Planned (and Unplanned) Sea Days to Huatulco

After a busy weekend in Panama, Monday was another relaxing day at sea as we made our way toward our next port of call, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. The usual agenda of interesting lectures, topped off by the highlight of the day, for us at least, our friend Jim’s one man play, Character Man. The is an homage to the great character actors of Broadway and Hollywood, and is a tribute to his friend, and mentor, David Byrnes. He finishes with the song “Because I Knew You”, from Wicked, and there were few dry eyes in the Galaxy Theatre, including ours!  

The ship's constant companions during our sea day. These Boobies were flying and
gliding around the bow of the ship so much that the
crew had to clean the windows of Palm Court, and probably
also the Bridge, when we reached the next port.

Our photo from the Crystal Society Party for
this segment

The full World Cruise guests can have their
photo included in an album so that everyone
can recognize each other - and make it easier
to connect names with faces. This is
our photo for the album,

San Juan del Sur was to be a tender stop, as there is no ocean dock. Actually there is not too much of anything in town, which is why our tour Colonial Granada, With Carriage Ride and Cruise, included a three hour round trip bus ride on a bus that may, or may not, have AC, and where ShoreEx described the bathroom breaks as “…few and far between, and can be described as “rustic””!! The things we do to get pictures for the blog!!

As our tour was scheduled to depart at 7:45, we set the alarm for 6:00, the earliest we have been up since before we left home! We awoke to rather a lot of ship movement for being close to a port, and when Larry opened the drapes to the balcony door, his comment was “I don’t think we will be tendering anywhere today!” Low, very close together waves with whitecaps as far as the eye could see and wind strong enough that we could see spray being whipped up off the water. While we were at breakfast the Captain came to announce that we were leaving. The winds were blowing 40 knots, with gusts to 60, and the Pilot told him they were expected to strengthen, way too strong to safely tender. Turning around, we headed off toward our next port Huatulco on an unplanned sea day.

A small boat off the starboard side as we headed into
our anchor location. There was no way that many of our
fellow guests would be able to board a tender in these conditions.

Just after we turned around and headed back out to sea.

Of course, sea days are never a bad thing on Crystal and in short order, Rick and the entertainment team had whipped up a sea day programme, which included Jim’s lecture on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We know from past cruises that onboard lecturers are “contracted” for two or three lectures, depending on the itinerary, but they are also asked to have one or two extra on hand “just in case” for a rainy (or windy) day.

Monica spent some time knitting (almost finished 1 full pair of mitts)
and working on photos for the blog

Jim's lecture on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was very well
received...but then again he'd had a great audience for Character Man
the evening before.

Larry resting his foot on the balcony and reading

At his Noon update the Captain told us that the winds had subsided somewhat and since they were coming from behind us, he expected a smooth sail and we would need 14 knots to arrive in Huatulco on time. This made for a very pleasant afternoon and Monica took advantage to get in additional laps on the Promenade and extra time in the pool. Unfortunately, in doing our ten laps on Friday, Larry, in his brand new running shoes, managed to raise, and break, a rather nasty blister on the back of his left foot and has been unable to wear much other than his Tevas during the day. We did manage to get some good sized bandages from the Medical Centre, which help with shoes in the evening!

 In contrast to Tuesday, we awoke on our “planned” sea day on Wednesday to seas so calm you almost wanted to do a double-take to make sure they were still there!!! There was barely a ripple, and winds, as we found out later at the Captain’s Noon update, of 2 to 4 knots!!! All in all, perfect conditions for another lazy day at sea. And yes, Monica did more laps and swimming. Larry joined her on the first four laps to test out his shoes for the next day’s tour. Dinner was our first visit to Prego, the Italian restaurant where we had a delicious dinner, followed by an early night back in the room, just because that is what we felt like doing. One of the nice things about being on this long is the freedom to not have “to do” everything. The show we missed will be preformed six more times before we leave in Rome, so we can catch it next time, or maybe the time after that!

