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The Panama Canal Tour

This is the post that we couldn’t wait to deliver. Please be patient with the content, as it was difficult to make it all come together. There were 35 pieces of video and a bunch of pictures. We will build the story putting a few of the pictures and about 20 pieces of video throughout to let you all see why this was the pinnacle of our trip. Feel free to visit our u-tube site to see the video that we chose to leave out.

The tour started at Panama City on the Pacific Port of Balboa on the Gulf of Panama. The Panama Canal is 48 miles long and the passage averages 8-10 hours. The average wait time for a ship to enter the canal is 28-30 hours. Our pictures in previous posts, that were shot from our resort, shows the ships lining up to wait their turn. We will be entering the Mira Flores Locks with the ship pictured above. The canal runs north to south from 4 am to 12 pm, south to north from 12 pm to 8 pm, and smaller ships pass in both directions during the night. We were one of the last boats going north. Panama Canal Tour 1 The videos are short and have a bit of narration. When any boat enters the canal it will be boarded and piloted by a boat pilot from the canal authority. According to our guide, these pilots have an average salary of $500,000 per year. Once the pilot enters a vessel a red and white flag will fly indicating that it is being piloted by the canal authority.  Panama Canal Tour 2.  After our pilot entered the boat we waited for a large container ship to pass. Panama Canal Tour 3. Off to the west we can see Panama City. Panama has about 4 million residents with 2 million of them residing in Panama City. The city ranks 3rd in the Americas for skyscrapers per square mile. New York and Chicago have more. We are going to let a dry goods carrier pass next. In the video you can see the bridge over the Pan American Highway. This highway extends about 40 km further to the south where it ends in dense jungle. The jungle is too dense for the highway to continue. Going north it ends at mile marker 1 in Anchorage Alaska. If you were to drive north from Panama City to Los Angeles it would take 9 days going 40 miles per hour with no stops. Panama Canal Tour 4  Panama Canal Tour 6 . The US Coastguard protects the south end of the Panama Canal to control drugs from South America Panama Canal Tour 7 . We are waiting to enter the first lock of the canal. Notice in the video that there is a cruise ship in the first lock just ahead. Panama Canal Tour 8 . We will enter the Mira Flores Lock with the ship in front of us. The Mira Flores lock is the first of 2 locks that will take us up. Mira Flores has 2 chambers that will each take us up about 27 feet each. Panama Canal Tour 9 . Once inside the lock the door will close and water will be fed into the chamber raising us about 3 feet per minute. The lock doors were made by US Steel in Pittsburgh. Each door weighs 60 tons and is assembled with rivets, not welded. Panama Canal Tour 10 . Panama Canal Tour 11 . The ship that we will share the lock with is in the next video. It was led into the lock by tug and tied down. You will see the mules that guide the ship during the time in the lock. There is less than 2 feet on each side of the ship. The mules keep it from floating against the chamber walls. This ship requires 4 mules; 2 in front and 2 in the back. Panama Canal Tour 12 . The Mira Flores locks took us up to the level of Mira Flores Lake. Mira Flores Lake provides about 30 percent of the water supply for Panama City. We have crossed the lake and we are about to enter the Pedro Miguel Locks. Pedro Miguel has one chamber that will take us up about 31 more feet to the level of Gatun Lake. Panama Canal Tour 13 . Panama Canal Tour 14 . Just past the Pedro Miguel Locks we are passing the 2nd bridge which crosses the canal. The Centennial bridge is one of only 2 that cross the canal. We will see a 3rd bridge later that is under construction. Just past the Centennial Bridge we began the 7-3/4 mile trip through the Culebra Cut. This is the part of the canal that caused the French to abandon the project. They were unable to excavate through the mountains and jungle due to problems controlling the dynamite and disease. Malaria, Yellow Fever, and blasting killed around 5600 workers before the completion of the canal. The United States took over the project in 1904 and completed it in 1914. The pictures below are the best we got of the Culebra Cut. This is the narrow portion of the canal. The narrow pass commands constant maintenance due to erosion.

Panama Canal Tour 15 . Last year the Panama Canal opened an expansion to accommodate the Panamax ships. On the south end of the canal the new locks are called the Cocoli Locks and on the north end of the canal they are the Agua Clara Locks. We did not get pictures of the new locks, however we saw some Panamax ships along the way. Panama Canal Tour 16  . Following the exit of the Juan Miguel Locks we traveled for more than 3 hours across Gatun Lake. The lake is about 15 miles of the canal passage, and covers about 180 square miles. It is the passing zone for the larger ships. We got a lot of pictures of the big ships, but the trip across was rather boring. The enclosed ship pictured is carrying 15000 automobiles. These ships pay in the neighborhood of $200,000 for passage through  the canal.

