Transit Through the Panama Canal

Schedule for the transit.

These times are for the passage and if you are not in this area you have to adjust the time accordingly. These times are the same as it would be in Central time for Canada. If you are in Abbotsford the times will be 2 hours earlier. 8:15 am would be 6:15 am.

These times are approximate and there could be as much as a 30 minute difference.

8:15.am....Passing Cristobel Breakwater, pilot on board

8:45.am..Passing Atlantic Bridge

9:45.am... Entering Gatun Locks

11:45 am .....Departing Gatun Locks

1:45  pm......Passing Gamboa

2:35 pm.....Passing Centennial Bridge

2:55 pm .....Entering Pedro Miguel Locks

3:50 pm......Departing Pedro Miguel Locks

4:20 pm....Entering Miraflores Locks

5:40 pm....Departing Miraflores Locks

6:10 pm....Passing Bridge of Americas

6:40 pm.... Balboa - Pilot off.

All times have been moved back one hour.

We begin the transit at 7:15am

The Panama Canal , How does it work?

How Does It Work??

The Panama Canal serves as a maritime shortcut that saves time and costs in transporting all kinds of goods. The 80 kilometer waterway connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in one of the narrowest points of the Isthmus of Panama.

Since its opening in 1914 more than one million ships from all over the world have transited that canal. The historic million mark was reached on September 4, 2010 with the transit of the bulk carrier Fortune Plum

The interoceanic waterway uses a system of locks with two lanes that operates as water elevators and raises the ships to the level of Gatun Lake, 26 meters or 85 feet above sea level, to allow the crossing through the Continental Divide, and then lowers the ships to sea level on the other side of the Isthmus.

The water used to raise and lower the vessels in each set of locks is obtained from Gatun Lake by gravity and poured into the locks through the main culvert system that extends under the locks chambers from the sidewalls and the center wall.

The Panama Canal took ten years to construct and was completed in 1914 The project changed hands several times over the course of the 400 years from conception to construction. Thousands of workers, up to 50,000 at one point- helped to carve through 51 miles of earth and hard granite to form this safe and convenient passage from ocean to ocean. Several thousand lives were lost during the construction. Most workers lost were from the West Indies. Not all lives were lost because of accidents, many died from Malaria and Yellow fever. The Panama Canal cost over 350 million to complete and cruise ships today pay over 100,000.00 to pass through. Our ship today paid 275,000.00 plus a myriad of other fees to cross.

Richard Halliburton swam the full length of the canal in 1929 for a cost of 36 cents.

Cartagena, Columbia

We have not done much during these past couple of days. Ken got that terrible cough and we went to see the medical team and they gave him some anti biotics. The cough keep him awake at night. Once he is standing or sitting the cough is not too bad. . 

I wrote this blog this morning and then we had a thunder and lightning storm that took out the internet and took my blog with it. I will try again.

The past few days I did not much different except for playing trivia in the afternoon. I am playing with Julia and Ken on their team. It is a lot of fun.

 This is our fifth visit to Cartagena we did not plan an excursion. In her talk Debbie told us there was a new cruise terminal with lots of things to do so a visit there was the plan.

 Cartagena, Columbia

To visit Cartagena is to traverse Time itself . Step into the well preserved old city and you are transported to the seventeenth century when Spanish explorers, English and French Pirates, and the new world colonists walked along the same cobbled streets, past magnificent churches and idyllic pastel painted houses dripping with tropical flowers. Relive those days with a leisurely carriage ride and excellent folkloric show. Step out behind the walled colonial city for a catamaran cruise along the coast or sip a cool glass of coconut lemonade while admiring the fantastic views of San, Felipe fort A day in Cartagena is time travel well spent.

It was very misty this morning, It will probably rain.

So after breakfast I left the ship. The plan was to take the free shuttle to the terminal. Much to my surprise the bus ride was less than 5 minutes long. You could see it from the ship.

Perhaps some of the ships dock in a location a far distance from the terminal but that certainly was not the case today. The area is planned so that the bus stops just outside the building that houses the souvenir and emerald sales. I made my way inside and walked all around the area to check out the items for sale and the prices. It is more expensive than I thought. The emerald selection was fantastic but I resisted temptation.

Next I exited the building to the zoo like area. The first reaction was to wonder what was making that very loud not pleasant sound. I was to learn that it is mating season for the peacocks and they were responsible for all of the noise. Their displays were amazing, they were everywhere, even in the trees

Next to impress me were the dozens of parrots.

The feeding stations were also impressive and busy.

I had to search but I did finally locate the monkeys. I couldn't get a good picture because they were high in the trees.

The flowers were blooming profusly.