Sunrise at sea

Sunset at sea

Monica's favourite  Osso Buco at Prego

Thursday morning dawned sunny (again) and hot in Huatulco. This is a very small resort town. According to the Destination Lecturer, the Mexican tourist planning board had intended for the nine bays/beaches in Huatulco to be built into a major destination of 20,000 guest rooms, akin to The Mayan Riviera on the Gulf side, to be completed by 2020. Unfortunately, that has not happened, with only 2,000 rooms built to date, and the Club Med closed and pulled out a year ago. Trying to make lemonade, the tourist authority has now designated five of the nine bays as “ecological preserves” and hope to re-brand Huatulco as an “eco-destination”.

Arrival at Huatulco. The early morning sunlight gave everything
a gorgeous glow.

Our tour was “A Hands-on Mexican Cooking Class”, which has absolutely nothing to do with putting your hands on a Mexican!! After a short bus ride, we arrived at Clio’s Restaurant on the next bay over. A few days prior we had been advised that the original restaurant planned for the demo had to be changed as the chef had a health emergency, so we were not sure what to expect. After breaking into smaller groups, over the next 90 minutes we made our own lunch of Tortilla Soup and Red Snapper a la Veracruz. The snapper was poached on a bed of tomatoes, bell and jalapeno peppers, onions and garlic, and it was delicious and very filling! We found out afterwards that while our Paris-trained Chef Maria had very recently started offering cooking classes, this was only the second one she had ever done. Could have fooled us!

Our cooking station setups

and our selection of ingredients

Larry spent most of his time behind the cookplate

while Monica 'sliced and diced'.

Chef Maria checking out progress with the soup

The snapper just after the fish went into the sauce; and our
almost-finished soup

The plated result of our toils

The restaurant is in a beach club that services many of the
condos in the area.

A view across to one of the condo apartment buildings

We ended up being almost half an hour late getting back from the ship and they virtually pulled the gangway in behind us and we set sail for our next port, Cabo San Lucas, arriving late Saturday afternoon for an overnight visit.

The view over Huatulco Bay and the marina

We didn't have time to stop and shop, but it only
takes a couple of seconds to snap a photo!

More of the local 'rooms with a view' as we
pulled away from the pier.

As we had had a larger lunch than usual, we decided to try to get seats at the Sushi Bar at Umi Uma for dinner. That way we could have as much or as little as we wanted.

Seafood ceviche

Seared tuna on a bed of pesto

Rock shrimp and Vegetable tempuras

One of the chefs preparing sushi rolls

Thursday evening was the ‘White Nights’ dance party for this segment. It is quite a popular event, with the Crystal Show Band taking over the Cove for a couple of hours. We’ll have more photos as we have more ‘White Nights’ along the way.

Violinist Irina performing during the
White Night event

Two Days in Panama

One of the highlights of this cruise, the segment from Miami to Los Angeles, and the reason many people chose it is the transit of the Panama Canal. In operation for over 100 years, it is still an engineering marvel. Even people who have been through the canal numerous times, like 20, were still running around with cameras to watch the process.

We arrived at the entrance to the canal channel on time – before 7 a.m., so we hadn’t gotten up yet – and once the line crew, Atlantic pilot and commentator were on board, began the 8 hour transit. The Panama Canal is the only place in the world where a ship’s captain relinquishes control of his vessel to somebody else; but these pilots are highly trained and highly skilled to be able to guide ships of all sizes through the locks, Gatun Lake and the Gaillard Cut.  That doesn’t mean that a ship doesn’t acquire a few ‘Panama Canal racing stripes’ as Larry describes them…we noticed that Serenity had a few black scuff marks that weren’t there when we left Miami. But then again, she is what is considered Panamax in the original canal – about 965 feet in length and 106 feet wide. The locks are 110 feet wide and 1050 feet long, so we didn’t have much leeway.

Here are some photos of the transit through the 3-level Gatun Lock which takes a ship a total of 87 feet above the level of the Atlantic Ocean/Caribbean Sea.