 

 

Gatun Lake was formed by creating a dam across the Chagres River and flooding the valley. The lake took 7 years to fill. The Dam provides hydro electric power, which is the energy source for the canal. It is positioned near the Gatun locks, which is the last set of locks as we exit out to the Atlantic Ocean. Panama Canal Tour 17 . As we moved toward the Gatun Locks, we learned that we would be going in to the lock ahead of the big ship that we had passed through the locks with earlier. The next video shows us slipping in ahead of it. The Gatun Locks are the locks that will take us back down to sea level so that we can continue out to the Atlantic. Panama Canal Tour 18  . Once we entered the lock the big ship slipped safely in behind us. Panama Canal Tour 19 . The final video provides an interesting perspective looking out at the last lock chamber and the Atlantic. If you look carefully you can see the construction of the Atlantic Bridge. Panama Canal Tour 20 .

The tour was packed with interesting facts about the canal. Every passage of the canal requires a toll. The lowest toll ever paid was 36 cents. It was paid by Richard Halliburton who paid it to swim the canal in 1928. He had to be escorted by snipers to kill the alligators that were a danger to him. Today swimming is not allowed in the canal. The dense rain forest surrounding the canal protects it and provides an accessible habitat where native Central American plants and animals can be observed. It took more than 30,000,000 pounds of explosives to clear the way for the canal.

We hope you have found the Panama Canal Tour interesting. Please continue to follow our blog as we prepare to spend this winter in Panama. There will be no shortage of great information to share. As always, comments, likes, and shares are greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

               

Indigenous Dance Show

Friday we were allowed back on the beach and in the pool area after the tropical storm had moved on up the coast. In the morning we checked out the low tide. The Pacific Ocean has extreme tidal activity compared to our experiences in the Caribbean.

As I mentioned in the previous post we were able to relax and soak up some sun. It was windy and we did not realize how strong the sun was. Jen got a little more sun than she would have liked. Thank God for SPF70.

On Friday night we were privileged to see a live show from a team of dancers in original costumes of Panama. The evening was filled with the great company of our travel buddies and great local Panamanian cuisine. Following dinner we were treated to a great dance show. My ability to get good pictures was affected by the lighting, but I wanted to share a couple of images and a video. The masks and costumes were amazing.        Indigenous Dance video

Our travel buddies were awesome. We have traveled with these two couples for several years. The Panama vacation experience would not have been the same without having had them with us. This trip came straight from our bucket list, and was an awesome way to spend our anniversary. We hope that they will not be upset that we found a place in the blog for them. I seem to remember telling them that we would keep them off the internet. Thank-you Ray and Diane Barber & Ron and Linda Tyler for spending this special vacation with us. All four of you were great sports.

In our next post we will share our Panama Canal tour. We wrapped up our week in Panama with a full excursion from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The tour took around 12 hours and we got a lot of pictures and video. Please continue to like, share and check back often.

What happened to that Panama blog?

Truth be known, the last 3 days of our vacation were packed morning to night with adventure. We took 4 gigs of photos and video which caused me a great deal of grief during the download process. All of this is part of the “learning curve”. I have spent the last couple of days organizing the media and storing it on an auxiliary drive because it overloaded my computer. Our goal has been to deliver only original high quality material here. We made the decision to go silent rather than try to just post something. Enough of all that. Let me tell you about how we spent our Thursday…

Panama Hat
The hat with the slightly inconsistent stitch size was fine with me.

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#PanamaGreg
…For those who were paying attention to the weather in Panama, or our Facebook posts, Thursday morning we woke up to a Tropical Storm Warning. The beaches and pools were closed. We enjoyed a great breakfast with our travel buddies and decided to take a shopping excursion to Panama City. What a great time we had. Communication outside the resort was problematic, but we managed to find some terrific things to buy. It was my lucky day. I was able to speak enough Spanish to learn about how to choose a Panama Hat. The more consistent the stitch size the higher the price. Being the financially responsible individual that I am, my hat is on the lower end of the price range of $50-$250. I chose the hat that I liked the best, regardless of the consistency of the stitching.

The day ended with another great meal at the resort and cards with our travel buddies. We were hoping for better weather on Friday, which we got. Tropical Storm Nate moved on up the coast of Central America and out into the Gulf of Mexico where it turned into a Hurricane. One of Jen’s friends accused me of being a storm chaser wanna be. With the Tropical Storm behind us, we were able to enjoy the beach and soak up some sun on Friday.  We were all thankful that Panama is never in danger of being hit by a hurricane. We will explore and try to come up with the technical reason for Panama never having been hit by a hurricane in a future post.

