BillB48

After clicking through a countless number of pictures looking for lighthouses and the Canal (actually ranges😉) I ran across this one.  I did not include it since you really could not really see any of the structures.  The three green lights are the southbound range lights for Gatun Locks approach and the middle light is the one in Turtles06 post.  On a side note I lived just above and just to the right of the upper light for about 3 years.  The house is long gone, but the lighthouse is still there.  You will probably never guess the name of the road where the upper light is located... wait for it... Lighthouse Road!

The Chief is absolutely correct and all the lighthouse in the pictures I posted are indeed range lights.  I did not want to add to making the response more complicated as the OP was looking for lighthouses.  I have been asked a number of times what the black and white markers were for and the picture below shows other types of ranges used in the Canal.  The ranges with the black "cross" indicate the center line of the channel.  The ranges with the vertical black stripe indicate the center of the "lane" when there is two way traffic.  These ranges are illuminated just as the ranges that are lighthouses.

The Canal is sectioned off in named reaches which basically are straight sections of the Canal.  The picture below is in Gaillard Cut where the reaches in general are about 1 mile long.  If memory serves correctly (Big if) we are looking at the south end of Las Cascades Reach with Bas Opispo Reach in the background.

41 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

And here’s the black lighthouse on our northbound transit last year on the Gem (with the new Atlantic Bridge in the background) 

 

I am sure you noticed the lighthouse in the last picture of my first lighthouse post, there is no Atlantic Bridge.  Think the Bridge was completed sometime in 2018 IIRC, so all of those pictures are sometime before then.

In your last lighthouse picture (post #8) that tubular tower with the black stripe in the center top is what replaced the Gatun Lighthouse.  Maybe it is a 10 when the pilots are using it, as for esthetics it is pretty much a zero.

I did not think I could find a picture I took of one of Eiffel's Canal lighthouses, but I found it like I remembered where I had put it😁.  As I said previously these lights are not easily seen.  This one is located on the old US Military Base at Ft. Sherman.  The name of the light is Toro Point Light built in 1893 and was designed by Eiffel.  On entering through the Atlantic Breakwater it can be seen with binoculars on the starboard side of the ship where the breakwater connects to the shore.  However some ships do enter before dawn and the structure may be hard to pickout.

18 hours ago, IWantToLiveOverTheSea said:

Does anyone know how many lighthouses there are on the passage, non-functional or not?

While these pictures are not that old, there are some instances where the function of the lighthouse has been replace by a Port Entry Light, sometimes called a sector light.  Having said that there are still plenty of lighthouses along various portions of the Canal.  They may not always be in plain sight.  These lighthouses differ slightly in their use as compared to a lighthouse that is placed to warn of a navigation hazard such as a reef or a shoal.  These lighthouses are positioned to enable the pilot to accurately place the ship near the center of the channel.

Here are a few...

Sea entrance Miraflores Locks, off center right, lower lighthouse just to the right of the structure near the bank.  There is also another further in the background and a little higher.

At the Chagres River at Gamboa.  Black paint indicates no longer an aid to navigation.

Upper and lower lighthouses near Barro Colorado Island

Another set of upper and lower lights, Gatun Lake

Probably the best example of Canal lighthouses.  This one is at Gatun Locks, sadly now a days it is painted black and is no longer an aid to navigation... Port entry light has taken over.

A close up

At the right edge of the picture you can see a lighthouse sticking up out of the trees

Same lighthouse on the right, a little closer.

Have fun looking for the lighthouses!!

Just an aside, there are two lighthouses that are still used for the Panama Canal approaches.  These lighthouses were designed by Gustave Eiffel (yes, the one in Paris) and constructed in the early 1890s.  These lighthouses are not easily seen.

The traffic control for the Canal always has a plan for the movement of ships through the locks  and it is extremely fluid.  What is the plan 8 hours ahead can be changed multiple before it actual is cast in stone.  Sometimes the scheduling probably is closer to a wish list, just too many variables. 

21 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

I will ask our Panama Canal expert on Summit, but my feeling is that the M class ships are always sailing through the legacy locks. Our narrator never mentioned that we were lucky for getting assigned to the legacy locks.  

While ships that could have passed through the legacy locks have been re routed through the new larger Neo-Panamax Locks.  This is done solely for Canal convenience.  To date there has been only one cruise ship shifted from the Panamax Locks (the Canal's terminology to differentiate between the two) and this is one of the smaller HAL ships was sent through the new locks.  Lots of extenuating circumstances, mainly during the beginning of the pandemic and there were several active cases on board.  As a result they sent the ship through the new locks with a single pilot (who was quarantined after the transit) used no line handlers, and put no lines out while in the new locks.  Absolute minimal contact with Canal personnel.

