CRUISING THE
PANAMA CANAL
Where Luxury
Meets History
By Ray Chatelin
Photos by Toshi
Taking a cruise through the Panama Canal is at once an exhilarating passage through one of the world’s most incredible engineering feats and, as a counter, marveling at the death and sacrifice that made it possible.
Of the many cruises available worldwide from cruise lines that offer a wide range of cruising experiences, from Asia to Europe to South America, the ships that pass through the Panama Canal remain a consistently popular choice.
Little wonder. Even if the canal was not one of the New Seven Wonders Of The World, recently announced as part of a worldwide poll, cruising the length of the canal remains in most people’s minds as one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. It is as much one of the world’s great wonders and experiences, much like walking the Great Wall of China, or walking in the grandeur of the Roman Coliseum, both of which are part of the new seven wonders.
My own recent experience was aboard Celebrity Cruise’s Infinity, one of the industry’s high end cruise ships, coming in at 965 ft. and carrying 2046 passengers. Dressed in polished marble, warm woods and etched glass, The Infinity leaves the impression of a luxurious, large hotel. But unlike a luxury hotel, it changes its location daily.
Every cruise ship passing through the Panama (mine left from San Diego and arrived in Fort Lauderdale 16 days later) has a complex and varied itinerary so that while the Panama Canal is the cruise highlight, the four stops in Mexico, one in Costa Rica, a stop along the Panama and one in the Caribbean, makes the cruise more than a one-tune symphony of experiences.
A major cruise ship is a theatrical extravaganza, a place where entertainment on board is reminiscent of the best on Broadway. Cocktails in a piano bar at midnight, breakfast overlooking the sea at sunrise, and a wide range of on-board and on-shore activities – plus an ongoing gastronomical feast – made the cruise on this and other cruise ships one you’ll not soon forget..
It’s the canal itself of course, that is the reason for going. And the second that you pass under the Pan American Highway Bridge that connects the two sides of the isthmus, you enter the historical world of the Panama.
Today’s cruise passengers are traveling a waterway that has enormous history. The opening of the waterway to world commerce on August 15, 1914, represented the realization of a heroic dream of over 400 years.
When ownership of the Panama Canal passed from the United States to Panama on December, 31, 1999, cruise passengers didn’t notice a difference. In fact, both the U.S. Panama Canal Commission and the Panamanian Canal Authority worked closely to ensure that the transfer will be seamless and that the Canal continued to provide expeditious, safe, reliable transits to vessels from all of the world’s nations.
The idea of a canal from one ocean to the other had been mentioned even in the 16th century, but a French attempt to build one in 1880 resulted in the death of 22,000 workers from malaria and yellow fever and bankruptcy for everyone involved.
After the US bought out the French rights to build a canal, construction began in 1904 and took 10 years to complete. And today, travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific - or visa versa – seems unthinkable without the canal.
A ship traveling from New York to San Francisco can save 7,872 miles using the Panama Canal instead of going around South America. And more than 850,000 ships have used the canal since its completion.
It’s obvious, when you see it, that the Panama Canal is an engineering marvel. But, the canal is also a unique visual adventure. For, the waterway is tucked between vast tracks of humid, virgin jungle for 80 km (50 miles) between Panama City/Balboa in the south and Colon - with the nearby massive Gatun Lake in the north - on the Caribbean.
Until Lake Mead was formed by the building of the Hoover Dam, Gatun Lake was the largest artificial body of water in the world, and cruise passengers still marvel at its size.
Being on a ship nudging its way through the canal on its 8-10 hour journey is an unforgettable sensuous experience. Entering the canal from the Pacific side takes you through the Canal Zone town of Balboa, and a series of locks that slowly lifts the ship on its way to the Atlantic, sometimes with only a few inches on each side of the ship.
A popular misconception is that one ocean is higher than the other, thus the need for the locks. The fact is that all oceans are the same level. Only the land changes elevation and the locks are created to reflect the climb the ship must go through.
The canal itself is about 50 miles long with 12 sets of locks total, although there are only six massive pairs of locks that ships use for transit. Each is 1,000 feet long and 110 feet wide. Each may be filled or emptied in less than 10 minutes, and each pair of lock gates takes two minutes to open.
By the time you’ve reached Colon, you’ve passed through Miraflores Lake and along the notorious 7.8 mile long Gaillard Cut. This stretch, spanning the continental divide, takes you through the densest jungles along the route, the ship climbing with a series a locks. Construction of the cut was one of the greatest engineering feats to have been undertaken in its time.
And you can imagine the thousands of workers working the steep sides of the hills cutting the original canal a century ago. Many of the 20,000 laborers who died constructing the canal, perished along the Gaillard Cut.
Yet, it’s Gatun Lake, a great forest bowl the size of Barbados, that’s the crown-jewel of the trip. When the lake was flooded, the animals fled to the highest points, now islands. The largest is Barro Colorado Island, a nature preserve that’s home to an enormous population of tropical animals including the Tapir. And you can take a side trip to the island too experience its wonders. Then you go into the last of the locks and into the Caribbean.
By trip’s end, you’ve not only traversed from one ocean to another, you’ve passed by national forests, natural monuments, picturesque lakes and tropical fiords, each worthy of special attention.
And, passing through the last locks and entering the Caribbean, you also have a respect and admiration for those who lost their lives and those who made what I think is a wonder of the world a reality.
