Saturday, January 28th, 2023 Queen Victoria, transit of the Panama Canal
Updated: Jun 21, 2023
The big day is here! We’ve never been through the Panama Canal before and for both Sandra and I it has been a lifelong dream; we can’t believe it’s finally happening – we were both up at sunrise in anticipation of the start of the transit at 8:15AM. The Panama Canal consists of the 3 Gatun locks on the Atlantic side, these will lift the ship up to Gatun Lake – we’ll then cross the lake and descend to the Pacific Ocean via the Pedro Miguel lock and then the 2 Miraflores locks; the entire transit is about 50 miles long and will take about 8 hours. Along the way we’ll have commentary from the onboard lecturer, Richard Wainio. The ship slowly approached the Atlantic Bridge, often called “The Bridge to Nowhere”, that crossed the canal area immediately before the Gatun locks. We jostled for position amongst the small crowd that had gathered up on deck 9 at the front of the ship; the sun was rising along with the humidity but there was no way I was giving up my hard-won spot front and center. As the ship approached the first lock, I realized we’d be taking the right-hand side channel, this is great because we have our cabin on the port side so later in the day, we’ll be able to observe all of the action in the other channel from our balcony. Queen Victoria was moving very slowly, the gates to the first lock were closed and I could see a cargo ship in the lock rising up and then moving into the second lock, while at the same time a ship was coming towards us in the lock on the left side. It was fascinating. Eventually it seemed that our lock was back to the level of the Atlantic and the crowd waited in anticipation of the gates opening. We waited and waited, but still the gates did not open; I wondered if the Cunard credit card had been declined! At around 8:55AM, about 45 minutes behind the published schedule, and after about a 30-minute wait, the gates on our side started to open, and in under 2 minutes the entrance to the lock was clear and the gates had neatly stored themselves into recesses in the sides of the channel. Queen Victoria started to move forward ever so slowly; our commentator had told us that this is the only place in the world where the local pilot actually takes control of the ship, rather than just acting in an advisory capacity – incidentally there are over 200 pilots operating on the Panama Canal. We took breakfast in the dining room and were fortunate to get a window table; watching the ship rise in the second of the Gatun locks, only a few inches from the side of the concrete lock wall was amazing. Even though ships going through the canals these days do so under their own power, small electric-driven trains running on tracks and a cog system along the edge of the locks are used to keep ships centered in the locks; two trains operate at the front and back of the ship and are connected to the ship via thick ropes. It seemed to me that these little trains, called “donkeys”, are really only needed if the ship gets itself off course. From our port side balcony we had an excellent view of the transit and ship movements in the adjacent channel. Several large container and tanker vessels passed us heading for the Atlantic and we watched with amazement the routine movement of these gigantic ships up, down and through the locks. The canal system is about 120 years old, and the engineering of this fantastic waterway is simply a marvel.
Exiting the 3rd Gatun lock at around 10AM we entered Gatun Lake, created by damming the Chagres River it was much larger than I had imagined it would be – it was massive. Several ships appeared to be moored in the lake, perhaps awaiting their turn at the locks. Gatun Lake is dotted with many small islands, all covered with dense jungle – it did not look hospitable. I did notice the occasional cell phone tower, which explains the good coverage we were getting; I wondered at the effort required to put up these towers. During lunch we passed through the Culebra Cut; the cut slices through the mountain at the peak of the continental divide – 100 million cubic yards of earth had to be removed during its 9 year construction that was completed in 1913 (this effort actually was a continuation of the failed French work from 25 years earlier).
As we came out of the Culebra Cut we spied Centennial Bridge, and beyond we could see the Pedro Miguel lock – the first of the 3 locks that will enable Queen Victoria to descend down to the Pacific Ocean. Pedro Miguel was similar to the Gatun Locks except I noticed the Pacific side had a double set of gates. At this lock we were joined, in the other channel, by a fat tanker and two small sailing boats, also heading to the Pacific – in the Gatun locks the traffic in the other channel was always going in the opposite direction. Queen Victoria slowly exited the Pedro Miguel lock at about 2:30PM. The waterway widened slightly, a few more wild islands could be seen, and in about 15 minutes we were approaching the two Miraflores locks – the final steps down to the Pacific Ocean. Many years ago we were fortunate to first cross the isthmus of Panama – only on that occasion it was by train, along the same route that was built many years before the canal was finished. On that trip we spent some time at the control tower / visitor center for the Miraflores locks – including viewing ships making the transit from the balcony of the visitor center; at the time I wondered if we’d ever get the chance to be on one of those ships – and here we are! As we entered the first Miraflores lock we could hear cheering and shouting from the large crowd that was gathered on visitor center balcony, they were being encouraged by a DJ on a PA system – I’m not sure if is daily occurrence or if it was just a special event for Queen Victoria. Either way, it made us feel very special – quite magical moment. I had also heard there was a webcam mounted on the visitor center and a quick search enable me to capture the Queen Victoria live in the lock. We exited the Miraflores locks at around 4:15PM. The final feature before we got to the Pacific Ocean was the Bridge of the Americas, it connects central to south America. A large container port is also located in this area and we got some great views of the fantastic high rise buildings in Panama City beyond the large cranes. We finally reached the Pacific Ocean at around 5PM and looking to the south, could once again see the high rises of Panama City. The Panama Canal is an engineering marvel, an amazing experience and one of the best days we’ve spent on a cruise ship. Next up we have two sea days before our next port of call, Huatulco in Mexico.
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