Through the Panama Canal -- Day 6

Day 6 -- Panama Canal Low 80s, mostly sunny

We spent the whole day on deck to watch the crossing. The total passage took about 10 hours. This is longer than it usually takes. For those who don't know, the water for the canal comes from a man-made fresh-water lake. The water level of the lake is very low, due to insufficient rains for a few years. So they are trying to conserve the water that they use in the canal by sharing the water between locks. Instead of draining each lock into the ocean to lower the ship to the next lock, the water is emptied into another lock to raise that ship. In any case, it was 10 hours from beginning to end, and we waited quite a while to get into the first lock. There were a lot of ships lined up to get in.

Passenger ships typically get priority during the daytime, since the passengers want to see the process. The toll for passenger ships is also higher for this reason. The toll for our ship to go all the way through Panama was $370,000.

There was a wife/husband team of historians that gave a lecture in the main theater earlier in the week to tell us about how the canal was built, how long it took, difficulties it faced, etc. They knew a lot, but they were terrible presenters, having a hard time just reading their own script. They also spoke to us over the ship's intercom as we progressed through the canal. Unfortunately, they just read the same script to us from the initial lecture. Almost verbatim.

That's all we did today, so there's not much more to write, so here's a bunch of pictures of our passage. Then I'll talk about dinner.

Here's the Centennial Bridge, as we approach the canal from the east

Here's the "French Cut". This is where the French company made their attempt to build a canal.

Here we are waiting to get into the first lock. Ahead of us is Holland America's Nieuw Amsterdam.

And the gates open to let us in!

A couple of pictures from inside the lock. These were taken from Deck 5. You can see how close we are to the sides of the canal.

Here's one of the "mules" (named in honor of the actual mules that had been used to pull boats down the Erie Canal) that kept the ship from hitting the walls too hard. (We did bump once and made a big scrape in the paint!)

And here you can see we're almost all way into the lock and waiting for the lock to be filled to raise us to the height of the next lock.

After passing through the locks, I spent a lot of time on deck, just enjoying the beauty of the lake. By the time I got back inside, it was pretty much time for dinner.

For appetizers, we got the Bao pork tacos. These had an usual flavor, but they were good. I also got the coconut shrimp, which I liked very much, and Kathryn got the tiger shrimp. But these were very small shrimp, and as a whole, it was only ok. For our entrees, Kathryn had the Pasta Tagliatelle. It was a pretty simple meal, but she enjoyed it. I had the curry chicken rota, which was very good. Our desserts were a very moist brownie with a delicious ganache on top, and a blueberry cobbler that was served at roughly the temperature of the sun's surface. I liked the cobbler, but the brownie was the better option.

Tiny Tiger Shrimp

Tagliatelle:

My chicken curry:

This was another dessert option. Some kind of doughnut. I don't remember what they were called, but I was curious, so we tried them. Don't waste your time. These were not good.

Molten lava cobbler:

After dinner, we headed right back out on deck to see our passage through the descending locks near Panama City that would empty us out into the Pacific Ocean. We stayed out on deck until after 11:30pm. It was a gorgeous night and it was fun to see the city all lit up. Long day, but really interesting and unique experience.

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