CANAL TRANSIT Part 2, The Miraflores Locks

There is simply no way to represent everything going on with only five photos. None the less, that's what I have so it will have to do. The remainder of the Miraflores Locks photos will be in a Facebook album immediately following this posting.

The two Miraflores Locks lift each vessel about 60 feet. Part of the magnitude of the lift is lost since the water depth when you enter each lock is already about 40 feet. So each of the doors isn't just what you see but at least another 40 feet under the water. Each "leaf" is about 55 feet
wide (a little more than half the width of the lock) and about 70 feet tall. Each one is about six feet thick but hollow. So, even though each leaf weighs something like 60 tons, they have some buoyancy in the water and can be moved with minimal power. The first motors were 40 hp electric motors. The leaves are not moved until the water level is equal, or very nearly equal on each side. The original mechanisms to open and close the doors were all mechanical and driven by GE 40 hp motors. They have been retrofitted now and run on huge hydraulic cylinders (photos later) but apparently still on the same capstans (I think that's what a vertical shaft is called in marine lingo) and bushings.

Every vessel is somehow restrained within the lock. The big ships are attached to the mules shown earlier. Smaller boats are simply tied, for and aft, to bollards that are distributed along the top of each lock.

The second photo shows a Canal employee heaving what Oregon loggers would call a hay wire, but what is here a 3/4" line with a weighted end. A hand on the boat ties the boat's hawser to the line and the employee hauls it ashore and loops the end loop over a bollard. Each end of each smaller boat is secured this way, even tugboats, except some boats tie one to the land and secure a second boat to the tied boat. There is a good reason for securing the boats. It takes about 52,000,000 gallons of water for a complete transit or roughly about 8.5 million gallons in each lock, either flowing into the lock or being let out of the lock. Underneath the lock floor, 40 or so feet under the lowest level anyone sees unless serious maintenance is being conducted, there are what they call culverts (very large pipes) that transfer the water. These pipes have enough capacity to let in or let out about a million gallons a minute, all gravity flow. The turbulence within the lock is visible, especially when the water is coming into the lock and you are rising.
The photo above shows how turbulent the water is. It this same photo, you can see that our lock is many feet fuller than the adjacent lock where the WW is also beginning to rise up.

Between the first and second Miraflores locks there are double doors that must be even a little higher than the end doors since they must accommodate both rises in the water's level. The floor rises at this point also, so there are additional safeguards to guard against a ship hitting the doors or possibly smashing into the wall of the elevated floor in the upper lock. Originally, there was even a cable in front of the doors that was raised and secured so an out of control vessel would hit the cable before it could hit a door. When the ship was stopped and ready the cable was lowered and lay on the floor of the lock.
So, in this photo of the double doors, we are at the top level of the lock we are in but at the low level of the lock we will enter. It takes about a minute for the doors to open or close. It's hard to get the scale right unless you're there. I think the panels on the doors are each about four feet high, so these doors are something like 28 feet high, plus at least 40 feet under the water. The short, geometric looking apparatus on the top of each door comprise a hand railing that raises when the locks close and lowers when it opens.

The last photo here shows the top Miraflores lock doors (also double) just beginning to open into Miraflores Lake. You can see the hand rails beginning to lower. Our little boat is now about 60 feet higher than it was half an hour before. The boat visible just ahead, is another tour boat that does only partial transits. It has a colorful history which I'll relate some of a little later.

JCE

CANAL TRANSIT Part 1, Start to Miraflores

At 6:15 on Saturday morning we were in the hotel lobby awaiting the arrival of the tour company bus or car or van to take us to the boat for the Canal transit. About 30 anxious minutes later a large, modern bus appeared. There were about 20 other transiters on it when we boarded. For the next half hour, the driver maneuvered that big bus through some very narrow and clogged streets making four additional stops to pick up transitors.

