GREEN THOUGHTS
Irish events abound
ON BOARD THEOO STE RD AM On the 15th day of our repositioning cruise from Vancouver to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the excitement that had been building for days had reached its peak.
Cruisers emerged from their cabins at dawn, hurriedly poured coffee on the Lido deck and ascended to find that perfect vantage point for an experience of a lifetime: the transit of the Panama Canal.
What transpired for the next eight hours was the passage of a mammoth cruise ship through the narrowest of passageways linking the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic.
Squeezing a ship that measures 32.3 metres wide into a series of locks just 33.5 metres wide is no easy task. You do the math. With just under a metre of clearance on each side, we inched our way through with nary a scrape, thanks to man’s ingenuity and electric locomotives called mules on either side tethering the ship and guiding her on a true course.
The canal is a marvel of engineering and it’s easy to see why it’s regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the industrial world.
From its conception to completion, thousands died through accidents and disease, investors lost their shirts and hearts were broken when massive slides in the earthquake- prone zone threatened to bury not only the gigantic ditchdigging operation, but man’s dream of joining two great oceans.
Holland America’s ( HAL’s) Oosterdam is one of several ships doing the repositioning cruise from its summer Alaska schedule to its wintertime Caribbean itinerary and the reverse in spring.
The canal transit is full of surprises and to take in the grandeur, passengers scrambled to stake out their favourite locales, such as the Crowsnest lounge with its floor- toceiling windows, the upper decks, both port and starboard sides and even on the bow of the ship, opened this one time to afford an unobstructed view of the locks.
The first sight to draw oohs and aahs was Panama City emerging from the early- morning sea fog like a mirage of a futuristic metropolis. Deemed to be one of five most desirable places to retire in the world, the city is surrounded by a large belt of rainforest. Another eye- opener is the two spans under which the ship sails: the Bridge of the Americas, part of the Pan American Highway linking the two continents, and the modern Centennial Bridge.
Before we even got to the Miraflores Locks ( the first of three sets of locks), we were amazed by the ships that had materialized on both sides of the Oosterdam like so many rubber ducks in a bath tub, all patiently waiting their turn to enter the channel.
We followed a vessel stacked with containers like Lego blocks and watched in awe when, as our turn came and we entered the locks, the water level rose and we were elevated in two stages a total of 16 metres.
Hard to believe, but it took close to 197 million litres of water to accomplish that feat in all three locks for our ship alone. And 40 ships go through the locks daily. That’s a whole lot of water, even by Panama standards where it rains a lot.
No wonder some larger ships were restricted from using the canal this past summer because of the drought associated with El Niño.
But help is underway. A new, wider set of locks to accommodate even larger vessels will use specially built basins to reuse water. Once past the single- stage Pedro Miguel Locks, we glided though the so- called Cut, a deep slice taken out of higher terrain that caused so much grief for the engineers. After all those devastating landslides, they learned that instead of cutting a chunk out of the porous material like a piece of cake, you terrace the sides, install a drainage system and go green.
Before the final set of locks, we sailed through picturesque Gatun Lake with its myriad little forested islands created when the area was flooded in the building of the canal.
By the time we reached the Caribbean near the city of Colon, the sun was setting on this Central American country, so small in size but so grand in the eyes of captains everywhere who no longer have to sail around South America and navigate the treacherous Strait of Magellan.