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 Travel & Outdoors | May 2007 
Cruising the Canal
 Phil Marty - Chicago Tribune
The Panama Canal is one of those things you learned about in grade school, perhaps found mildly interesting, then filed away - very far away - in the back of your mind, along with historical tidbits like Seward's Folly (what was that again?) and the Spanish-American War (Remember the Maine?).
But when you're sitting in a canal lock, marveling that your 780-foot cruise ship has just been lifted 28 feet in only 8 minutes, you get a new perspective - and admiration.
It took the United States about 10 years, 5,600 deaths and $375 million - a good piece of change back in the early 1900s - to dig and claw and blast across the roughly 50 miles that separate the Atlantic from the Pacific at this link between North America and South America. Before that, the French had seen an estimated 22,000 die, mostly from yellow fever and malaria, in an abortive effort that lasted seven years.
This was down-and-dirty work, and certainly not what we would consider high-tech (though it no doubt was for that time). Yet, since the canal's opening in 1914, the operation hasn't seen a lot of changes. Oh, sure, there have been some deepening and widening of various parts of the channel. And little electric locomotives (at $2.2 million a pop) now help guide ships, which today are so huge they nearly touch the sides of the locks. But it's still the original 730-ton, 82-foot-high metal gates that seal the ships into each lock. Gravity still is the sole source that moves the 52 million gallons of freshwater used for each lockage. And at Gamboa, 24 miles into the 50-mile transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific, sits a huge, black crane that was handling maintenance tasks when the canal opened, and still is today.
On this typical day, our ship - Holland America's 1,400-passenger Zaandam - was one of nearly 40 that used the canal. Some, such as the Celebrity Cruises ship that passed through the Gatun Locks ahead of us, make only a token transit, anchoring in Gatun Lake while passengers go ashore, then heading back into the Atlantic. Our ship and the tanker next to us in the dual "westbound" locks, passed through Gatun's three locks, then crossed the lake before descending 85 feet to the Pacific through the single lock at Pedro Miguel and two at Miraflores.
For a ship traveling from New York to San Francisco (not our itinerary) the Canal crossing saves nearly 7,900 miles - and a lot of time. Canal transits, on the other hand, usually take 8 to 12 hours - ours on the low end. (A word about that "westbound" reference. Although the intent, in our case, is to get from east to west, ships entering the canal from the Atlantic are northwest of the Pacific entrance. Really! )
Canal cruises, of course, can originate from the Atlantic or the Pacific, and the cruise length can vary greatly. Some shorter cruises hit mainly Caribbean ports before ducking into the canal for part of the day, like the Celebrity ship. I boarded the Zaandam in Ft. Lauderdale and ended my 13-night cruise in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The Zaandam was continuing to Los Angeles and eventually the Pacific Northwest to spend the summer doing Alaska/ Inside Passage cruises.
Cruising vets know this as a repositioning cruise, where the goal is to get the ship from its winter season haunts to where it will spend the summer. Although a canal transit is always an attraction, the cost of a repositioning cruise still usually is a better bargain than regular season, just because the cruise line needs to move the ship. My inside stateroom, including transfers at each end of the cruise and trip cancellation insurance, cost only $1,612.29, single occupancy, or just $124 a night - truly a deal.
With the canal the highlight, our ports - in a few countries not on the typical tourist track - were the bonus: La Romana, Dominican Republic; Cartagena, Colombia; Puntarenas, Costa Rica; San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua; Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala; and Huatulco, Mexico.
Tell anyone you're going to Colombia, Nicaragua and Guatemala, and they're apt to give you an "are you crazy?" look. But all-too-brief stops - the curse of cruise and tour bus travel - left me feeling unfulfilled, not unsafe.
But we're here to talk about the canal. . . .
You have to get up pretty early in the morning to become a canal vet. I stumbled on deck at the bow at 10 'til 7 and found a few hundred passengers already there and rail space at a premium. (Those seniors - who were in the majority on this cruise ... or is it on all cruises? - are the early risers. ) Panama rolls - a tradition - were being served, along with juice and coffee. Slathering on sun screen to combat the announced UV factor of 14 didn't add much to the flavor of the rolls.
Ships going through the canal are charged according to the type of vessel and its tonnage. Our transit cost? $200,000! But that's not a record. That honor goes to the Coral Princess, which was hit with a $226,194.25 bill in 2003.
On the other hand, Richard Halliburton, who swam the canal in 1928 (they won't let you do that anymore) paid only 36 cents.
Near the Gatun Locks, three pilots boarded and took command of the ship. We also acquired a local who gave a running commentary. ("There's a crocodile by shore off the port side. " "When you see daylight through the two gates, it means the water level is equal on both sides. ") At the mouth of the first lock, a rowboat approached from each side, and lines were thrown to them from the ship. The ship's lines were then attached to steel cables connected to the winches on the small electric locomotives.
From this point it was the locomotives that did the work, guiding the ship farther into the lock until the gates at the stern clanged shut. The "mules," as the locomotives are called, effortlessly zipped up a steep incline to the top of the first lock, and water began to surge into the chamber. The Zaandam began to rise, accompanied by the music of winch motors whirring away to adjust the cables and keep them tight.
In just 8 minutes, we were level with the water in the second lock, and the gates began to open.
I leaned over the rail and looked down. Our ship, much larger than those the canal was built for, cleared the lock wall by only 2 or 3 feet.
All around the bow there was excited chatter. Film and digital and video cameras clicked and whirred, capturing visual images to complement the mental images that would last a lifetime. A few hundred feet to our left, crew members of the Iver Example, the tanker that also was locking through, not jaded in the least by their world travels, waved to us, snapped pictures and excitedly took in the show, just like us.
One more lock lay ahead here at Gatun, then the sail across Gatun Lake would follow, accompanied by rainy views of bright green jungle, more locks and then the Pacific. And exotic ports to come.
But for now, we were just a bunch of schoolkids, watching the history books come to life. |
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