the transit begins

so started the adventure, moving the magic through the panama canal, approaching the entrance to gatun locks, a 3 step lock, finishing 85 feet above sea level to gatun lake, it was very tricky, the magic is panamax, 2 feet clearance per side, 30 feet to spare on the length, panamanian crew taken on board for passage, approx 20 line handlers, 4 pilots, 1 senior pilot and 1 assistant senior pilot on the bridge, 1 each on bow and stern
in the right hand lock you can see the reason we were not able to purchase the planned for aerial shots, due to security blackout, dcl had to cancel the helicopter, lock down the internet service and the webcams were apparently shut off that day, an all day affair since the sub just ahead of us during our entire transit, attack boat, los angeles class? by the look of it
i started this thread here since our lord and webmaster has not started a disney cruise forum yet, ahem****
more to follow as time and chores permit, 2500+ to cull and process, and good news, phanfare has reverted to open viewing, so i'll probably stay there and post up a large album, daily galleries and subject divided as i did for the med cruise

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Great picture. The freighter looks like it's completely out of the water. Gee, I guess the Navy doesn't care about people posting pictures of the sub. Seen lots of them online.

 

Nice! Beautiful shot.

 

thanks, this is a case where i followed a piece of ken rockwell advice and fired 3 shot bursts, rebel xti, canon 70-200 f/4 L, plus canon 1.4 tc, handheld no IS, after new yorking my way through the crowd to the rail, 5 deep at the bow on deck 10 in some spots, so i had to bring out my best ny crowd technique, elbows up, say excuse me, but only after they've moved away from the pointy things in the ribs and you've taken the vacated space up, sort of the camel nose under the tent theory, as in "i'll just be a minute, just taking a couple snaps" of course not being true new york city raised i was always polite enough to move back out of the personal space i had invaded, after i got the shot of course
the idea behind the theory is that enough from burst mode with a real fast daylight shutter and you will get at least 1 sharp one
it seems to have worked
this shot taken 0800, i predicted that the panama humidity and heat would open up the rail by 1100, i was off by an hour, most of those people that were on deck by 0500, esp the ones that actually brought blankets and pillows up on deck and slept out all night were faded off the rail by 1000
you could just feel the jungle air, i'll finish downloading and try for later today to post a jungle pic from the gallaird cut, the channel is only 700 feet wide in there and you can see the impenetrable jungle right up to the banks
the 5d spent the whole transit tripod mounted, bubble leveled off, 24-105 f4 IS, mirror lockup,remote cable release,on the cabin veranda, we upgraded to a category 4 this trip for the full size veranda, worth the $, karen spent a lot of time in the shade on the veranda taking transit pics, those will be all intermingled with the xti pics
and a big holla back to tim for creating a cruise forum, we'll demand non dcl sub forums later so others can post cruise pics, all 4 of our cruises have been on disney

 

here's a few more

the view astern from lock 1 gatun, large container ship entering starboard lock, container cranes for colon port in the distance, panama railroad, now a subsidiary of kcs, has a thriving trans panama container business going, ships too large to transit unload in panama city or colon, the containers are moved by rail to the other side and reloaded onto a ship there

the jungle as seen surrounding one of the navigation aids, aka lighthouse, man in the lower right corner for scale, if you look closely you realize you cannot see mor than a couple of feet into the edges, this is double canopy and triple in some spots, the real deal jungle

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the next 2

gatun locks have swing arm roadways with tunnels through the lock walls, so when the gates are closed traffic can pass from one side to the other, a balboa beer truck making the trip while we exit the lock

one of the mules as they are called, electrive locomoties that keep tension on lines fore and aft, as directed by the pilots, to keep the ship straight in the locks and off the side walls, a common misconception by many is that these pull the ship, the ships use their own power to move, and yes they occasionally have a screw up, dcl brought a recently retired senior canal pilot onboard to give lectures on the history of the canal and then on the actual transit mechanics before the transit, and sometimes a mule has been yanked completely off the side into the lock
pilots communicate to the mule drivers by radio, the drivers signal back via loud bell, this prevents choas from having a bunch of drivers on the air with the pilots

