09 October 2011; Panama Canal.

Well, the day started a lot earlier than expected as at 01.45 the Lady Navigator of the 12 to 4 watch hung on the phone with the exciting news that the Canal authorities wanted to change our (originally approved) ETA. Nothing new here, it happens all the time. So instead of being there at 04.15 we were now looking asked to be there at 04.00 at the latest. There is not much you can do about it. If you say no, you run the fair risk that you are then scheduled near the end of the convoy and that means that you are out late; and that means that you might be late for the next port. Not something I really wanted to contemplate so my answer was yes and gave orders to crank the ship up to a higher speed. By 3 am. I was on the bridge for the final approach and to do the drifting near the sea buoy while the ship was being cleared. While listing to the VHF, I heard that the Statendam was not the only one being pushed forward. Flamingo Signal Station, which is the call centre on the pacific side, was also exhorting the Celebration Infinity and the Zuiderdam to arrive earlier. In hindsight it turned out that they were trying to get the fast passenger ships in, ahead of the slow cargo ships. A noble gesture but they did not announce it as such. Most likely not as otherwise a lot of noise would be generated by the various cargo ship captains at anchor and who were also all very eager to get through the canal, but were seeing the cruise ships go first. By 03.45 I let the Statendam slowly drift inbetween the other ships at anchor, which was quite a challenge as there was a not-forecasted wind of 22 knots blowing. The Statendam likes to drift on the wind and with a lot of wind it starts to gather speed quite quickly. This is the case with most modern cruise ships, 3 to 4 knots sideways is not unusual and the S-class ships are among the best with their low draft and great height ratio.

While drifting around we went through the whole routine of getting cleared.

Boat 1: agent, narrator and supplies. 04.00

Boat 2: Fumigator and canal technician 04.10

Boat 3: First Pilot 04.30 Now we had to wait for the ship ahead of us in the convoy. He was on the way by 04.45 with the clearing officer still on board. Luckily we were allowed to follow him and by 05.15 we passed the sea buoy, which indicates the start of the canal

Boat 4: Clearing officer 05.30 on board and by 06.00 we were cleared and he was off.

Boat 5: 2nd & 3rd Pilot 06.15

Boat 6: Panama Canal crew. 06.30

We had been scheduled for the first locks at 06.15 and we were now running behind schedule but luckily the cargo ship ahead of us was a fast one, so we could keep the speed up between locks and gain time. In the end we managed to get out of the Canal by 14.20 which was 45 minutes ahead of schedule. So our transit had taken in total 9 hours. That is not bad at all. Although for the guests the central section of the transit is of the same length, it is the beginning and the end of the transit where the delays normally take place.

With the Infinity about 1 hour behind us and the Zuiderdam around 2, we left Panama behind us and set course for Cartagena. Here all three ships were supposed to arrive at the same time. To avoid all of us docking at the same time, I am going to arrive at least an hour earlier, so I know that I will have the ship cleared on arrival and the tours dispatched on time. Tomorrow should be another good day, with partly cloudy skies and a gentle breeze from the South West.

Below a nice photostudy of the ship in the Canal by our hotelmanager Bert van Mackelenbergh.