The Panama Canal was a long day. It was also hot and humid but very interesting. I was so engrossed in going through the first set of locks that I forgot to go inside for the trivia quiz. I have inherited Charlie's place now that he has gone home. He had a number of things that were pressing on him and he decided to fly home from Los Angeles. I considered going with him but as the Canal was one of my highlights for this cruise in the end I decided to stay. And it was all that I expected. What an experience! The Canal has three sets of locks, each of which has two lanes. They operate as water lifts to elevate ships 26 meters above sea level to the level of Gatun Lake. The transit takes ships across the Continental Divide and then lowers them back to sea level on the opposite side of the Isthmus.

We entered the first set of locks at about 7:00 AM. Then there was a lengthy passage, about 15% of the waterways total length, through a river like body of water called the Gaillard or Culebra Cut. This is currently being widened in order to accommodate the ever larger ships that are being built. There are also new locks also being built for larger ships and we saw the evidence of all the earth moving as we traveled through. I believe they are scheduled to open in 2014. At the end of the cut we entered Gatun Lake. The lake which is huge, provides the approximately 197 million liters of fresh water that are used for each lockage. Two hundred inches of water a year and a dammed lake in the mountains make this possible.

Ships use their own power for most of the Canal transit but when passing through the locks they are assisted by electric locomotives call mules. They use cables to align and tow the ships. They work in pairs and move on rails on each side of the lock. The QE2 used the maximum of 8 mules. One peculiar aspect of this operation is that in order to get the cables from the mules to the ship, two men in a rowboat row out to the ship to get a rope which they then tie to the cable so it can be pulled up to the ship. They apparently have never found a better system. The second set of locks was crowded when we arrived and we were delayed long enough that the captain had to cancel our stop in Cristobel, Panama. We exited the final lock at 6 PM and we are now sailing on to Cartagena, Columbia. This was substituted for our original port in Costa Rica because of difficulties in landing at that port. I won't be able to tell you much about that stop because I don't plan to go ashore. I know that as a part of a group I would be safe but I being cautious and none of the tours appealed to me anyway.

Tonight was Big Band Sounds and I chose to finish this.

We are in the home stretch.