The pilot boat arriving with our line crew and canal pilot

All ships are accompanied by tugboats

The shoreside lights that were installed in the 1960s to allow 24-hour
operation of the canal are also favourite perches for the pelicans

As are the trees

Arriving at Gatun Lock. The mules are only used to
keep vessels centered in the lock; they don't provide any
power to move them.

The Regent Seven Seas Mariner in Lock 1 as we are in Lock 3; and
a Panamax auto carrier going the other way.

The lighthouse was probably originally used so ships coming from the
lake could find the locks; now they use range markers like the black
and white one further along, and electronic navigation aids.

As the ship rose in Lock #3, our lead photographer, Neil,
who was taking photos of the ship, and all of us, had to get to the
pilot boat that picked up the Atlantic side line crew so he
could reboard the ship.

For the first time, we have a photo of us during the
canal transit.

Mules guiding a bulk carrier into the lock

Once we were through the locks, we were in Gatun Lake, the largest man-made lake in the world. The lake was created by placing a dam on the Chagres River, a few miles upriver from the Caribbean Sea. This is the largest earthen dam in the world. The water from the lake supplies the locks with the water to raise and lower the ships in the Gatun Lock as well as the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks on the Pacific side.

All sorts of cargo comes through the canal. This ship is carrying some
kind of dangerous substance, as it is painted bright orange.

These little islands used to be hills before the Chagres River was
dammed and Gatun Lake created.

Another Panamax ship. The largest ones used to carry about 5,000 containers,
now with the new locks, neo-Panamax ships can carry up
to 15,000 of them.

What a nice way to spend a very hot and humid day.

On the right side you can see the channel running to the new larger
locks.

The special destination lecturer on board for this segment was Dick Morgan, who had been the General Services Director of the Panama Canal Commission for the last years of US administration, up to December 31, 1999, when the canal operations were turned over to Panama. He spoke of the general trepidation about the future of the canal at that point, because of the disasters that happened as other infrastructure, like the railroad and the ports, had transferred to the old political regime. Panama now has much more stable government, but the Panama Canal is run as an autonomous arm, with its own constitution and a board of directors that includes representation from all stakeholders and canal users. Some would suggest that the Chinese are running the Canal, but this is not true. There are Chinese port management companies running the ports at Colon and Balboa, both ends of the Canal, but they are not involved in the Canal operation itself. The Canal Authority keeps the government from trying to meddle by providing the economy with about $1.5 billion US per year, most of which goes to social programs, education and medical care. The canal has been a real success story, as the recent expansion was done entirely under the direction of the Panama Canal Authority and may be one of the few projects of its size in the world that actually was completed with a cost overrun of less than 10%!

Once through Gatun Lake, a ship enters the Gaillard Cut. This was the hardest section of the canal to build, as it goes through the Continental Divide, which is made up of multiple types of rock, all of which was used to build the Chagres River dam.

Approaching the Gaillard Cut

This is the Continental Divide

The 2-stage Miraflores Lock. The last ones before the Pacific. The
big orange building is the Visitor Centre

The lock gates are immense

Our mule guide leading us to the last lock

You don't have to be a big ship to transit the canal.
There have been kayaks, canoes and even a swimmer
many years ago who paid 35 cents to swim
the whole canal.

Birds of all types hang around the canal. This one looks like
a vulture cooling off on the light standard.

The downward leg of the canal into the Pacific Ocean is done in two stages; the Pedro Miguel is a single stage lock and the Miraflores is a two-stage. The reason for this separation is that, as they began excavation for the locks, engineers discovered that there is a fault line running along the divide, just where they were digging. They weren’t sure what the effects of each on the other would be, so they decided to move one of the lockages further along the channel.

We had thought we would be going all the way out into the Pacific and toward Panama City, but we were quite surprised when we suddenly turned sideways to the channel just before we reached the Bridge of the Americas, and started backing up! Where the heck was Captain Vorland taking us???

We were spending the night in the Port of Balboa; not the most exciting spot, but as he explained later, chosen so that we would not have to tender for the Panama City tours the next day. Which was a rather good idea, since the tender ride would otherwise have been quite long. We saw Emerald Princess sitting far offshore as we toured the next day, and were happy to only have a 20 minute bus ride from the port.