We arrived at what I think is the west basin of the new Flamenco Yacht Club (most of the photographs from this portion and the next three or four will have to go into a Facebook album. I'll try to label so they are easy to relate to the narrative.) The yacht club is at the sea end of the Amador Causeway. If you have Google Earth you can get a really good view of it and the causeway. Beam up Google Earth, click on where we all know Panama is located on the globe, and keep clicking (even after it tells you you need to upgrade your account), and soon you will be over Panama Bay. The causeway and boat basins are at the west side of Panama Bay.

We checked in at a card table and were told to move over to another area and wait. We moved over to where there were hundreds of people waiting, some in line, some sitting and eating, some standing around and waiting. We had been given green wrist bands to wear, but no clue about what they meant. There were a few green bands visible, but mostly there were no wrist bands. It became apparent that the hundreds of people waiting were waiting to board other boats that would take them to some offshore islands for day recreation. There were spear guns and swim fins and other recreation stuff visible that didn't seem to fit with transiting the Panama Canal. After awhile we got summoned and about 150 or so people were escorted through a gate away from the day trip lines to a dock where our tour boat was moored. I didn't take a photo of the boat and I can't find one on the internet. It looks very much like the Fantasia del Mar but is painted mostly blue rather than white. I suppose it could have been painted, I don't know.

We boarded the boat and found chairs lined up in rows on the open forward deck. We staked out our area but didn't need to because there was plenty of room for everyone aboard. We left the boat basin at about 8:30. It may have been 8 and it may have been 9, I wasn't keeping track of time but just enjoying the surroundings and the goings on.


We had been on the water about fifteen minutes when the launch shown at the left came along side and delivered the pilot. Every boat or ship transiting the Canal must have a pilot. We did see sailboats lashed together going through the locks with just one pilot between them but that's apparently the only exception. There's some goofy ritual about cheering the pilot aboard which most of us joined. (The entire transit is narrated by a man we never saw who keeps up a nearly non-stop monologue first in Spanish and then in English about nearly everything you might want to know about going through the Canal. There was also a narrator who spoke in German for a contingent of about a dozen folks.)

Between taking on the pilot and passing under the Bridge of the Americas, we were treated to great views of the Panama City skyline, views of an abandoned-looking hotel that is just being built slowly, moored sailboats, little boats with people out fishing, debris in the water, Ancon Hill, and much other stuff.

After you pass under the bridge there is simply too much to look at to get it all processed. I pretty much zoned out on everything on the tour boat and tried to take in as much as possible of the sights (there aren't many good sounds) to be seen. The first overwhelming thing to focus on is the gigantic container facility (owned by the Port of Long Beach, we were told) with many groups of colossal cranes. Each group works on the same ship with each crane working on its own section of the ship. You can see the ship being unloaded in one section and simultaneously loaded in another section. The part tilted skyward in the photo is lowered parallel to its adjacent part to


form a flat track out over the ship. Each container is picked up and taken off or put onto the ship. Crews of men bolt (or unbolt) each container to the one below so the result is a continuous column of as many as seven containers above the deck level and who knows how many levels below the deck. Periodically, the towers of containers are also attached to their adjacent containers. These container terminals serve two main purposes. Some ships are too big to transit the Canal so they show up at the Pacific or the Atlantic side, unload their containers, take on another load and go back, without transiting the Canal. Other ships that could transit the Canal, for whatever reason don't. They likewise unload and re-load. The containers are either re-loaded onto ships going through the Canal or loaded onto train cars and moved across Panama by train where they are re-loaded to continue their journey. The other reason for the container terminals is for receiving shipments destined for distribution in Central and South America.


No matter what the mission of the ships, they seem to all need tugboat assistance. Watching the tugboat/ship interaction is like watching a slow motion ballet. The ships are seemingly slow and clumsy, but for something a thousand feet long and a hundred feet wide and about ten stories tall they are remarkably agile. The tugboats are like the mating of a great cutting horse, a great dancer, and a D-10 Cat. These new ones were made in China at a cost of about ten million dollars each. They each have 6,000 horsepower in both forward or reverse, thrusters that enable them to dance sideways or to crab, and the controls to move an inch or a mile. I want to come back as a tugboat pilot. Also, before we got to the first locks at Miraflores, we saw a new world record class dredge getting ready to work on the new channel for bigger ships, several old looking ships anchored and waiting, for what is not certain, obvious signs of construction for the new locks, and a hundred other things.