The bottom line is they are only locking through about 8 ships per day at the new locks because of the water restrictions.  These ships will pay more in tolls than a ship such as the Summit.  They would much prefer to save those slots for the ships that are going to pay more in tolls.  While a ship such as the Summit would pay a little more if they used the Neo Panamax Locks as compared to the original Panamax Locks it would not equal what they could charge the larger ship.

Arriving Miraflores...

In the upper level of Miraflores from the Cocoli cam...

Almost back in salt water!

Gatun...

Pass in Centennial Bridge headed for Pedro Miguel...

Pedro Miguel...

I am not sure how may pics I can upload in one post.  I'll send the Miraflores pics in another post.

7 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Thank you for posting screenshots of Summit crossing the canal as I wanted to do that, too, but simply didn't have time.

I have several of the Summit at each of the locks plus a few of the Summit as seen from other locks.  I sent them to your narrator so he could make a few extra slides of your transit.  I will post them to this thread if you like.

Airport, hotel, dinner, bed and to the port is just fine for Panama City.  However, dinner close depending on the location of the hotel could be bit more of a challenge.  You could choose a hotel that has a restaurant, but so often they are only ho-hum and a wee overpriced.  One hotel that is handy for the port is the Radisson in Ft. Amador.  Several years ago when I stayed there (it was a Country Inn Suites then), a T.G.I. Fridays was attached to the hotel.  Now I am not necessarily recommending to travel all the way to Panama and go dine at TGI Fridays, there are some local eateries a short cab ride away that are located towards the end of the Causeway and near the cruise terminal, about 5 miles away.  The hotel could easily help with the cab and there are some great views of the City.

Over all Panama City is fairly safe, but just as any other big city the areas can change flavor rapidly often times with out any visual clues.  Any of the major hotel brands would be fine.

30 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

Built in 1962, the bridge was originally known as the Thatcher Ferry Bridge.  The bridge was named after the Thatcher Ferry which operated at that location and the ferry was named after Maurice Thatcher who was associated with the Canal Zone commission. 

Thanks for referencing the Bridge's original name, Thatcher Ferry Bridge.  Maurice Thatcher was the last surviving member of the Isthmian Canal Commission which oversaw the construction of the Canal.  Thatcher also served as governor of the Canal Zone during the construction era.   In the picture of the catamaran sailing under the Bridge, the pilings for the ferry landing are still visible.

Enjoyed your pictures and videos of the transit!

3 hours ago, FiremedicMike151 said:

Hey I just wanted to clarify something, you mentioned that I should be port for westbound and starboard for eastbound.  Why is that?  If I'm port for eastbound, I'd be facing land once we get out of the canal, wouldn't that be preferable?

 

IMO the side preference stems from the "preferred" side for the Canal views.  The only time you would see land for an extended time is while the ship is in the Pacific.  Even then often times the land is so far away it is barely visible and if you factor in haze there really is not much to see.  Now at the Canal there more to see on the port side for a southbound transit (your westbound), like wise it would be the starboard side for a Pacific to Atlantic transit.  There are just more developed areas such as the cities of Colon and Panama City.  While transiting the Canal after clearing the locks there are just a few more things that can be pointed out and may have some historical or significance to the Canal.  Also if you are located on the "preferred" while crossing Gatun Lake is the best time to see oncoming ships.  However I am still in the camp that believes that the best side of the ship is outside or topside, that way you can take in whatever interests you.  This doesn't mean the "non preferred" side of the ship is a wasteland, plenty to see over there as well it just there are fewer things to actually point out.

9

My opinion won't be much different from the others... for the non Canal portion of the trip an aft balcony is great.  Even if you only use the aft balcony sparingly at the Canal, it is not my favorite place to be mainly because most of the narration provided during the transit has a forward perspective.  By the time you get to see what is being described the narration has long passed.

If you opt for the aft balcony for the Canal cruise and you want to enjoy the balcony for a bit, the best time would be after the ship clears Gatun Locks (the first locks you will encounter) and heads across Gatun Lake to Gamboa.  This part of the transit is about 23 miles over the open waters of the Lake.  Depending on Canal traffic it takes a little over 2 hours and there usually is minimal narration.

The rest of the transit, be out and about to be able to take in whatever may be of interest.

