PANAMA CITY -- There aren't many things you can reach out and touch over the side of a cruise ship. If you have cruised, you know that even from the lower decks, the water is a long way down.
So it is with disbelief that I lean over the edge of my massive ship and touch the concrete side of the Panama Canal.
A few minutes later, all I can feel is hot, humid air as the ship rises into the sky and once again towers above the water; the canal walls are dozens of feet below.
Everything about the Panama Canal surprises me. I remember learning about the canal in junior high history. The teacher said it was one of the great engineering achievements of all time, was built by the United States (the French had given up), and changed shipping forever.
Eventually, luxury cruises took high-ticket passengers through the canal. The trip became accessible to anyone with a block of vacation time and a modest vacation budget. But it's still not a common trip. If you go, you'll feel you're among a relatively elite few.
Eastbound or west, the transit is phenomenal. However, I'm a purist: I don't believe you can claim to have been through the Panama Canal if you only do a "partial transit," as many cruises do (often round trip from Puerto Rico or Texas). Even if you take a full-transit day trip on a ferry, it isn't the same.
You understand the magnitude of what the canal does only when you begin on one coast of North America and end on the other. My trip started in San Diego and ended 14 nights later in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Today, the largest ships that can fit are called "Panamax," a contraction of "Panama" and "maximum." And my ship, Royal Caribbean's Legend of the Seas , fits that category. Each lock chamber is 1,000 feet long and 110 feet wide . The Legend is 867 feet long ( some Panamax ships are a bit longer ) and 105 feet wide. That's right, only 2 1/2 feet separates each side of the ship from concrete walls.
Before entering the first locks, the helm of the vessel is handed off to a professional pilot who controls the ship from sea to sea. While in the locks, the ship is tied to small railroad locomotives on all four corners -- each of which moves along with the ship, ensuring it doesn't hit the sides of the canal. The ship moves forward under its own power; the locomotives are purely for side-to-side safety. When the ship is ready to change locks, it's fascinating to look down from the stern. With only 60 feet between propellers and lock gates, the screws create quite a churn in the water.