Ultimately, though, we arrived at the approach to the Miraflores Locks, the first two locks on the Pacific Ocean end of the Canal. (the Panama Canal runs north and a little west from the Pacific side to the Atlantic side. So, you are actually farther east when you enter the Canal at the Pacific Ocean side then when you exit at the Atlantic Ocean side.)

The last photo here is of the approach to the first west side lock at Miraflores. The erector set structure to the left of the tall red and white structure is the west portion of the original automobile bridge across the Canal It pivoted open to let ships pass. The very tall red and white structure is a huge crane on a barge. It is in the lock ahead of the one we are entering. It will be seen up close later. The seawall structure is a long pier between the locks where the ships get positioned correctly and get attached to the mules that will be on that side. This area is where the tugboat/ship ballet is best. The wall on the right is an auto carrier ship. There are lots of photos of it in the album. We went along for a mile or two with it before the locks and we were positioned behind and to one side of it as it got into position to enter the lock. It was beside us through both of the Miraflores locks and until it anchored in Miraflores Lake above the locks.

JCE

PANAMA 3 - Panama City Tour, part 3

The highest place in Panama City is Ancon Hill. It is situated between the developed part of the city to the east and the entrance to the Canal to the west. The view is excellent. Ancon Hill can be seen from all over the city since, at 654 feet elevation, it towers over the surrounding area.

On our first try to reach the top we were turned back by the security person who is stationed in a booth about a quarter mile from the top. Our guide, Ricardo, tried to be persuasive but the sentry was having none of his plea. We turned around and continued our tour elsewhere. We returned later and were allowed to go on. The road is one lane for most of the last portion. There are two signs along the way that instruct you, in Spanish, to honk your horn. (I have noted in other guide books that other drivers are expected to hear these honks and to act appropriately, which the writers question as being impossible for tourist drivers since they have no way of knowing what they are suppossed to do.) The reason for the honks is that there is another sentry at the top. He is listening for the honks so he can stop traffic from starting down if a vehicle is coming up. It turned out that our guide wasn't paying attention or the sentry wasn't paying attention because we were confronted by a vehicle coming up as we started down. Our guy wasn't a very good backer. The zig-zag slow motion backing up was painful to watch and exasperating to the guy coming up. He finally passed on the hill side and was on his way.

The first photo is of the Bridge of the Americas. It crosses the entrance to the Canal just seaward of the huge container port adjacent to the Canal entrance.

Panama City's skyline is really interesting if you like tall buildings of the 60 story variety all clustered like on Manhatten Island. The spiral building is just above the left side of the foliage in the middle of the photo.

The next skyline photo is suppossed to show something between the skyline buildings and our vantage poing but I've forgotten what it is.

Casco Viejo is the subject of the next photograph. It is the old Panama City and we would call it a slum. It is, however, safe for tourists partly because the Presidential Palace and the Country's administrative offices are located there and there are soldier looking policeman standing around about everywhere you look. In the next posting I will include photos from this area.

The last photograph is of the "Gold Church" interior. The camera didn't do justice to this chancel of solid gold. It has survived, we were told, only because in the 16th century when Morgan the pirate was coming, it was taken down and sunk in the bay until he had looted and burned the city and gone away. There must be a web site devoted to this church. (Check out flickr.com/photos/striderv/4440153712/ for a better photograph.) Also, the web sites call it an alter but I think it is really the chancel. The walls along both sides of the nave are likewise decorated with statuary and reliefs of gold. The outside of the building, which I will include in the extra photos on Facebook, is as nondescript as any plain building in any city.

