Tendering in Gatun Lake for partial transits

[Essiesmom]

Since some folks seem unsure about how the tours work on a partial transit, today the NCL GEM has been kind enough to give us some pictures of the facility.  Unfortunately, she is not running AIS on her tenders so you can’t see where they are docking on the map…

 

[BillB48]

Many partial transit veterans may recall this location being referred to as the Gatun Yacht Club.  It is still generally known as that today, even though you will notice a distinct absence of yachts.  Actually in its heyday there really were not very many yachts, but it was a favorite watering hole when people lived in Gatun.  At that time most of the Yacht club consisted of the white building that you can easily see in EM's bridge cam shots from the Gem near the center of the picture.

 

I'll take this opportunity to give you a little historical trivia, although I doubt it will pop on any Trivia challenges.  The white X on the picture denotes the approximate location of the first ship to sink in the Canal.  At that point on the bottom lies the wreckage of the SS Brion.  She was not a huge ship by today's standards but she was a little over 200' long.  She was a northbound transit and began taking on water coming across Gatun Lake.  The pilot attempted to beach her in that area, the ship was evacuated and then it slipped from the shore and sank to the bottom.  The Lake is well over a  100' in that location 

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