Thanks again for following along. If you are liking what you see, please, like and share. Sign up for e-mail updates. We continue to be excited to share.

 

We have found a temporary home in Panama

 

Yesterday was the day of our vacation which we had set aside to look for accommodations during our 2 month stay this winter. February and March are high season here and it is a bit more expensive to rent for 2 months. They like long term rentals of at least a year. There are ways to find short term, but the prices are a bit higher. Jen and I have been communicating with Beth McGuyton  at Try Panama for several months. Beth had our budget and knew our plans. Beth is a real estate professional and found us the perfect condo in budget. We were both relieved to know that we have a great place to live here, while we explore the great country of Panama. She found us a place that met all the “must haves” on our list. We will be on the beach in Coronado about 1 1/2 hours (33 miles) from Panama City. The traffic out of the city is terrible. The infrastructure here is excellent, however there are not enough roads to accommodate all the cars. We are anxious to explore the city while we are here next winter, but have decided to use a guide or public transportation. We will have a rental car for our exploration, but driving in Panama City is best left to the professionals.

Our guide yesterday was Marc Vargas. Marc is one of the professionals, whom I mentioned earlier. Our trip yesterday was mostly business, so we saw only small parts of the city on our way to Coronado. Marc used his knowledge of traffic and travel in Panama to safely deliver us to Coronado. The entire trip Marc was telling us about the Panama Canal, and giving us helpful information for our winter adventure. Marc introduced us to a couple of people here, and took us to a great open air seafood restaurant. We found Marc to be very knowledgeable and capable. We believe that Marc will consider us friends, and continue to be at our service when, and if, we decide to put down roots here in Panama.

It is a blast down here, and we are having a great time sharing our adventure. Please like, share, and join the conversation.

The View
This is the view from our guest room balcony
Lunch with Marc Vargas
Lunch with Marc Vargas
roof view
This is the view of the Pacific from the roof of the condo.

Panama Vacation Day 1

We are just starting day 2 of our Panama vacation. Personally I love to vacation  at all inclusive resorts. The cost seems prohibitive when making the reservation, but when you are there you never have to reach into your pocket for money. I am not going to review our resort other than to say it is nice and we are being well cared for. It is the rainy season here in Panama and the resort is less than 1/3 capacity. We relaxed by the pool most of the day yesterday and it sprinkled for about 2 hours in mid afternoon.

Our resort is close enough to the Panama Canal that we are watching the huge ships line up for miles to await passage. I am impressed by the engineering of this great wonder. On Saturday we will be taking a full passage tour of the canal. I am excited to share what I learn on that trip. I am planning to also share some video and fun facts about the canal. If I Google Panama Canal I get Wikipedia telling me it is about 48 miles long. I am not a big fan of Wikipedia so I will refrain from just regurgitating what it says there in favor of waiting until I can see for myself how it works.

Tomorrow we are planning a trip to Coronado to look for a place to spend part of the winter. Coronado is about 1 1/2 hours west of Panama City on the Pacific ocean. We chose to look there because it is closer to where we think we may ultimately want to live. There are also entire communities of English speaking people. We are working on our Spanish language skills, however we realize that it is a slow process. It is important to the Panamanian people that we try to speak a little Spanish. Our server at dinner last night was very appreciative when I ordered in Spanish. She helped me when I struggled for a word for something, and complimented my effort. I have found at this resort there are many employees who speak no English. I encountered 1 employee yesterday who spoke about as much English as I spoke Spanish. He wanted to have a conversation with me in English so he could work on his English skills. It was amazing, to me, how well we could understand one another. Kudos to you Vladimir! You are a great asset to this resort. While we are in Panama this winter we will be traveling around the interior where there will be less people who speak English so we know that our ability to communicate in Spanish is a must.

Please, remember to like and share our blog. We would love to have some participation here in the way of comments and advice. We are so appreciative of our new friends here in Panama who are joining in and sharing. As we grow and become better at this blogging thing our content will improve. For now it is our hope that you find it entertaining.

 

Our Panama Vacation T minus 1 day and counting.

Well the bags are packed and all our pre-vacation tasks are completed. I have been working tirelessly on this Blog. Nobody said that this would be easy…or cheap. I have read countless books and spent numerous hours trying to make this blog the best it can be. I have to be honest. I am a bit of a perfectionist. That’s probably no secret to some of you. I have spent money on domain, hosting, and all kinds of things to make this great. We plan to fill it with everything anybody would want to know about retiring to Panama, from start to finish. We have plans to publish daily posts, pictures, and video while we are on the ground next week. Pictures will appear here in the daily posts, and the video will be presented via embedded link to U-tube. The U-tube thing is the part that we are most concerned. It link is the 1 thing that seems to be giving me problems.We hope that all of you will be able to connect and see the videos that we post.  All that being said, we have also added a couple of advertiser links. Advertisers will help us cover the cost of getting this whole thing to come together. It is your option to ignore the ads, but we hope that if you find something interesting you will click-through to help cover our costs. In the future the ads you see now, will be replaced in our Blog by only tried and true, “best” based on our own experience.

