The Canal

The Canal
Anticipation is often my greatest deterrent to sleep. Our anticipated schedule was published last night suggesting that we would be at the breakwater around 5AM and would arrive at the Gatun Locks by 7AM. I awoke at 4AM and went out on deck by 5. The lights around Limon Bay defined the industrial nature of this bustling enterprise. Transits occur all day and all night. There is a large cargo port to the east of the Canal back-lit by the glow from Cristobal and Colon. Colon is a dangerous slum and has been for almost a hundred years. It’s economy simply collapsed with the completion of the Canal. In 1948, in an effort to revive the city the “fortress” called Zona Libre was built in the southeast corner of the city. It is now the second largest duty-free zone in the world [Hong Kong is number 1]. Virtually none of the estimated $10 Billion annual commercial turnover ever makes it into Colon.
As we approached the locks we could see the remains of the original channel cut by the French in their failed attempt at canal construction in the decade from 1880 to 1890.
This is where the fun begins. The locks all operate with gravity. No water is pumped. The watershed from the Chagres River is such that it provides enough to operate the locks at both ends simultaneously. As we approach the first gates we are guided in by locomotives, which keep us in the center of the canal. There is very little clearance. A gate closes behind us and water from the next chamber empties into ours and we are lifted 1/3 of the way to the level of Gatun Lake. The gates in front of us then open and the same process lifts us to the lake level. We then go through the third set of doors and are then released in to the Lake. All southbound traffic is handled in the AM through both sets of locks. The northbound traffic is processed in the PM. The entire process of getting up to the lake took us about 2 hours. We then got in the queue to enter the channel in the Lake, which follows the old course of the Chagres River. I must have the AM-PM directional theme wrong. The sister cruise from this one leaves from San Diego and travels through the canal and on to Ft. Lauderdale. Thay can’t make them do the transit of the Canal at night!