Deb and I attended a lecture on the Panama Canal that was held by Charles McClelland, a professor of Washington University who had spent his formative years growing up in and around the Panama Canal.

He covered a lot of interesting facts that I thought I'd recap here, as there's basically very little else happening on sea days other than my poker tournaments. As a special note to Vince – I’ve competed in two and chopped for the win both times – my shipboard account continues to grow with these splits – thanks for the advice Vince.

Currently about 75% of all eastern seaboard traffic must go through the Panama Canal to save the extra 7-8,000 mile voyage that goes around Cape Horn. It was in 1510 that the first colony was established in Panama by the Spanish, who ended up looting and pillaging over 200,000 tons of gold and silver from the local inhabitants, only to take it back to their mother country in Spain.

In the early days before the canal started in 1904, they began construction of the first inter-continental railway that went from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Apparently 1 in 5 died each month from the malaria and yellow fever, but they turned this into a money-making opportunity to fund the continued construction of the railway. What they did was pickle and pack all the dead in barrels and shipped them off to the hospitals for medical research, allowing the owner of the railway to hang onto his funds. With over 22,000 people dying of these mosquito borne illnesses, they used the most sophisticated drugs available to help them fight their illnesses. It was unfortunate that the whisky, cigars and brandy did not cure their sickness. It was only after the railway had been completed and the French had failed in their efforts that the Americans, lead by Teddy Roosevelt (elected in 1901 as President) started the canal in 1904 and finished it ten years later in 1914.

Tonight we’re having dinner with Ian & Wendy Hair of Sydney, Australia. They’ve both signed up for MY tour in Puerto Caldera on Saturday, so we thought it would be nice to get to know some of the people in our tour group. It’s always good to have a few good addresses for our future travel plans. Tomorrow we pull into Cartagena, Columbia for a short 6-hour stop. So it’ll likely be the hop-on/hop-off bus for tomorrow’s agenda than back on with the next stop, Panama Canal.

Day 6 – Panama Canal – Crossroads to the World

Today needed to be an early day. We were supposed to be arriving at the first canal lock at around 5:00 a.m. so I dialed in a wakeup call for 04:30 so that I could be first in line for the prime "center bow" spot. Everything went well, the call came in, I even got up and dressed and out the door by 4:45.

First in line I thought, hell no. When I arrived on Deck 4 (Upper Promenade) there were at least 400 people lined up in the hallway waiting for the captain to open the doors so that we could get access to the bow. I guess there are a lot of people that had the Panama Canal on their bucket list too. In any event, I’m not sure how many of you have done the canal trip before but I thought I’d give you some facts and figures, which are quite surprising.

- It takes about ten (10) hours total to traverse the entire canal. They start moving only southbound vessels into the canal in the early a.m. for appointments on the big ships (Panamex sized ships). Sailboats and the like can slip in with the big guys and usually have the protection of the tugboats while inside the locks.

· On May 02, 1904 the French decided to give up on any further digging because of on-going problems and sickness so they sold everything, lock stock and barrel to the Americans for $40 million dollars.

· An American, John Stevens took up the task of completing what was started by the French. He later resigned in 1907 due to his frustration with the project.

· The Americans ended up digging a trench and removing enough debris between the Atlantic and Pacific that if laid out end to end would result in a ditch 10’ wide and 55’ deep and would stretch from New York to San Francisco.

· Each Canal lock, and there are six of them are 110’ wide and 1,050’ long.

· The hollow gates on each of the locks are 65’ wide by 7’ thick and 87’ high (Pacific side) and are opened by only two 25 h.p. engines.

· The cost to construct the canal in 2015 dollars would have cost 257 BILLION dollars.

· Local canal pilots (2 for each ship) are installed on each ship entering the canal and the captain hands over the keys – making the pilots in charge of the vessel for the ten (10) hour journey through the canal.

· From the Atlantic side we raised the Westerdam UP a total of 85’ in height, the height of Gatun Lake from that of the Atlantic.

· Electric MULES or tractors, usually eight per ship keep the ships centered in the canal using a system of wire pullies and cost $2,000,000 each.

· In 1906 there were a total of 24,000 workers from Barbados that worked on the canal.

· The amount of FRESH WATER released into the ocean for EVERY SHIP MOVED through the canal is approximately 56 MILLION GALLONS.

· On the downside canal portion, running into the Pacific, we enter the Pedro Miguel locks (1). We then make the short trip under the Centennial bridge which opened in 2014 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the canal and head into Mina Flores locks (2) which take us the final way into the Pacific Ocean.

· Under the Bridge of Americas, just north of Panama City we hit salt water and head north to our next port-of-call, Puerto Caldera – Costa Rica.

· Cruise ships pay by the number of passengers/berths occupied. In this case, our Westerdam ship paid $320,000.00 to make the trip through the canal.

· Container ships pay the toll based on the number of twenty-foot equivalent containers. Current Panamex sized ships now carry about 4,500 x 20’ containers, however Maersk Lines has new, much larger ships on the drawing board that will accommodate up to 12,000 x 20’ ECU’s.

· The highest reported fee paid was by Norwegian Pearl cruise ship of $550,000. As we traversed the canal, there was only nine (9”) inches of space between the hull and the cement wall. What a tight fit.

· There has been talk about a new, THIRD canal in Nicaragua that is being proposed by one Chinese entrepreneur with an estimated cost of 250 billion dollars to complete. Decisions are still pending on a go-ahead.

Panama is now off my bucket list, so it’s on to the next one. I’ve been reasonably fortunate in the Westerdam casino as of late, so I decided that before I give it back, I would buy myself a fancy duty-free watch from the Signature Shops onboard. Thanks Holland America. Puerto Caldera is our next stop tomorrow so I’ve geared up the eighteen people in my tour group and we’ll be heading off into the rainforest. Hopefully some good pictures can be posted when I get some Wi-Fi.

Thanks to all of you who have been reading my blog. I really appreciate you following us.