Some of the best advise I read recently suggested that we invite our readers to comment and share our posts. We will be sharing this entire experience on Facebook (2RetireInPanama@PanamaGreg), Twitter (@PanamaGreg89), Tumblr (panamagreg.tumblr.com), Pinterest (pinterest.com/greg_kitzmiller), and Instagram (panamagreg89). If you prefer to follow us in one of these places, great. We hope, though, that you will sign up to get our e-mail and follow us right here so that we can hear from you right here by way of comment. If you choose not to sign up, please check back often. It is important to Jen and myself that you all will enjoy this experience as much as we do.

The Vacation Countdown Continues

With only 13 days to our vacation in Panama I must apologize for my lack of posts over the past 2 weeks. It turns out that hurricane Irma had different plans for me. I took a trip to Florida to spend some time with my dad who has been hospitalized, and ended up evacuating him to safety from a category 5 hurricane that made a direct hit just north of his home in Florida. During the horrible ordeal we were ultimately safe, but had no internet, TV, or proper healthcare for him. The moral of the story is one of the biggest attractions Panama has for a permanent retirement home, in my opinion, is that there is no risk of being in the path of a hurricane there.  In Panama I will never have to install hurricane shutters again.

Jen and I have both got our clear FBI reports for our visa’s. That process is continuing, and we are gathering the other documentation so that all will be ready for our extended trip in February.  We have also finalized arrangements for a driver/guide to deliver us to Coronado where we are promised a variety of rentals to select from for our stay this winter. We have our reservations for the Panama Canal trip and our excitement is building by the day.

I am feeling good about blasting this  blog out to my mail list, so if this is the first your seeing this, please like and share. I am still having some trouble getting all the social media links to work, but for now it is good. Let us know what you think and respond with suggestions. Ultimately we want this blog to be as exciting for all of you as it  is for us to write. Subscribe below to keep our blog coming to your in box or check back often.

Panama Vacation Countdown beginning

Over the past few days I have been working to get this site ready to go live. I didn’t want to go live with no content, and now I believe that the content is sufficient. Jen and I are on the countdown to vacation in Panama. If you started at the beginning you already know that our vacation is less than a month away and we will be packing a lot of rest and relaxation into our time at the resort. In addition, we will be doing a couple of things to get prepared for our adventure next winter. Yesterday I secured the services of Marc Vargas. He will be picking us up at the resort on October 4th, and take us to Coronado where we will be looking at rentals for our 2 month adventure coming up in February. We are excited to be moving forward with our plans and will be keeping you all dialed in to the whole adventure from start to finish. You may notice that I put links to all the social media at the bottom of the this blog. I am sometimes challenged by electronics so do not judge if all of these are not working exactly right. If you are a big fan of FaceBook, click on the link and join our Face Book group. Twitter, Instagram, etc. should work much the same. Please sign up for our notifications at the bottom by leaving your e-mail address. If you decide that following our adventure isn’t for you you can opt out any time.

Searching for a Rental House

Jen and I have made the decision to search in advance for a house to rent while we are in Panama for our February/March adventure. We have found an excellent agent in Coronado who is going to show us properties while we are on vacation there in October. Our criteria is 2 bedroom, 2 bath with a pool. We want to have plenty of room for visitors. We are trying to stay in a central location so that we can easily travel around to look for our ideal place to retire. We are wanting to be in a more mountainous area near rain forest, but not too far from the beach. Coronado is about an hour from Panama City by car, and is near many American communities. This may prove helpful as neither of us has mastered Spanish. We know from our research that there is fresh seafood available on the beach, and as you travel inland, many markets where we can experience the local fresh fruits and groceries. Being anchored near Coronado seems to be the ideal choice for these and many other reasons. We began our search at http://trypanama.com

The Visa Process update

A couple of days ago I learned that my fingerprint cards were rejected by the FBI. They informed me that my prints were not clear enough or had smears. Oh my…I hope that this is no indication of how this will go. Today I returned to the sheriff’s department to be reprinted. The print tech was awesome. She reprinted me and I got the new prints off to the channeler. Jen’s went through without a hitch. Now we wait for the background checks. We are continuing to plan for our adventure and will do our best to keep this page up to date.