Panama Canal Cruise 2020 - Day 7 — Captain Father John

Today is a full day at sea so the new activities are at a minimum. This provides an opportunity to address some interesting fun facts that I will share with you.

The name of our small cruise ship is Dumont D’Urville. All six ships in this fleet are named after French explorers. Here is a brief biography of our ships namesake.

Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville - 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. As a botanist and cartographer he gave his name to several seaweeds, plants and shrubs, and places such as d'Urville Island in New Zealand.

After graduation from the French Naval Academy D’Urville was assigned to a ship that was along with almost the entire French Navy, blockaded by the English Navy. This provided him ample time to learn several languages. In this period Dumont built on his already substantial cultural knowledge. He already spoke Latin and Greek and quickly learned to speak English, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Hebrew. During his later travels in the Pacific, thanks to his prodigious memory, he would acquire knowledge of an immense number of dialects of Polynesia and Melanesia. My opinion is that D’Urville had a photographic memory.

After his exploits in the Pacific and Antartica, D’Urville returned to France and a tragic ending.

On 8 May 1842, Dumont and his family boarded a train from Versailles to Paris after seeing water games celebrating the king. Near Meudon the train's locomotive derailed, the wagons rolled and the tender’s coal ended up on the front of the train and caught fire. Dumont's whole family died in the flames of the first French railway disaster, generally known as the Versailles rail accident. Dumont's remains were identified by Pierre-Marie Alexandre Dumoutier, a doctor on board his former ship the Astrolabe. Dumont was buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse in Paris. This tragedy led to the end of the practice in France of locking passengers in their train compartments.

And that is the story of the man for whom this ship was named.

Another fun fact is the cost of transit for pleasure craft in the Panama Canal. The Canal Authority uses the extra space in the locks to fill in with small boats. The total cost for a boat less than 50’ is approximately $2,000. The Canal Authority measurer takes into consideration every inch of the boat including the anchor and dingy davits to try to stretch boats to the 50’ length. Boats 50’ or longer pay an extra $500.

Key Costs:

Transit toll < 50ft, $800; 50ft+, $1,300

Inspection $54

Security $130

Agent $350-500

Line handlers $100/person (or seek volunteers from other transiters)

Lines/fenders $50-$250

Fender return $12

Cruising permit $197

Several of my blog readers are familiar with the exploits of Gabe Viti and his girlfriend Angela. Gabe was determined to circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat. They did not know how to sail so I spent the summer of 2015 teaching them to sail on my sailboat Blue Heaven. They purchased an Island Packet 46 for the circumnavigation. They named their boat Pilar after Ernest Hemingway’s boat.

Priscilla and I sailed with them from Miami to Key West and the Dry Tortugas on a test run.Then we sailed with them on their first leg of their circumnavigation from Miami to Cuba and Jamaica. They transited the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean and are currently in the Mediterranean.

Gabe advises he just sailed from Thailand to Israel. He and Angela will spend two years cruising the Mediterranean. I asked him if he joined a convoy to sail past Sudan.

Hello John,

No convoy just Pilar and I had two friends with me. We sailed with great wind all the way until 60 miles south of port Sudan. After that we started the engine because of head winds from the north the water pump broke on the engine and we spent 11 days in Sudan until we got it fixed. Sudan turned out to be a very interesting stop. Very nice people in Sudan and we found a mechanic that was very good. Suez was a lot easier then the Panama Canal because we didn’t have to deal with locks.

Gabriel

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I have been trying to find an explanation for the name of Playa del Muerto. There is no information on the Internet. Not even a Wikipedia page. I asked the naturalists on our ship. Their consensus is that the Pacific current runs close to the beach and drowned sailors would wash up on the beach from time to time. The Embera Indians gave it that name. The naturalists recommended they change the name for PR purposes.

Tomorrow we will arrive in Quepos, Costa Rica. There is a one hour time change to Central time. We will depart the ship at 7:15 am to go horseback riding in the rainforest.

The two captains. Captain Richard of the cruise ship Dumont D’Urville and Captain Father John

Gabriel Vita and Angela in Havana, Cuba on the first leg of their circumnavigation.

Here is a photo of our fellow cruise ship passengers.

Here is a young Embera girl. She looks like the little girl with the map tattoo from movie Water World.

Captain Richard says he only has two jobs - smile for photos and drive the ship.