JCE

PANAMA 3 -Panama City Tour, part 2

If you want to go through the Panama Canal you must make a reservation. We were told that reservations are made as much as a year in advance. If you aren't there when your time arrives, you are out of luck. That helps explain why there are big ships anchored out to the skyline, waiting their turn in the Canal. These views are on the Pacific Ocean side (outside the south approach to the Canal.) I tried to count the big ships but the air quality isn't clear enough to get a really good, clear view so you continue to get glimpses of more ships farther out until you lose track. The ships in these two photos are west of the entrance to the Canal. We thought

they are probably the ones near their time to transit the Canal, as opposed to the ships that are anchored east of the entrance and farther away from it. These photos were taken from the Amador Causeway. It was constructed with spoil from digging the Canal. Its purpose is to protect the entrance to the Canal from the currents that run east to west and were thought to probably cause navigation problems for ships entering the Canal.

The remaining photographs here were taken from the Causeway or the yacht basin at the ocean end of the Amador Causeway. On the day these were taken I didn't really notice the haze. Later, it was apparent that the air quality isn't great.

The photo on the left above shows the City skyline of the main part of panama City. The spiral building is just above the fly bridge of the small boat at the end of the dock in the center of the photo. It is actually about a mile away across the Bay. The photo on the right is of tall buildings on newly reclaimed land that was the City dump until recently. Many of the new, under construction buildings seem to be progressing very slowly. We were told there are 20 thousand new apartments being built. There was no estimate about the square feet of commercial space or hotel rooms.

The spiral building is visible in the photo above at the right. It is the last tall building on the left. The tallest building in the cluster of tall buildings at center right is the Donald Trump 4,500-room hotel and casino. We didn't see it up close but were told that it is serviced by just two minor city streets and that the sewerage, power, water, etc. were sized for lower density uses. Supposedly, there is great resistance building to opening it when it is completed.

PANAMA 3 - Panama City Tour, part 1

When we arrived at the hotel, Gary had inquired about the possibility of hiring a car and driver to take us to a cigar factory he had read about in a guide book. The factory is located in the Province to the west of the Canal Zone.

Early on Friday morning the phone rang in our room. I answered it but the person on the other end couldn't hear me talk. I hung up and within 30 seconds the phone rang again. Same problem. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. It was a bellman come to tell us that our ride to the cigar factory was downstairs ready to go whenever we were ready. I went down to the lobby and met Ricardo, a thirty something Panama man who, it was revealed later, makes his living as a personal tour guide in the Canal area. He speaks excellent English. After a few phone calls he figured out where the cigar factory is located and quoted me $250.00 to take us there. We had budgeted $50.00 for the trip so I declined.

Ricardo suggested that we might like an all day tour of Panama City and environs which he could provide for the outrageously good price of $90.00. We decided to take the tour. (At five photos per post, it will take five or six of these posts to get us through it.)


If you were to draw a schematic map of Panama City and the surrounding area you could draw a rough rectangle about two miles wide and six or so miles long lying on an east-west axis. The Bay of Panama would be on the south, the "new" City would be in the southeast quarter, Tocumen Airport in the northeast quarter, the "older" City and the Causeway just west of center from the Bay inland, and the entrance to the Canal on the west end.

The American influence is seen especially on the west side of the rectangle and then runs roughly north and west from the rectangle to the Canal itself. The housing in these photographs is now privately owned. The houses and buildings shown have been extensively remodeled, in contrast to some that have been abandoned and are in tear down condition.


These buildings were all built originally about 1905 or so. They comprise barracks, officer's housing, commissaries, offices, warehouses, hospitals, everything it takes to house and service a community of about 10,000 and their dependents.

There are hundreds of buildings that appear to be part of the original building effort. Many of them have been nicely restored and are used for various purposes, from single residences to duplexes and triplexes, to commercial buildings. Some are still used by the Canal Authority and some are private. Some are simply abandoned looking. Ricardo told us that some were purchased by speculators when they were sold to private individuals and are awaiting rehabilitation. Some seem to be moldering into the ground. It wasn't clear what their status is. It does make me want to get one and remodel it.

After driving for twenty minutes or so we entered the Canal Zone proper. the first thing you see is the power generating plant where power for the Pacific end was generated and is still generated. It appears to now use oil fired boilers rather than the wood fired originals. A little further on you can see maintenance areas and old bone yards of equipment waiting to be cannibalized or re-used. Some of it looks like it may have been waiting a long time. Kind of like the bone yards on our places.

