June 29-July 2 -- We arrived in Panamá on the morning of June 29. We didn't actually dock. Instead, we anchored in the bay and tendered in for four days. This means we took power boats into shore; the boats are the lifeboats that also serve as transportation in cases such as this. The crew ran tenders from 7am to 1am every day for four days, which is a strenuous job.
(Photo by Ken Mueller)
The biggest problem was the rough seas in this area. When we first arrived in the bay, the ocean currents had the boat rocking pretty hard, more so than we had even on the high seas. This made tendering difficult, because it is hard to line up a platform on a rocking ship with a tender that is also rocking. There was a lot of bouncing involved. Getting out of the boat at the dock was ok, but getting into the tender when leaving the ship and out of it upon return were sometimes very difficult.
I should note that the climate of this country is usually hot and humid. We were told that they have three months of "cool" weather (Nov., Dec., and January), and the rest of the year, it's hot and rains all the time. The environmental sciences professor, José Fuentes, tells us that the central area of Panamá gets the most rainfall of any place on earth. It was quite stormy the day we arrived, and it took from 7am to almost noon to get the people going on the first field trips off the ship and to shore. They had to stop a couple of times because the weather was making it impossible to get onto the tenders. A couple of times (that I saw - I think it happened fairly frequently) the boat got under the tendering platform and bounced the platform into the air on the next wave, along with any passengers and crew that happened to be standing there. Luckily, as far as I know, no one fell into the water.
(Photo by Kerri Gatti)
The most famous feature of Panamá is the Panamá Canal. On my field trips, I visited the Miraflores Locks and the Gatún Locks, and watched ships move through them. Very impressive. I also took a trip to Portobello, which was a Spanish town in the 16th century. This was where the Spanish sent all their gold to wait for the annual treasure ship that took it all back to Spain. Of course, it was attacked many times by pirates and privateers, so there were 3 forts to protect it (not always successfully); we toured two of those forts' remains. Then we went to Colon on the Atlantic coast and boarded the Panamá Railway to go back to Panamá City. This railway is on the same route that the Americans put it in 1914 to help finish the canal and goes over Gatún Lake and through the tropical rainforest as it crosses the Isthmus. It only takes 50 minutes to cross from the Atlantic to Pacific at this spot.
I'm sure most of the students enjoyed the country. A lot of them seem to like to travel independently, and a lot of them travel on the ISE-arranged field trips. They are learning a lot about what it means to be in another country and how to be self-sufficient.
We were told that ships are charged varying rates to go through the canal (the largest ships pay upwards of $230,000 for one transit), which is payable no later than 48 hours before the transit in cash or electronic bank transfer. As you may guess, this generates a lot of income for Panamá. Last year the Canal brought in more than $500 million, but much of it goes to pay down international government debts incurred in the 1940s and 1950s. (This, we were told, is the reason more money doesn't go toward the infrastructure of the country.)
We were also told about the "new canal" which was just approved by national referendum and is planned to be completed by 2014 (the 100th anniversary of the completion of the first Canal). This new construction will add a third set of channels and locks that will be large enough to accommodate the "post-PanaMax" ships, i.e., the ones that will not fit in the current locks. More information about the future of the Canal can be found at the official website www.pancanal.com.
(Photo by Ken Mueller)
However, the Canal, though it is the most lucrative business in Panamá, is not the only business in Panamá. We were informed that Panamá is fast becoming a center of international banking, with 129 banks in Panamá City alone. The business center of the City is full of skyscrapers, right on the beach, and although it is a little smaller, it looks much like Miami from a distance.
We left Panamá on the evening of July 2nd, although when we got up the next morning, we discovered that we hadn't really left. The captain decided to refuel (or bunker) at the last minute, so we sat in the harbor and waited for a fuel ship to deliver and load the fuel. We finally left Panamá about ten a.m. on the 3rd.