Panama plus

2^nd August

Transit of the Panama Canal today.  This started early in the morning and by the time we had been through three sets of locks, with varying numbers of chambers and steps, it was late afternoon.  I know some readers of this blog attempted to see what was happening, but time difference didn’t make that easy and the bow camera didn’t show sides of ship.

What a magnificent engineering feat this was.  Huge cuts made in the mountains, horrific working conditions and primitive machinery.  The new expansion system will make the canal much more accessible for larger ships and alleviate need to unload some containers one end, train these to the other end and reload.

We only had 25cm clearance each side in one lock, so imagine the panamax ships.

There were quite a few ships waiting in the Gulf of Panama after the transit and they can wait for three days sometimes for their turn to transit.

Made a sign to hand on the balcony for the cameras.  Probably no one spotted it so have included it below.

4^th August

Puntarenas today.  Interesting place with a fine black sand on the beach.  Everyone swimming and playing on the beach looked so dirty, but guess it would be no worse than our white sand to clean off and out of clothes.

Took a bus trip out to Espiritu Santo coffee plantation for a very informative tour and tasting, before going on to Sarchi.  Here they make decorated ox carts for sale.  Up to about 20 years ago these painted carts, which identified their owners by the decoration, were still used in the mountains for carrying goods.  All the equipment in the factory is run by a large water wheel – very clever.   It was quite pleasant temperature up in the mountains, but when we got back to the ship, the heat was very noticeable.  Walked through the little stalls at the port entrance but didn’t part with any money.

Pier is quite long (about 500m) so there is a little train to take people from ship to shore.  Big tidal movement – 12 feet today but up to 16 feet so pier is built out a long way and ships have to run with the tides.

 Coffee growing on hill sides - all work done by hand

 A souvenir painted ox cart