The first real look at anything that might be a canal is the spillway, at the right (or maybe above), that controls the level of Miraflores Lake. Miraflores Lake extends from the head of Miraflores Locks (the first two locks on the Pacific end of the Canal) to the foot of the Pedro Miguel Lock. I think it is about seven miles long and not very wide. It comprises the Culibra Cut which was, after building the structures themselves, the most arduous part of building the canal. Something like 125 feet of cut had to be made in places along the Cut. The earth removed was put onto rail flatcars which were on rails laid especially for the purpose and moved at will. The railroad ran downhill to the bay where a big angle blade scraped the earth off and contributed the material to make the Amador Causeway and parts of the islands at its sea end. Ultimately, this spillway helps control not only the level of Miraflores Lake but also Gatun Lake, which is the huge lake created in the center of the country by building a big dam on the Atlantic end and flooding the entire area with the water of the Chagres River. All of the six locks (two at Miraflores and one at Pedro Miguel on the Pacific side and three at Gatun on the Atlantic side) run just on the gravity flow of water from the lakes. It takes about 52 million gallons (about 1,200 acre feet) of water for one transit of the canal, be that one ship in the lock or a dozen smaller boats in the lock.


The photo at the right is the first real view we had of any part of the Canal. It is a view from the rooftop deck at the Miraflores Visitor's Center looking north. You can see the Freedom Bridge in the background. The lock doors on the left lock are open, those on the right side lock are closed but the water level is even with Miraflores Lake.

I am going to continue to post to this blog but I have been convinced that I should put albums of photos on Facebook so they are easier to access and more can be seen than the few I'm allowed with each blog post.

Friend me on Facebook so you won't miss any of the excitement.

JCE

PANAMA 2 - THE VIEW FROM CORAL SUITES

Friday morning arrived way too soon. We had begun Thursday morning in Medford, arrived in Panama at 9:30 EST, taken a lightning fast cab ride, looked over the immediate neighborhood around the hotel, and fallen into bed at about 1:00 am on Friday.

The Wifi didn't work in the first room we were assigned, on the first floor. The staff lady decided she would move us to a different room on Friday so we didn't get very attached to the first room, which turned out to be nearly identical to the second room. She arranged for us to move in the afternoon.

I went out and took a street scene which seemed to be capturing the essence of the locality but turned out to be mostly cars and the sign. Up the street, just beyond where the photo ends, is a very large casino and Windham Hotel. It seemed to be the focal point of the nightlife in our neighborhood. I didn't see the inside, partly because we were busy during the day and the night's activities don't seem to start there until late and by that time I wasn't interested enough to go.

The photo at the right shows the side and the front of our hotel. (I think you can click on each photo to enlarge it if you like.)  Our fifth floor room was just above the tree line at the rear of the building. You can see the side opening of our balcony/terrace with its roof. The top floor windows are looking out from the conference/breakfast room and at the front, behind the arched window, is the pool deck.

By American standards, this hotel is of only modest quality. It is clean, except we found out quickly that the tile floors were not clean enough to walk around on barefooted unless you wanted to wash your feet afterwards. It has an exercise room, a laundry, a complimentary breakfast, 24 hour desk, bell, and door service, and a staff genuinely dedicated to customer service. The rooms are much larger than we would expect here; ours had a kitchen, a small dining area and table, a modest size desk and chair, a couch, two very good double beds, and plenty of room to walk around. The bathroom was small and the hot water took two minutes to arrive. We bought a shower head at the local REY Super Market so we could get more than a dribble from the shower. It worked fine after that.  The air conditioner worked well but the maids turned it off each day so when we returned it would be hot in the room.  It took only a little while to get the room back to a comfortable temperature.  The Wifi worked in the fifth floor room but it was weak and I had to abandon my idea of posting photos and a narrative each day. 

The pool is very nice and I used it several times. I don't know if the hotel was full but we mainly

had the pool to ourselves any time we went there. At night, the view from the pool deck railing gave a bird's eye view of the neighborhood goings on.

