Lover of Wine – Travel along on our adventures – DAVID & JANEEN

After leaving Aruba, we motored along the north coast of Venezuela getting read to enter the “cue” for the Panama Canal transit. It took the better part of a day and a half to get from Aruba to Colon the entrance to the Canal.

The main reason to take our cruise in January was to transit the Panama Canal. Sure, it was enjoyable to visit Aruba and be entertained by the on-board activities, but the highlight was clearly the Canal. In anticipation of this adventure we both read David McCullough’s book The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 first published in 1978. This book tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year old dream of construction an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Our passage through the Canal was early morning – really before sunrise but that didn’t stop most of the passengers from being out to view the process.

Having been on a number of river cruises that had to pass through various locks on rivers, the canal passage wasn’t as amazing as it might have been. Sure the size of the ship was significantly bigger but the system operates just the same.

We arrived at the first lock at 5:45 and began the process. I’m guessing our Captain  has done this kind of thing before so it went very smoothly. Transit through the first lock took about 45 minutes – most of that time taken up by the inflow of the water to raise the ship. Overall the ship was lifted some 85 feet from sea level and by 7:30 we were through both locks and on Gatun Lake.

This man made lake was the largest man made lake when it was created – 164 square miles. Covering approximately 21 miles of the transit between the seas, it is staging space for ships waiting passage through the locks. We were required to anchor for several hours until our time slot for the next part of the journey.

Once back underway we passed through the Culebra Cut.

This area required one of the most difficult construction challenges: excavating the Culebra Cut through the continental divide to connect Gatun Lake to the Pacific Panama Canal locks. Seen from the deck of the Pacific Princess it’s amazing to think how much mountain had to be removed to create the passage.

Once through the cut it was a quick transition to the Pacific side locks and we were underway.

We passed through the final sections and into the Pacific Ocean by mid afternoon.

Overall the transit took about 10 hours and was a wonderful experience.

If you are going to make plans to go through the Canal, I do strongly recommend McCullough’s book. It really gave some wonderful insights into how it was created and the difficulties involved. Today more than 14,000 ships transit the Canal using both the old locks (which we used) and the new larger locks for the bigger ships.

Aruba was our first port of call on our trip through the Panama Canal.

Aruba is a lovely island in the southern Caribbean and still a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is 19 miles off the coast of Venezuela in the west part of the Lesser Antilles. The island measures 20 miles long and 6 miles across at its widest point. Along with Bonaire and Curacao, Aruba forms a group referred to as the ABC Islands.

As a result of its link to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the citizens are all Dutch nationals. Unlike much of the Caribbean, Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape. This climate clearly has helped tourism as visitors to the island can reliably expect warm, sunny weather – and our visit in January was certainly was beautiful.

Early human presence on Aruba dates back to as early as circa 2000 BC. The first identifiable group, the Arwak Caquetio Amerindians migrated from South American about 1000 AD and there is Archaeological evidence on many parts of the island.

We visited the Ayo Rock Formations – with one area showing rock drawings dating back thousands of years.

The first Europeans to visit the island were from Spain in 1499 – who of course claimed it. The early explorers described Aruba as an “island of giants” as the locals seemed to have a comparatively large stature. Spain began colonizing the island in 1508 and controlled it for the next 100 years or so. The Netherlands seized Aruba from Spain in 1636 in the course of the Thirty Years’ War and it has been under Dutch  control ever since.

With not a lot of resources on the island there wasn’t much industrialization. There are ruins of a gold mine but no active work being done at this time. In the 1920’s two oil refineries were built to process crude oil from the vast Venezuelan oil fields. This brought greater prosperity to the island and it grew to be come one of the largest processors in the world. These closed around 2009. Another industry on the island is Aloe.

First planted on Aruba in 1850, aloes seem to love the desert conditions. With a healthy demand for aloe products, it has become a continuing part of Aruba’s economy. One of our tours was to the Aruba Aloe plant where a new modern facility is active and selling a number of Aloe products in their gift shop.

In 1947, Aruba presented its first constitution as an autonomous state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Ultimately the Netherlands Antilles was created that united all of the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean into one administrative structure.

Our visit to the Island included an excursion out and about the island – The Butterfly Farm, Ayo Rock Formations, Aloe Plant and a general overview of the island. As we had some free time before our actual tour, we headed off the ship and walked around the town Oranjestad. Located on the northern end of the Island, it was lovely to walk around, pick up a few post cards and explore. We did find a Starbucks (I was asked to get a coffee mugs for one of Jason’s coworkers) and walked past, but not into, the Casino. We also were able to get a stamp in our passport!