Our view of the Bridge of the Americas and the Port of Balboa

Looking back toward the locks

An LNG (liquid natural gas) carrier passes by just as the
sun sinks behind the hills.

In the evening, we had a small dance group come on board for local entertainment. The dances didn’t seem to change much, nor did the music, and there was no explanation of the meaning of the dance, if any. But the ladies’ dresses were very pretty!

We finally left the ship on a tour on Sunday. We were going to see the Colonial heritage of Panama City and also go to the Miraflores Visitor Centre, to watch lock operations from the land side.

Our first stop was the Visitor Centre, just in time to see a couple of tour boats enter the lock. These were very similar to the one we were on when we were last here with Norm and Barb on Princess. The ship only went to Gatun Lake and then back out to the Caribbean, so we did a tour to complete the transit.

A map in the museum showing the area with the new
2016 locks. Gatun Lake was actually made a little deeper, therefore
larger, when the locks were opened.

Our next stop took us all the way back into the early history of the earliest Spanish settlement of Panama in 1519. What is left of it now, ruins of the stone walls of various monasteries and convents and a whole village around them, was originally scheduled to be destroyed to build high rise towers, but UNESCO intervened and has named it a World Heritage Site. This is Panama Viejo, which was ultimately burned down as privateer Captain Henry Morgan (of Captain Morgan Rum fame….or is it the other way around?) looted for all the gold and silver he could find in 1671. The best story we heard about this time was one where a number of priests duped Morgan by covering their prized golden altarpiece with coats of mud because they didn't have time to take it down and hide it. ‘Gold? What gold?’ they asked when he came looking for it. ‘Do you see any gold shining here?’ They must have done a really good job, because he left, and their golden altar was saved. It is now in one of the churches in colonial Panama City.

Walking along the ruins, we could see skyscrapers on both sides. It
looks like there's no water here because the tide was out at the time
and the whole bay was empty.

Ruins of one of the monasteries in the old settlement.

Another of our feathered friends - a green parakeet.

Another monastery ruin

Then we went into the city and walked through some colonial period streets to the Plaza de la Catedral, the place where Panama gained its independence from Spain in 1821.

The ubiquitous Panama Hat, which of course originated in
Ecuador, but got its name because they were worn during
the building of the canal.

Some local crafts made of beads and grasses.

A quilt made of local animal patterns

Whimsical animal carvings

One of the bodegas of bougainvilleas in a plaza.

The Metropolitan Cathedral was consecrated as a Basilica by Pope John Paul II in 2003, 100 years after Panama became independent from Colombia. It is impressive inside, but we didn’t spend much time there as there was a service taking place at the time. The bells in one of the two bell towers came from the original 1519 bell tower at Panama Viejo and the shiny decoration in the towers is all mother-of-pearl. It is a very beautiful building inside and out.

The Central Hotel Panama has a history of being the place where foreign officials would stay when they visited Panama. It's colonial style inside is just gorgeous, but apparently not the way it was supposed to be when the hotel was renovated a few years ago. Unfortunately, during the restoration, somebody pulled a wrong piece out of a floor at the wrong time, and much of the building collapsed around it...But it certainly turned out to be a lovely respite from the heat outside.

As we walked around the area, we also came upon another ruined church, the Church and Convent of Santo Domingo. This was burned in a fire in 1756 and was never rebuilt, but it is a testament to the engineering of the time with its flat arch. Even as a ruin, it had withstood a number of earthquakes over the years, but did fall in 2003. It has been rebuilt, and the ruins are now being used as an event venue.

We sailed at about 6:30, having had to wait for a break in the canal traffic, and finally sailed under the Bridge of the Americas.

An even bigger LNG carrier than the one we'd seen on Saturday. It
looks like it will just fit under the bridge!

The evening show was by a group called Vox Fortura, four opera-trained singers who had wowed the judges on Britain’s Got Talent a few years ago with their mixture of opera, pop and show music. We had seen them on Serenity before, and their show was just as good this time.