Russ and Jan's World Cruise: Panama Canal

Friday, December 30, 2022

Yesterday, was the day we transited the Panama Canal.

We were up early so started out by putting a load of laundry on.

But first I want to talk for a moment about one of the things that will reoccur during this voyage. Refueling. When we got back from our excursion yesterday afternoon, we noticed a fairly loud noise coming from just outside our room. We were being re-fueled. Taking a look, it all seemed fairly simple. There was a hose running from a small tanker to the ship. The hose was about 12” in diameter. It continued to run for hours! Just something for us to be aware of.

We were given an approximate schedule for the events of transiting the Canal. The 1^st locks (on the Caribbean side) around 6:45 a.m. We were very pleased that it would be daylight for our journey.

Note all the lights on the horizon. Those are ships waiting their turn to enter the Canal. Daylight hours, all traffic flows from the Atlantic side to the Pacific side. That reverses at night for those ships bound for the Atlantic.

Before we made the first lock, a pilot boat pulled up and off-loaded about 20 men that would in some form be assisting with the transit today.

About 20 guys got off this little boat to jump aboard the Neptune. Later in the day, we saw them get off.

During the entire process we were sailing at a very sedate speed. Moving very slowly along the way. It was a delightful day. Beautiful scenery, good weather. Around 3:00 in the afternoon, we moved through the Miraflores locks on the Pacific side and headed for the Pacific Ocean. As we approached the Miraflores locks, we noticed a large contingency of people at one of the buildings along the locks. We later learned they were from the Viking Star which will transit the Canal today. A huge cheer went up from both the people on the shore as well as those of us on the ship. How fun!