There were small ponds with Koi and waterfalls with flamingos, enclosures with turtles, grassy spots with rabbits and feeders with squirrels.

The humidity was very high, it was warm and at times it was raining lightly. This made the idea of sitting in the garden and enjoying a cup of coffee seem less appealing.

I went back inside and selected 2 magnets form our tree. One is a key chain featuring a flamingo and the word Columbia and the other was a magnificent nativity scene with Cartagena on it.

I stepped outside and one of the buses was there and ready to depart. That ended a great visit ashore.

We are going through the Panama Canal tomorrow. The time is supposed to be at 8:15 am our time which would be Central time for Canada or 6:15 Abbotsford time.

You can google the web cam on the Island Princess and watch it happen..

Our number is S 15 Zulu

Fort Lauderdale

 We have been here many times because Princess Cruises often leave from here. In fact this was the departure point for our first cruise ( January 2009). We usually fly in the night before, spend the night at a motel or hotel, shop a little at nearby malls and then board the ship. We have done a few excursions here when we have done back to back cruises.

But this time we did not plan excursions and we needed to shop for cold meds and I needed to replace my now defunct curling iron.

There was a planned free shuttle that would take passenger to a near by mall. It was about a 20 minute ride and it turned out to be a high end mall, not exactly what we needed especially since they did not have a drug store. We asked the bus guide where to find a drug store and she obliged. Still a little unsure when we got to the street we asked a passing lady where the nearest drug store was. She quickly whipped out her cell phone and asked it where the nearest drug store was. ( we really do need to learn how to make better use of our cell phones) We were almost across the street from a CVS drug store. It was quite expensive but it did have everything we needed as well as a couple of suitable magnets for our Xmas tree collection.

We returned to the ship, had lunch, had a nap, watched sail away and began our next segment of this awesome cruise. We have all new passengers in our area of the dining room and our special waiter has been moved to Sabatini's. We will have to track Peter down to give him a proper thank you, hopefully we can do that today. 

This day greeted us with a beautiful sunrise, it is warm already so this may be the day to get a tan.

Land HO!!!

We are now in Fort Lauderdale after 7 days at sea. This is the last day of segment 4 and the first day of segment 5.

We transit the Panama Canal and then travel on with stops in Columbia, Costa Rica, and Mexico and up the west coast to Las Angeles and then fly home to Abbotsford on May 11th. 

Our trip of a lifetime is coming to an end but not yet we still have 2 full weeks to go and lots to do before we disembark.

Stay tuned for more reports of the fun.

Afternoon Tea

Each day on the Princess ships there is afternoon tea. We did it once on the South American cruise. (2015, I think). because we dine early there is a conflict. Tea is at three and dinner is at 5 so those times are too close together. Anyone can go to the dining room for afternoon tea but having it delivered to your cabin is a perk for the Elite passengers. We have been elite for over 30 cruises and today was the first time that we have taken advantage of this special perk. 

We should have done it sooner. You call the day before and your tea arrives around three on the day you request it. We called yesterday for tea today.  The tea we requested was mint tea, wonderful!!!

There were 4 scones, 2 for each of us, complete with strawberry preserves and clotted cream. Also included were 2 each of 3 different small sandwiches, one on a tea biscuit, one on an oval bread roll and one on a croissant.

There also was a large plate containing 14 pastries, 2 of 7 different kinds

That amount of food before dinner is not a waist saving measure. Heck the scones were still warm, straight from the oven.

We did not taste any of the pastries , after the sandwiches and 3 cups of tea we were too full for more. They will be saved for later or even tomorrow.

A lovely treat for a restful day.

Sea Days

We are on day 3 of a 7 day crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. We are headed to Fort Lauderdale.

We have not seen another ship since this began and we don't expect to see one anytime soon. The sea has been relatively calm with a slight roll, enough to have you know you are at sea but not enough to cause any stress. During this crossing I can't help but think of the early explorers who crossed not knowing where they were or where they were going with only the power of the wind.

Stanley the bear was there when we exited the dining room so we stopped for a quick photo.

Santa Cruz De La Palma

 

Last Port Before the Trans Atlantic:

Santa Cruz de la Palma is a port city located on the eastern coast of La Palma island . It is located on the east coast. Santa Cruz de la Palma is the 2nd largest city  and the capital of the island. It is situated along an old lava flow coming out from Caldereta (small caldera), a volcano just south of the city.

The population of Santa Cruz de la Palma municipality is 16,330 (2013), and its area is 43.38 km². About 13,000 people live within city limits, with the remaining inhabitants residing in other settlements. Santa Cruz de la Palma features the only major port in the isle, serving ferry routes to Cadiz in Spain, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Tenerife.  A large number of cruise line firms call at the port. 