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captain kenneth puckett, usn(ret) and 16 yr veteran senior canal pilot giving the lecture on the canal history
the spanish tried first with a railroad, cost 9000 lives, mostly disease
next the french gave it a try, a canal, cost in lives 26,000+, again mostly disease, yellow fever and malaria
united states steps in and makes it work, spending the first 2 years doing nothing but building housing,sanitary facilities and draining the mosquito swamps, cost in lives about 5600, mostly due to industrial accidents in the age of steam boilers and unstable dynamite
why did we do it? remember the maine, the only large ship available to respond to cuba was the uss san diego, from the west coast, took 66 days going around the long way, with refueling stops for coal, food and water. ironically the san diego was herself a victim of a mine during wwI, and lies off fire island ny in 110 feet of water, a very popular deep dive for the experienced
and lastly the very secretive and little known nuclear power plant on a ship, provided the power to run the canal for many years under united states control
hey tim, how do i make something in the header so each time i add to the thread those interested can see that i've added a couple more photos, i thought i'd run a continuous canal thread, kind of telling the story as it were, if anyone's interested
oh and attaboy roger, good spot on the sub, once i pulled up the official net site and saw the digital optics instead of the old style periscope i realized it is a virginia class attack boat

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from the beginning

back in time just a little, the view from stateroom 8090, portside, category 4, looking down the rail, 0739 we have pulled the hook, pilots are on board and we are making our way down the entrance channel, soon to take a hard right on the dogleg approach to gatun locks[attachment=1]

while easing into the gatewall for the first lock we see the mule deadline, apparently many end up scavenged for parts, plus the strain on the electrical motors leads to a lot of early parts failure and motor replacements, the latest mules are about 2.5 million each[attachment=2]

so while in the lock this guy shows up, and it's one of the ship's photographers, on his day's assignment, i'm thinking they picked the youngest,biggest and fittest for this, we'll see him later on, still lugging that backpack and cameras all day in the heat and humidity, and notice what color lens he's working
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i've shown a couple before from inside the lock, here's the nerve center of the gatun complex, i had one that showed the writing on the building better but did not give a sense of scale and placement, gatun locks, panama canal, 1913
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so helping us stay centered in the exit channels are tugboats, picking us up from the mules
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and exiting we see the gatun lake achorage area, an interesting thing is that some of these ships are paying to wait an extra day or 2, salt water barnacles and growth are dead in 48 hours in fresh water, and it's cheaper than a bottom paint, the poor man's drydock
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and i have no idea how or why the photos all posted again at the bottom, TIMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYY





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I LOVE the view from the stateroom! They're all good, but that one grabs me.

 

gatun lake and channel

so we're traveling the gatun lake channel, it's not so wide, and we have opposing traffic,
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ships passing by all seem to have a fair amount of crew out on deck taking our photo and looking us over, taken with the xti, 70-200, 1.4 tele, so it's not all that far away to be filling the shot at 280mm
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and going away, and i was not aware switzerland had any ports, i did not know you could flag of convenience to a landlocked nation
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so this is what it looks like up on the deck 10 bow, remember all those people i was referring to?, well it's really humid, as you can see by the distant haze, maybe the most humid i've ever been and it's not raining, temps in the mid 90's, humidity 68%, per the channel 12 report from the bridge, a constant updating on the ship's position, weather and other conditions, note the nice breeze by the disney company flag blowing steady
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and coming around the bend, why it's a floating bomb, red hull, large red no smoking on the accomodation block, riding high, that's right, a tanker, not in ballast, which makes it full of fumes
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and the ever present jungle/navigation aid motif, i wonder how many find employment trying to keep back the jungle growth, must be a full time year round effort
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Excellent and really enjoyable!

 

thanks, i'll try to keep posting a 4-6 photo journal of the transit each day
next up a few from the gallaird cut, the man made channel right through a mountain

 

still in gatun lake

so here we are, a little closer to the tanker, clearly a hazardous ship to be crew on, still attracting a few hands out on deck to watch us go by
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so now it's over to the starboard side for a view of the channel bank foliage, jungle that's probably as dense as it gets, as you can see we are not too far off the bank, the channel gets pretty close to the sides on occasion
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and here's why we are on the channel edge, have to leave room for passing traffic to squeeze past the constant dredging required, as i understand it this goes on constantly , never stopping due to the constant silting in of the channels, here we have the dredge spoil pipeline being moved and reconnected for a new dumping spot
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and here is what it connects to, one of the largest dredges i have ever seen, unfortunately due to arriving while they were repositioning we did not get to hear it at work, check out the size of those exhaust stacks, you know that's some serious pumps involved
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the front of the dredge, that's some serious suction
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and a little closer view of the front
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and that concludes today's travelogue, tune in tommorrow, same bat time, same bat channel for more panamanian action




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