First a thanks to Teeara for providing pictures for a virtual transit!  Also would like to add thanks to RobInMN for the GoPro video, excellent, I almost was for a few moments feeling humid sitting on that balcony!  Actually this whole thread just rekindled old professional curiosity from days gone by as I used to be involved with Canal operations.  The length of time the Radiance spent at Gatun Locks was not exactly what I would have considered the norm.  However the pictures along with the video and the various posts have provided a little insight on the time spent getting through Gatun Locks.  While I don't have any incident or failure to attribute to the length of time, maybe the following will offer some answers of sorts.

I discussed the lockage times of the Radiance via text with an old cohort who is still working for the Canal.  He took it upon himself to reach out to one of the Assistant Port Captains for Canal Operations to see if he could shed any light on the matter.  The short answer was there were no incidents or failures at the Gatun Locks that were officially noted.  Now that does not preclude something going wrong with the ship ahead of the Radiance which was a HAL passenger ship IIRC, if that were the case it would not reflect on any notations for the Radiance.

Hopefully I don't get too far down in the weeds, I will offer a few items that could have been contributing factors in that lengthy passage through Gatun Locks.

The pilots may have decided to get to Gatun Locks and hold on the north approach wall ASAP rather than timing their arrival for when the locomotives were available.  This would have had the affect of spending more time at the locks.

They were using a procedure at Gatun called a relay lockage.  This is where on set of "mules" (sorry, they were always locos or locomotives to us) bring the ship to the middle level or second chamber.  They will secure the ship very minimally with mooring lines, then the first set of locos cast off and return to pick up another ship.  Then the locos from the ship ahead will come and make fast and the mooring lines will be taken back aboard.  The lockage will be completed with the new set of locos.  Where a ship of the Radiance's size would normally be able to lock through Gatun Locks in a little over hour, the relay procedure does add time compared to a straight through lockage.  However this procedure will enable the locks to lock through more ships in a given time period.

While I did not notice any cross spilling with the Raidiance as mentioned by a post by Essiesmom, this procedure does add a fair amount of time.  Just because I did not see it on the Radiance's lockage, it is quite possible it was being used on the HAL ship which ultimately would impact the Radiance .  This would add to the overall time the Radiance was homesteading at Gatun.  Canal authorities claim the cross spilling saves from 4-6 chambers of water per day.

I am afraid the 8-10 hour lockage is for the history books.  The increased size of the ships as introduced by the new locks as well as more stringent meeting restrictions for LNG ships, cross spilling at the locks have pushed transit times closer to 10-12 hour bracket. 

I suppose that the way things went for your transit, they just fell into place where it took the longest possible time.  There doesn't seem to be any one or two things that appear to the cause.  A case of ship happens!

Anyway, don't have a conclusive answer but hopefully it sheds some light on what happened.

Enjoy the remainder of the trip!

That is the Crane barge Titan moored at the Canal's Dredging Division headquarters.  It has a rather interesting history, it started its career in 1941 as Schwimmkran No. 1 for Germany's Kriegsmarine.  After WW2 in 1946 it was partially disassembled and brought to Long Beach Navy Shipyard in California via the Panama Canal.  While in Long Beach it was widely known as Herman the German (YD-171) and remained there until the mid 90s when it was transferred to the Canal as a replacement for the Canal's original heavy lift crane, the Hercules which had also been built built in Germany  in 1914.

The future of the Titan is not certain as the Canal has just acquired to new heavy lift crane barge with a greater lifting capacity.  Even though the Titan can lift 350 tons, that is not enough capacity to completely lift any of the miter gates at the Locks.  The "lightest" miter gate weighs over 400 tons and the heaviest (tallest) comes in at over 700 tons. 

I think going through the new locks is worth the experience particularly if you want the bragging rights in being able to say you have experienced the original and the new locks.  The transit is essentially the same, the only difference is which locks are used and the access channel used to enter and exit the lock.  The other significant difference is you lock through three locks with the original locks and only two locks with the new.  Other than that the transit is the same, both the new and original locks are within one mile of each other.  You will be seeing the same scenery, just from a slightly different perspective. 

Now the BUT!  IMO there is considerably less visual attraction to the new locks... missing are the locks locomotives (mules) that assist in your passage through the locks, your ship is tightly packed into the lock chamber with only inches to spare on each side, to me the lock gates opening and closing seems more dramatic.  By that I mean the way the gate halfs open and close at the original locks compared to the rolling gates at the new locks.  You also have the opposite lane to watch and see and compare their progress.  The fill and spill operations at the new locks take a little more time and are slightly less apparent.

