November 26, 2017

  Today is Grey Cup Day in Canada, the Canadian Football League’s final game of the season. There is no TV coverage on the ship. The sports stations (ESPN 1 & 2, and another channel) are covering NFL games.

   After breakfast, we went to a Beyond the Podium presentation by David Roberts about French attempts at building a canal in Panama between 1880 and 1899.  At the International Engineering Congress in Paris in 1880, the French promoter of the successful Suez Canal, Ferdinand De Lesseps, planned a sea level canal without any surveys of the proposed route.  The assembly did not know that the Continental Divide crossed the Isthmus of Panama and it was covered by swamp and jungle.

  Also mentioned was the American invasion of Panama called Operation Just Cause, when Manuel Noriega, the Panama President, was eventually captured by US armed forces then, after a Miami trial, spent 17 years in prison in the United States, followed by seven years in prison in France. Then he was extradited to Panama, where the Panama Canal was closed for a few days to transport Noriega to a jail within the Canal Zone.

   David mentioned that Christopher Columbus sailed in the Caribbean and was shipwrecked in Jamaica in 1503 and rescued in 1504. Columbus did not know about the Pacific Ocean’s existence. Ferdinand Magellan found a route around the southern tip South America between 1519 and 1521, but it was dangerous and could take months to navigate around the tip. A route to transport goods from the Pacific to the Caribbean was created through Nicaragua in 1522. Ships arriving from the Caribbean Sea had their goods unloaded, then carried by mules to a lake and loaded onto a boat to cross it, then more mules were loaded to take the goods to the Pacific side to be loaded onto another ship and vice versa.

   The Spanish used trails through the jungle on the Isthmus of Panama to transport the gold and silver that they pillaged from Peru and Mexico in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. There had been schemes to cross the land for centuries.  The Americans built a small gauge railway in the 1850s. It was a money maker transporting men across the isthmus so they could get to the California Gold Rush.  There was a dream of digging a passage for ships through the thick jungle and swampy land that contained deadly animals and diseases. The Chagres River flooded annually and needed to be controlled. The French canal project went bankrupt in 1899 and the Americans bought all their equipment and land for $40 million, the French had spent more than $250 million. There is a difference in the height of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean has tides that vary from six or seven meters while the Caribbean Sea only has a variation of less than one meter, so the best solution was a lock system. It was a complex engineering task and the French sea level idea was abandoned.

   After the talk, we dashed up five flights of stairs to get a coffee and walk a few circuits of the walking track (about 275 steps around).  We listened to the captain’s 10 a.m. announcement as we walked. He said that today’s high temperature would be 86 F (about 30 C), a sunny day and the wind was 10 to 15 knots (about 18 to 27 Km per hour). Tomorrow we will spend the day transiting the Panama Canal.

  We returned to the Celebrity Theater on Deck 5 to hear another Beyond the Podium presentation from Bill Fall about the enormous amount of water used with each ship’s passage.

98.4 million liters per end for a total of 197 million litres of fresh water for a transit! 

   There are different classes of ocean carriers. The Capemax massive ships go around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and South America’s Cape Horn because they are too large to fit in the canals. There are ships called Panamax size that fit the original Panama Canal and Suezmax that fit the Suez Canal. There is a Seawaymax size for travelling in the St. Lawrence Seaway. Chinamax ships are very large bulk carriers that can only fit into a small number of ports. We saw Panamax ships at Port Everglades when we boarded this ship.  Another category of ship in the Neo Panamax ships which are larger than the Panamax ships, but fit in the new third set of locks.     The website: http://maritime-connector.com/wiki/ship-sizes/  gives good descriptions of the various sizes of cargo ships.

    There are cameras along the Panama Canal that can be accessed for anyone to watch the ships in the Panama Canal. The website is http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

The new locks, Aqua Clara on the northern Caribbean Sea side and Cocoli on the northern Pacific Ocean side, opened in 2016. They use tugboats to steer the ships in the locks which is different than the powerful engines on rails, nicknamed “mules” that guide ships in the older locks.  Originally the ships were guided in the locks by mule teams.

   When the presentation ended we checked the Grand Foyer for a copy of the daily Canadian newsletter.  There are about 10 different papers for the passengers from different countries.  We had lunch in the dining room with two American couples, then went up to Deck 11 for a 30-minute walk.  So far 7591 steps.

  The suggested dress code in the Dining Room tonight is Evening Chic, which is scaled down from the “Formal” dress code of six or seven years ago. Tuxedos for men are still seen but most of the men wear suits or at least a blazer and dress pants, while the ladies usually wear fancier dresses or outfits than on the regular Smart Casual nights.

   Tonight another couple joined us and Jan and Doug. Betty and Warren had met Lynn and Phil from Florida & Hawaii on a cruise two years ago.  It was the second dinner that Shirley and Doug were a few minutes too late to join us.

   The starters for this evening included Watermelon & Tomato Salad, Caesar Salad, Chicken Liver Paté and French Onion Soup. The entrées were Rack of Lamb with potato, broccoli and carrots; Beef Tourtedo with green beans & potato and Stuffed Portobello Mushroom.  Our waiter, Benjamin and his assistant, Javier Garcia – not Marco as on the table card (they switched) - served the table at faster pace so that we all could finish by 6:45 to get seats at the Celebrity Theater for the 7 pm show.  The Celebrity Theater is at the opposite end of Deck 4, so we just needed walked through the Rendez-vous Lounge, Grand Foyer and casino to get there.

   Tonight was the first production with the ship’s singers and dancers called Boogie Wonderland. It was a fun and energetic show.

   We returned to the Rendez-vous Lounge on Deck 4 to dance to a live band.  There was a couple dancing who must compete in ballroom dance competitions. They were superb and a delight to watch, even though they monopolized a third of the small dance floor. There has also been a gay couple who dance very well and are fun to watch.

   We went up to the Oceanview Café on Deck 10 for a coffee. There were not many people in the buffet.  Then Larry went to the casino to see if its large screen TV was showing the Grey Cup. He was able to watch the last quarter in the Ottawa snowstorm as Calgary lost its lead allowing Toronto to win.

  At 10 pm the ship was due north of Colon, Panama, about parallel to the Nicaragua border with Costa Rica.

Final steps for the day 10,576

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