The remaining photographs here are of the view from the pool deck. This blog platform is only allowing six or seven photographs at a time, so I may have to shorten the blog entries and increase their number. At this rate you may be able to follow the wonderful Panama trip into the summer.

The beautiful spiral building in the photograph beside the pool is an under construction office building. It will appear in several more photos of the City skyline. They were working to install the exterior glass walls when we were there and you could see the sun reflect from a panel being placed, kind of like the flash from a diamond facet. The view is toward the northeast.

The photo with part of the pool included is toward the east. The one on the right is to the northwest. It shows a portion of the large new construction shown in the photo below. Also in this photograph, at the corner of the Coral Suites building and the balcony half wall and behind a nondescript lower white building, is an under construction building that will be part of the subject of another post. I was amazed at the low quality masonry standards for bearing walls. There will be several additional photos and some commentary about that.

The last photo is of another under construction building. There was some painting being done on the exterior and workmen were entering the interior via the exterior elevator you can see about half way up the front. The two identical looking buildings in front are the ones to be used to show building practices. The one on the right is the same one as in the photo above.

Panama appears to be a City growing very rapidly without any real planning to accommodate infrastructure needs. Above ground power lines, and especially phone lines, seem to be going everywhere. Traffic is frantic enough that you could enjoy a day just watching the give and take, vastly more take, of drivers competing for the next foot, or inch of forward motion. There are traffic signals and lane designations and speed limits, but they seem to be only suggestions. And, without a horn you may as well stay on the porch. Honking is mandatory, or at least necessary, for traffic to flow properly. If a light changes and the intersection isn't clear, the traffic with the green light but no way to take advantage of it uses the full blown honk to clear a path. Eventually the offending traffic clears and the honkers have accomplished their goal. Not honking is perhaps considered timid and an unproductive use of time as you wait.

The next planned posting is of a tour of Panama City. If I can't figure out a way to get more photos included, it may take three or four to get through it. I have already selected 30, which is quite a reduction from the 114 available.

JCE

Panama and The Wave

Finally, the eve of our departure for Panama has arrived. We are both packed, ticketed, boarding passed, filled with Panama lore from reading books and visiting web sites and watching PBS, scheduled for the full transit tour on Saturday, and booked at what is tauted as the 14th best of 85 Panama City Hotels.



We start at 6:15 on Thursday and arrive in Panama City twelve and a half hours later with intermediate stops in Salt Lake City and Atlanta. I'm looking forward to those twelve hours of sitting in a space not quite big enough for a regular size person.



Here is what I know about The Wave. We have tentatively set the time of The Wave at 10:00 am PST on Sunday, February 6, 2011. If you have nothing better to do at that time and you really want to be involved in The Wave, here are the details:

1. Go to http://www.pancanal.com/eng/index.html
2. Select the Multimedia tab
3. Select the Miraflores High Resolution tab
4. In that view, the canal is at the left side of the screen, you can see a bridge near the top of the screen, and there are buildings, parking lots, etc. at the right and most of the bottom.
5. The Miraflores Visitor's Center roof observation deck is at about the bottom-right quarter of the screen.
6. You can enlarge the view by clicking on the image. This sometimes provides a better view of the deck and sometimes not. You'll have to decide that for yourself.
7. The deck is one large area and there are usually people visable on it.
8. We are going to stand at the upper right corner of the deck (at the side of the deck away from the canal) and we are going to wave from about 9:59 PST until about 10:01 PST give or take whatever part of that time we do not wave.
9. The High Resolution photos refresh about once every minute at a minimum but as quickly as about once every 15 seconds, I think depending upon what is going on in the locks.
10. This will be an ephemeral siting. As far as I know the high resolution photos are not viewable after they are refreshed.
11. If you see us wave, you should immediately report that to the six others of you that are on Facebook or, if you are not one of them, via e-mail to me, and anyone else you want to impress, so I can know that my one minute of fame has been visually recorded.

The time is still tentative and I will update you as we get closer to showtime.

If you have questions or need help, let me know and I'll call Terry.

JCE