None of the above is meant to minimize the new locks, only to point out there are fewer things to focus on.  I am sure your engineer partner would still find it interesting whichever locks you decide on. 

You will actually see very little of the original locks and even less of the new locks.  While the RR runs on the edge of Gatun Lake for a good portion of the transcontinental trip, glimpses of the Canal are at a considerable distance.  There is about a 5 mile stretch near the town of Gamboa where the RR runs along side the main Canal channel and then crosses the Chagres River which is the primary water source for the Canal.  Views of the original locks are brief and are on the Pacific side where you will get a quick look of Miraflores and Pedro Miguel Locks.

The train trip is pleasant as much of the trip is over fairly remote areas, however I think the main attraction here is the historical significance of traveling on the first and quickest transcontinental railroad.

Often times this tour is one way by train and the other way by bus.  How it operates depends on the number of people on the excursion and where they need their equipment after the excursion.  There are times when the excursion is operated as a round trip via rail.  However if you are on the train/bus version you will want to pick the "correct" side in order to maximize your views of the Canal.  The "incorrect" is not what you would call a wasteland, but you won't have a good view of what you came to see.

The research department was up pulling an all nighter,😉!  The official beam of the Explora is 107.5' and the limit for the original locks is 105.9.  As a result the Canal classed her as a NeoPanamax.

Just now, Sunshine3601 said:

I edited my post right after I submitted....had a brain fart😁

Plus the current cruise has stopped at several foreign ports before their return to a US port

I left out distant, which is what makes a cruise eligible to transport passengers between two US ports.  The post has been editied.

5 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

What violation if they dock at Norfolk instead of Baltimore?   

They have transported passengers from one US port to another US port without having visited a distant foreign port.  The powers that be can waive that in cases such as this.

I think we have an enigma wrapped in a conundrum in this case!  I certainly don't have any real knowledge on why she would use the new locks since her dimensions would easily allow her to use the original locks.  My first thought was perhaps for Canal convenience, but I don't think that is the case.  Perhaps there was an overhang or other protrusion that would better suit using the new locks, but from the pictures I can't find anything on the ship that would create this need.  The only other thing I can come up with is perhaps the location of her deck machinery, (winches etc.) does not lend itself for hauling the locomotive cables aboard.  It may have been more practical just to handle the tug hawsers as opposed to loco cables.

I'll snip a pic and send it my contact who is a tug captain and maybe he can shed some light 

17 hours ago, SakeDad said:

Thanks. We are looking at other places to be ex-pats in. We were in Vallarta for 3 years before its started to get overbuilt and expensive. So this cruise is a possible check on that.

While a number of ex pats live around Panama City, I think you will find a large portion of them that live in that area live in sections of the old Canal Zone.  The areas of the old Canal Zone would include the civilian communities such as Balboa, LaBoca, Los Rios and Cardenas.  There is also a lot of ex pats living in the former US Military areas such as Albrook, Howard and Ft. Clayton.  Ft. Clayton is now known as Ciudad de Saber.

Also very popular with the ex pat community are the beaches starting about 50 miles up on the Pan American Highway at Gorgona, Coranado, Rio Mar and Santa Clara to name a few.  Another favorite spot would be in the Chiriqui highlands much further up the PA Hwy in Boquete.  Much cooler temps since it is about 5000' and up.

If you really want to get to minimum development and maybe even a wee bit on the exotic side, have a look at Bocas del Toro near the Costa Rican border on the Atlantic coast.  Of course it will take much more than a day to track down the places I have mentioned.

3 minutes ago, Cru1s1ng2009 said:

 

I dont, sorry. will see if i can get info. 

His name is Sal Mercagliano (may misspelled last name).  He is a former licensed merchant mariner now a college prof.  He has a YT channel What's Going on with Shipping.

Rather two very different ways to spend the day.  Monkey island would take you out to Gamboa where you board a small craft for the trip to the "Island". the trip would include traveling the main shipping channel of the Canal for a fair part of the trip.  It certainly would be seeing that part of the Canal from a completely different perspective.  With any luck you might pass a ship or two.

The Hop On/Off does cover many of the interesting areas to visit such as Miraflores Locks, Casco Antiguo, the Bio-museum as well has you will get to see some of the City.

Hard to recommend, but the Bus tour might give you a broad overview of Panama City, if that is something that interests you.