We enjoyed our cruise to Hawaii so much we thought we would try a longer cruise. We chose a cruise from San Pedro, CA, a Los Angeles suburb, through the Panama Canal to Fort Lauderdale, FL and then return to San Pedro on the same route. The entire cruise lasted 30 days. We found we really liked the longer trip and would not hesitate to take another 30 day or even longer cruise.
We arrived in San Pedro a day before the ship departed so we had time to look around a bit. We found a great park along the shore with this wonderful lighthouse.
Two views of the port on our departure from San Pedro.
Our first stop on the cruise was Cabo San Lucas, Mexico which is at the tip of Baja California. We were not too impressed with Cabo. It is just a strip of sand with a bunch of condos and hotels on it. If you liked to just lay around on the beach it would be OK, but that is not our thing. It does have some interesting rocks at the entrance of the harbor.
We thought that perhaps we found our next RV anchored here. Perhaps not.
Our next port was San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.
You might notice something very interesting in the above picture. There are also some boats in it, but I digress. Our ship is anchored and there is no dock to walk on to the shore. How did we get to town you ask? Cruise ships carry small boats called “tenders”. They use them when the harbor is too shallow for the large ship to enter.
The ship may carry as many as 5 or 6 of these and it takes just a few minuets to put them in the water. The ship has a dock that opens on the side at water level, the tenders pull up to the dock, load up the passengers and away you go. It is a very efficient operation and it does not take long to get everyone ashore who wants to go. The tenders run all day long at about 15 to 20 minute intervals, so there are no long waits. When you get back from your excursion or just a walk around town, you are met at the dock by people from the ship who hand you a chilled towel and have set up chairs with shade while you wait for the next tender back to the ship. There may even be a local band of some sort to entertain you while you wait.
We next made a stop in Costa Rica but we decided we would take an excursion here on the way back so we will travel on to the the canal.
All of these ships are at anchor near the entrance to the canal and are waiting their turn to pass through. Cruise ships make reservations to go through a year in advance. It cost $15,000 to make a reservation and an additional $15,000 for a reservation for a daylight passage. How much is the total cost for a ship of our size? More than $482,000. Guess who pays for that.
We had on board an employee of the cruise line who was a retired architect and an amateur canal historian. He gave several lectures before we arrived at the canal and during the all day passage; he was on the ship’s PA pointing out how everything worked, the history and what we were seeing. It made the trip much more interesting.
Here we are at the entrance to the canal. We are following the ship that appears to be sailing under the bridge. In this part of the world the heat and humidity are so high there is a permanent haze. They have two seasons here, dry and wet. The temperature does not change much throughout the year. It is always hot and muggy.
They are building new locks to accommodate larger ships. They should be finished in 2015. At the present time our cruise ship is the largest possible ship that will fit in the locks. Our ship and a sister ship were built to be able to just squeeze through. When our ship is going through the locks there are just 2 feet, that’s two feet, of space between each side of the ship and the lock.
Here we are approaching the first lock in the canal and there is a lot going on in this photo. The ship “Sea Confidence” is along side the pier and is waiting to enter the left side lock. In front of the “Sea Confidence” there is a big white over green ship that has just cleared the lock and heading down the canal. In the right lock is the “MSC Lisa”. She is in the process of being raised. If you look on the right side of the pier, at the bottom of the photo you will see a small row boat with two men it. I don’t know what these guys get paid, but whatever it is, it is not enough. These men are line handlers. They retrieve the lines from the ship and pass them up to the men on the pier. One small mistake by the ship’s pilot and these guys would be smashed like bugs.
This is called a ”mule”. They are connected to the ships with 2 lines. There are either one or two mules on the bow and stern on each side of the ship depending on the size of the ship. Their only job is to position the ship in the center of the lock to keep it from rubbing on the sides. They do not propel the ship through the locks. The ships move forward under their own power.
They run on rails like a train but are propelled by a cog system you can see between the rails.
We are coming along side the pier. Notice there are two mules already on the bow lines and there are two mules waiting to take the stern lines.
If you get a chance to take a cruise through the canal I would recommend getting a balcony cabin. You can no doubt see the reason in this photo. We sat most of the day (with time out for food, of course) in the comfort of our own balcony and had a great views.
We are just about raised and getting ready to head on up the canal. Notice I wrote “up the canal”. One interesting thing we learned is that the canal actually runs north and south not east and west. In fact, the Pacific end of the canal is 10 miles further east than the Atlantic end. It took a while to get my mind around that.
What are all these crew members of the “Sea Confidence” doing on their bridge extension?
They are taking pictures of us while we take pictures of them. We always got a lot of attention because our ship was so large.
One very good reason why we never saw anyone swimming in the canal.
This is where the channel from the new locks connects to the original channel. We were told that there will be more material moved for the new locks and dredging in the old channel for the larger ships than was moved for the entire original canal. When the locks are finished, the temporary dam will be removed and this entire area will be flooded to the level of the existing canal. The new channel will be dug to the left toward the hill in the distance. The new locks are over the rise with the small group of trees on it on the left side of the photo.
Going under the second of only two freestanding bridges that cross the canal.
Two shots of us sailing along in the part of the canal that was cut through the mountains.
There is not much room for ships to meet. This is really, really close for two ocean going ships, under their own power, to be passing.
One of several dredges that keep the canal open.
The north (Atlantic) part of the canal is a very large lake, formed by a dam on a river. This lake goes for miles. They needed to raise the dam several feet so that the lake would be deep enough for the larger ships that will start using the canal.
Getting ready to enter the last locks on the north end of the canal. These locks will lower us down to the level of the Atlantic Ocean.
We are in the last stage of the lock and are being lowered. As soon as we reach sea level, the gates will open and away we will go. There are no pumps in any of the locks. All the water movement is accomplished by gravity.
This is the Atlantic end of the Canal. Notice that it is just about dark. It took us from dawn to dusk to get all the way through.
Our first stop after the canal passage was Cartagena, Columbia. This is an old fort at the entrance to the harbor.
We got off the ship and took a tour of town. We first visited an old fort built by the Spanish in the 1500s. This thing was unbelievably huge.
This is a view of downtown Cartagena from the fort.
We then visited the old walled city. This is now a World Heritage Site. Inside the walls are these very narrow streets and buildings with wonderful wood or metal balconies full of flowers. We could have wandered around here for hours.
Our last stop before Fort Lauderdale was Oranjestad, Aruba. We just got off the ship and walked around town this time because we had a tour planned for our return visit. Our sister ship, that is identical on the outside to ours, is docked behind us.
There are a lot of these things running around.
Downtown as seen from the ship.
This resort would not be a bad place to spend a few days.
The view as we were leaving the harbor.
We are off to Fort Lauderdale and then return to San Pedro. I will continue our cruise on my next post.
