Sunrise was at 3:01 am and the pilot came on board at 5:00 am. We arrived in Kiel at 6:00am and 124 passengers disembarked to go on a tour to Hamburg. The rest of us stayed on board to enjoy the transit through the canal.
The Kiel Canal, originally called the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal , opened in 1905 and is the world's busiest artificial waterway, surpassing even the Suez and Panama Canals in numbers of ships. The canal is over 60 miles long, 36 feet deep and over 300 feet wide. It costs $19 000.00 for the transit and on average 120 ships go through it daily. Throughout its length , the waterway is crossed by 10 major bridges and one road tunnel. All along the banks, there are parks and sports grounds which enable vacationers ashore to enjoy "ship watching" as part of their holiday. Ship traffic is carefully monitored and controlled by traffic lights. It will take us 10 hours to complete the transit. It is a sunny day with a high of 70 F.
If you turn on the Ocean Princess Bridge Cam you might be able to see the ship passing through the canal. Click here for the bridge cam.
Edited to include 2 more pictures....
No comments:
Post a Comment