Sailing through the Panama Canal on the Crystal Serenity

12/21/2009 12:19:39 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment

As this is my first blog for Santa Cruz Travel, its most appropriate I write of my exciting day transiting the Panama Canal from the Pacific Ocean to the Carribean Sea.

I boarded the Cryatal Serenity cruise ship in Caldera, Costa Rica and spent a day at sea. The weather on the Pacific was a balmy 85 degrees and arriving at the entrance to the canal with shorts and a tee shirt at 6:30am. With Panama City off my starboard verandah, we proceeded to follow a military ship through the locks.

It took the better part of the morning to get through the first set of locks, with a small toll to the Panamanian authorities of $320,000 for a ship our size. "Mules" as they are called, guided and pulled us up and over the first elevations. Once in the canal we wound our way for the next several hours up river passing many cargo ships heading for the Pacific. At about 3pm, we arrived the final set of locks and proceeded down to Colon and the Caribbean Sea.

I cannot even start tell you what a marvel this process is and what the Panama Canal took to build back in the late 1800's. I can only suggest you have this life time oppertunity as I have.