First stop on our tour was the Butterfly Farm (www.buterflyfarm.com).

Started on Aruba in 1999 with hundreds of exotic butterflies from all around the world. Among some of the favorites are the iridescent beautiful Blue Morpho from the rainforests of South America. We started off with an introduction by a

member of the Butterfly Farm Team and learned about all the various examples flying around us in the enclosed area.

Butterflies all around us – landing on us, drinking from the various fruit plates set out for them and generally a lovely environment.

After getting our fill of the beauty of the butterflies, we re-boarded the bus and headed out to Ayo Rock Foundations. It is clear the island is arid – lots of cactus along the way and dry desert plants for sure. The place is so dry they have to import water – and you see lots of rain catching systems on houses to collect what rainfall the do get. Ayo Rock Formations are monolithic rock boulders located around the island mostly on the northern end. While there are a number of areas, the one we stopped to view included an enclosed area with early cave paintings – most likely from about 1000 years ago or so. The boulders have unusual shapes resembling birds and dragons as well as other things we noticed as we traveled along. After visiting the rocks, we went to the Aloe plant.

Located across the street from a major school, and next to a large field of Aloe plants, the Aruba Aloe Company is clearly a going concern.

A demonstration was given on what parts of the Aloe plant are used, how they are processed and what kinds of products are created. The history of the plant, how it’s been part of the Aruba culture for 150 years or so was interesting and filled out the day with a pleasant tour.

Once back to the ship, and everyone on board, we slipped away to continue our adventure towards the Panama Canal.

This past January, we took a Princes Cruise through the Panama Canal.  Our voyage started in Fort Lauderdale, Florida made stops in Aruba, Costa Rica and two stops in Mexico – Puerto Chiapas and Cabo San Lucas before ending the journey in Los Angeles

 This was a much different cruse then we experienced over Thanksgiving on Carnival Cruise – first, this is a small ship, only 650 passengers and didn’t do anything like a round trip cruise as we did in November.  In fact, we boarded the ship on its first leg of an around the world trip lasting 111 days.  Our part of the overall trip was only 15 days so just a small piece of the trip being taken by a lot of the passengers on board.  The entire trip had only the four stops so most time was spent at sea.

We had booked this cruise after a long conversation with our friends Jim and Sally.  They have been on a number of cruises but never on a small ship such as the Pacific Princess.  As a matter of fact, Jim had recommended we try this ship for our Alaska cruise that is scheduled for June.  After we booked that cruise,he started looking at it’s overall itinerary and found the Panama Canal leg of the around the world trip (the ship goes completely around before we re-board it in Alaska in June).  Once he discovered the Panama Transit trip he booked passage and we did too.

Pacific Princes, as I mentioned, is the smallest ship in the Princess Fleet – with 11 decks and is 592 feet long as compared to their other ships with 19 decks and over 1,000 feet long.  The smaller ship still provides many of the same amenities found on the larger ships, specialty restaurants, bar entertainment and cabaret shows, but certainly nothing like the crowds for sure.  Yes, there was a small Casino on board – with various game tables (no craps for some reason) and slot machines but we were not tempted to play.

Our cabin was on deck 7 as was Sally and Jim’s.  We had a nice room with a balcony but we didn’t spend a lot of time in the cabin, as there were things to do and places to explore.  Dining was either in the dining room with wait service on deck 4 (most evenings were there) or in the buffet on deck 9.  Also on deck 9 was the spa (Janeen spent several relaxing hours there) with the pool in the middle.  On deck 10 forward was the Pacific Lounge Bar where we met each evening for an adult beverage before dinner or to just hang out and see the sights.  A nice library and reading room on deck 10 aft was also a quiet place to enjoy the afternoon.  At the opposite end of the ship from the dining room was the Cabaret Lounge with entertainment in the evening and various presentations during the day.  

Our Dinner seating was early, 5:30 or so, and we shared the table with 2 other couples along with Sally and Jim.  One couple – Al and Denise – were on board for the entire adventure of 111 days while the other couple – Ron and Carol  – were getting off with us in Los Angeles.  I would have to say we had a good group of people at our table and really all the people we spoke to seem to be having a good time and enjoying the adventure.  I did speak with one passenger who was on his 10^th around the world cruise (on the same ship!) and he had his grandson with him as his full time caregiver. I’m not certain about going on a cruise for 111 days ,but to do it 10 times seems a bit much ,however if you enjoy it and have the money why not?

Over the next few blogs I will try and give some highlights about the various port of call and of course the adventure of going through the Panama Canal.  Until then, as Rick Steve’s always says, “Keep on traveling”.