and donated to Panama. Only an architect could envision that this building represents the native Panamanian rain forest. The multimedia exhibits inside celebrate the biodiversity of Panama.

One of the more interesting rooms held full-size replicas of extinct megafauna. Impressive. I'm glad we no longer have to deal with saber-tooth tigers, dire wolves, and giant ground sloths!

The Amador Causeway/Peninsula was built with fill from building the Canal. It extends about 3 miles from the mainland and connects to three small islets. This panorama shows the southern (Pacific) entrance to the Canal with the Bridge of the Americas at the right.

The Bridge of the Americas was completed in 1962 and was the first bridge to connect the two sides of the Canal. It is part of the Pan American Highway that runs between Deadhorse, Alaska and Terra del Fuego at the tip of South America.

There was no explanation given for this small replica of a famous Korean Buddhist temple, "Dabotap", that is on the Amador peninsula. The only possible connection I could see was that this area was a former US military base until the Canal was turned over to Panama in 2000.

On Wednesday we visited the Canal administrative area in Balboa, another former US area. The monument is to George W Goethals, chief engineer of the Canal. The building in back is the main administration building.

The west entrance to the administration building is representative of the three levels of locks needed to go from sea level to Gatun Lake, elevation 85 ft.

On the other side of the Goethals Monument is a boulevard whose median is the exact size of the original lock chambers.

Our exceptional tour guides, Beny and Yo Yo (pronounced in Spanish: "Jo Jo").

Before the railroad and the canal, the isthmus was crossed by a combination of travel on the Chagres River and foot paths. This is the Camino de Cruces that connects the Chagres to the Pacific. From this point it's about a 10 mile hike through the Soberania and Camino de Cruces National Parks to Panama City.

The continuation of the Camino de Cruces on the other side of the road. This section ends at the Chagres River.

Our final dinner featured traditional Panamanian dancers and musicians.

Our hotel for the first three nights (Radisson Panama Canal) had lovely sunsets while overlooking the Canal and the Bridge of the Americas.

St. Petersburg - A Last Look

Thursday, 27 September 2018

Our final afternoon in St. Petersburg (and in Russia).

We started our afternoon tour at the Church on the Spilled Blood, also known as the Resurrection Church of Our Savior.. It was built as a monument on the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. It is arguably the most vibrantly decorated church we saw in Russia. Even the exterior is filled with mosaics and colorful tiles. The church has been fully restored, but has not been re-consecrated as a functioning church.

A closer look at one of the sides of the church.

Because Alexander's death occurred on the side of the canal, the church projects into the canal. This was taken from where the church foundation juts into the canal.

The interior is richly decorated and completely restored.

Looking up at the central dome.

The church lacks the traditional multi-tier iconostasis, but this version seems even more impressive.

Above the altar.

A column panel embellished with carvings from many different stones.

Just around the corner from the Church on Spilled Blood was this small, but beautiful, dome. According to Google Maps, it's a handicraft museum, but info is sketchy and incomplete. Regardless, I thought it was beautiful.

We had booked an afternoon cruise along the Neva River and canals of St. Petersburg. This is the Anichkov Bridge where Nevsky Prospect crosses the Fontanka River. The Horse Tamers is a set of four sculptures at the ends of the bridge.

From the bus on our return I was able to get a picture of one of the sculptures.

Winds had cause the waters of the Gulf of Finland to backup into the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg, so the water was particularly high. The clearance under the bridge was tight.

It was a tight squeeze under the Anichkov Bridge.

The beautiful Panteleymonovsky Bridge.

This was where we had to turn around because there wasn't enough clearance to go under the bridge. This kept us from getting into the Neva River and what was supposed to be the main objective of our tour.

The Lomonosov Bridge

We boarded our tour bus near the Alexandrinskiy Theater, which has a sculpture of Apollo and his chariot above the portico. Russians do love their horse sculptures!

This was a somewhat disappointing end to our time in St. Petersburg and in Russia, but overall we had a great tour, and would have loved to have been able to spend more time in a number of places we visited.