This was our last port before we began 7 sea days to cross the Atlantic so we booked an early morning excursion with a free afternoon to explore the port. But like the best plans it got changed. Our early morning excursion turned into a noon excursion. Because of concerns about the port and the terminal we decided to stay on board in the morning, do our excursion and then explore the shops in the terminal to get our tree decoration at the end of the excursion.

This was our first glimpse of the island.

Our excursion was named  A Taste of La Palma: Vineyard and Volcano

Enjoy a panoramic drive to the south of the island. Along the way see vineyards, volcanic lava and pine groves. Our guide Rudy did an excellent job of describing what we were seeing and its history. The driver was much like a Nascar driver in that he took to these winding hilly roads like a professional. My stomach was not pleased.

We stopped for a photo stop at Las Salinas. This afforded an amazing view of the harbour and the surrounding country side.

Next we continued our 45 minute drive to the top and the island. Here we were told the story of how this area became one of the larger banana growing areas in the world. Business men in Argentina proposed a plan where people invested and the planners trucked in millions of loads of topsoil and placed it on top of the volcanic lava, and created wonderful gardens where the perfect climate was able to support a banana crop. We passed hundreds of green house-like structures that housed the banana plants plus hundreds of areas where the bananas grow outside. They grow organic bananas that are mainly destined for Spain .

An added surprise was a stop to take photos of the salt pans and 2 old lighthouses.

The Fuencaliente Lighthouse is an active lighthouse at the southern end of the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. The original lighthouse was built in 1903 and while it still exists it was replaced by the current lighthouse in 1985.

Our destination was the San Antonio Volcano Visitors center for educational and engaging audiovisual presentations. That means we saw a short video of the eruption of 1951 and many pictorial displays. The views were amazing. One interesting thing that was there : an earthquake simulator.  You stood on this spot and it would begin to vibrate as if you were experiencing an earthquake. I heard one lady who had been in an earthquake say that it was correct, that an earthquake felt just like that. I tried it and was surprised by how strong it was. The display was not systemically rated .

It was said to have a souvenir shop but 4 hats and some tee shirts does not a souvenir shop make.:-(

Next we continued to a local wine cellar to sample some of its fine wines. We had 3 wines to sample, one red, one white and one desert wine. 

Not being a wine drinker I was not excited about this. They had wines for sale but no magnets. I did however find a figurine that will do for a decoration.

On the base of the figure were the words Rdo La Palma. When I researched I found that Rdo means airport. Since I acquired it in a winery and because it is a figure of what might represent an English military man from centuries ago I am completely mystified. But it will make a good curiosity topic for my tree.

We were chatting and wondering what had become of the light snack we were promised Rudy announced that he had just received a call from the ship wondering where we were since it was now past four and we were scheduled to be back at four o'clock. We quickly gathered our things and headed to the waiting bus.

The next 25 minutes of racing along these winding mountain roads almost did me in. I was withing minutes of needing a barf bag when we pulled in at the gangway.

We were back on board and in the elevator when the captain announced that we were about to be underway for our trip across the Atlantic. I gather from what the captain said that if we were much later we would have to wait until 2 ferries set sail before we would have clearance to leave.

During our travels Rudy, our guide told us a great deal about the Canary Islands, especially this one. They have an elected government which has been given a lot of power.

Because the island cannot be seen from Africa or Europe the environment is very specialized. They have learned from the mistakes of other places such as Australia to do all they can to keep it that way.

Their main sources of income are farming and tourism. They have scientific telescopes here and there was an agreement made that if the science is located here there would be no industry allowed. Astronomy requires absolutely clean air and La Palma has the cleanest air on the planet because of these regulations.

Because the ecosystem is so fragile no non native plants or animals are allowed to be introduced. They have no snakes, or dangerous wild animals.

For me there are other amazing government regulations:

First and most important to the teacher in me is the fact that ALL education is free to its citizens. That includes all school, all trade schools and all university education. The test is not financial it is based on intelligence. If a young person is accepted to any college anywhere in the world all fees are covered by the government and a living allowance is included.

Second and important to me as a mother, all health care is included. 

Imagine not having to worry that your child may become ill and you not be able to give them health care. We in Canada have that freedom but not everyone does.

Also knowing that an intelligent child will not be burdened by outrageous interest costs because they wanted to better themselves. 

They pay for these services by their tax system. Persons who earn 100,000 Euros or less pay a maximum of 10 % taxes and those earning over that amount pay 45% taxes.  Requiring that the rich pay for their services is a fair and just system. Poor people do not pay for the airports and cruise ports etc that they do not use and richer people pay for the education of their employees. 

All in all I really enjoyed the Canaries and I would love to return here. There is so much we did not see or experience on this trip.