Friday, November 30, 2007

 

The Panama Canal Challenge


There is one special place along the Panama Canal where it gets so narrow that only one ship can pass at a time; it's called the Gaillard's Cut. We spent a long time trying to find it, without success. The public road ended in a city called Gamboa; but since the canal was hidden behind rainforest most of the time it was probably easy to miss that part. Darkness had fallen and we had no choice but to give up for the first of our two day's stay in Panama (in fact we had long found the Gaillard's Cut, but it looked too different from all the pictures we had seen!).



Gamboa is only accessible by crossing a one-way bridge; this means there is traffic lights at each end and you have to wait half an eternity until you get a go signal to cross the bridge. Bridges are often built over water, aren't they, and when you cannot kill yourself by jumping off, then there usually aren't any fences! Hmm …
We had a look at the surroundings and discovered a parking lot right next to the canal. Entrance prohibited! There was kind of a shed; the sign over the door read something like Canal Authority Electronics Department. If you crossed the tracks of the Panama Canal's own railway company you stood right next to the water – no fence! We couldn't see much in the dark but decided to return the next day and give it a try. None of us had a good feeling; all of this smelt like big trouble.

The next day it was raining cats and dogs. In the early afternoon we decided to drive to the place we'd found the evening before and to wait for a rain break. So we drove there and waited, and waited, and waited … Despite the camera problem (condensing air humidity, see last post) we had to activate the A/C from time to time in order to not drown inside the car because of the moisture. Really, it was so bad we felt like in a Turkish steam bath! There were times when the rain got lighter, but then it started to pour again.

We don't know how long we had to wait, but in the late afternoon the rain had finally become a drizzle. After a look into grey skies we were convinced it wouldn't get any better; either we pulled off the stunt now or never!
The original idea from months ago had been to find the Gaillard's Cut, position on top of the hill and wait for a cool ship. Today we were happy if it didn't rain, to say nothing of a ship! Like mentioned in the last post every vessel is accompanied by a patrol boat; in other words: If you wait for a ship the mission is over before it starts!

Of course we waited for a ship. :-) However, we let it pass so it wasn't too obvious for the guys on board that an aircraft was flying over the canal. In addition we kept the heli low over the water so it was even harder to spot against the dark backdrop. Very unfortunately we got another problem with the video camera and thus had to do a quick landing. By the time we could take off again a couple of minutes later the big freighter had become a little bit small in the distance.
The automatic mode of the camera did not work well and lead to more or less black silhouettes; we thus chose the image properties manually and took off again. After just three low passes over the canal the first patrol boat was approaching at full steam (you'll see it in the video!); most likely they'd been attracted by the first flights already. We continued to fly and once they were near I did a nice pirouette to greet them. :-)
Less than two minutes after take-off a patrol car rushed onto our parking lot honking like wild (certainly the boat crew had contacted them by radio). Time to land and to take one last deep breath; let's hear what the guys have to say …



A couple of minutes later we were free again. No more flying, but taking pictures obviously was okay. We prayed to God that our short film contained a usable sequence and we didn't have to leave with empty hands.
For the moment we thought it was best to wait for another ship (this takes about half an hour!) and to take at least stationary pictures, i.e. without the heli in the air. Finally, another freighter came, we positioned next to the canal, the camera clicked a couple of times – and hooray! – the patrol car was back!
It was not allowed to even stand next to the canal or the railway tracks. Difficult situation as we wanted to also do an AFD panorama. It hadn't been possible in Mexico (they'd probably have arrested us for trying that) and Panama was the only other country of the "region". So we prepared everything, positioned the tripod near the canal – and 'honk, honk!' our friends were back. To avoid an escalation of the situation we showed the WSF pictures and put all our stuff into the car ostentatiously. You need to be very diplomatic in such situations; causing trouble repeatedly leads to being arrested faster than one thinks!
We finally did manage to shoot an AFD panorama, but the light was not overly good; let's hope that IPACS/Ikarus will make use of it.

Somehow it is funny. In a number of countries they think the heli is a flying bomb and you are a terrorist; that's most dangerous because this way you may end up being shot. Some other times authorities are concerned about the safety of objects and people. Next is the class where they are convinced you are a spy and the heli carries a camera (the heli as a camera carrier is the first thought of nearly everybody, by the way); we had more than once problems with armed forces for exactly this reason. It is mostly in over-regulated Europe that you will need a number of special permissions to operate a remote-controlled aircraft in or near cities, monuments, etc. And finally there is sites like in Mexico where they don't care about the helicopter at all but where it is a matter of image rights. Really, it is strange and funny at the same time how the focus varies across the world!

Labels: , , , , ,


# posted by hg/tuw @ 14:41
Comments:
You were on the wrong bank of the Canal. Go to the West Bank over the Bridge of the Americas and head toward Miraflores Locks. Unless its gone there was a road that went directly to the Cut on the left side of the road before you reached the Locks. You will also see the hole already dug by the US in the early 1940's for the third locks that Panama says it is going to dig.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : December 3, 2007 at 5:45:00 PM GMT+1
 
Thank you very much for the info! Actually we DID explore the other banks; we think that road is gone - we'd seen it on satellite pictures and even asked a policeman to help us. However, we just ended up at another road barrier; it looked like if it was military terrain! The guys there were nice and spoke good English for a change. They said the only way to the harbour and Canal was on the East side.
But thanks anyway; maybe the whole problem is that since the excavations for the extension of the Canal have started there is now new fences!
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : December 5, 2007 at 7:54:00 AM GMT+1
 
Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]





<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]