Chasing Summer –

Dec 14-16

As the sun rose and the Odyssey approached the port, I was struck by the sight of dozens of ships anchored off the coast of Colon.

The Odyssey began its journey across the Panama Canal in Colon. The boat arrived late morning on the 14th, and immigration officials required face-to-face meetings with all residents to scan our passports.

Luckily, they came to us, and it was a smooth process to gather our passports, meet with immigration, and then hand our passports back in. We were done by noon and having lunch before disembarking.

Colon is known as the duty-free port. There is about 5km square of duty-free area to load/unload and transit cargo ships from one side of the world to the other. It is the busiest port in the world. The line of ships waiting to cross over was long.

For us, it simply means that products are cheaper here as duty isn’t charged and there are many goods to buy. So our afternoon was hitting a couple of malls.

We also had the next morning here before heading out to sea to get ready for the next day’s canal crossing, which is very involved and time-critical.

At 6:15 on the 16th, a pilot arrived to test our systems before granting clearance to enter the canal.

We were scheduled to enter the first lock at 7:45, and we were to exit at 9 am. Due to some backlogs, we didn’t complete the first three locks until 10:30.

There are also two sets of locks; the old and the new. We took the old locks.

The Gatun locks are a three-stage flight of locks that lift the ships to the Gatun Lake level, 26.5 meters above sea-level. It took us about 1 hour to enter and then exit the first stage and then an additional hour to complete the next two stages.

Once completed, we entered the Gatun Lake, an artificial lake formed by building the Gatun Dam. It was rainy and foggy when we reached the lake, and we needed to wait until the fog lifted before continuing.

Floating slowly down the canal was more magical than I had imagined. I had predicted boredom, but some residents had binoculars out looking for monkies and sloths in the trees. I must have circled the boat twenty times trying to see everything.

The lush green landscape made another resident say she was waiting for King Kong to emerge.

As we went along the lake and into the river/canal, we passed by Gamboa, where the floating train and old crane waited.

Charges River and a prison are right before Charges Cut. This is the narrowest and shallowest portion of the canal and the most dangerous for large ships to steer. Every large vessel must have a tugboat tied to its back end to help push or pull the vessel to maintain the proper course.

Each section of the canal also has different pilots to guide the boat and two different crews that come on board to help the ships. There are markers on the canal sides that help the pilots know where to go as well as buoys on the water.

At the end of the Charges Cut is a bridge, Puente Centenario, that goes from Gold Hill, the highest spot, to Contract Hill. This is also the continental divide.

From here, there are two channels; the new locks and the old. In the old, the locks are separated into Pedro Miguel Lock and Miraflores Locks. The new has all three stages together and is for larger vessels.

The entire crossing was fabulous, and we had a great narrator to let us know what was going on as we made the crossing in just under 11 hours.