Tuesday, December 06, 2016

On a cruise for the past 2 weeks -- 10 miles of walking

During the past two weeks, my wife and I were on a cruise. We flew to Florida and then sailed through the old locks in the Panama canal to San Diego, CA, and then flew home. While in Florida, we visited the Epcot Center at Disney world and the Kennedy Space Center. We saw a rocket take off carrying a weather satellite. I walked around the ship a lot while were at sea, and I walked a lot during the land tours in five countries in Mexico, Central America, and one country in South America. I think I walked about 10 miles during the two weeks. The following picture shows the cruise ship (MS Veendam) docked at a Mexican port.



The walking path on the ship is 1/13 of a mile, and I tried to walk 1/2 mile in the morning and 1/2 mile in the afternoon. On one of my walks, I was in a rain storm with 30 mph winds. I had sprayed my nylon jacket and pants with Silicone before I left, but the wind pushed the rain through the nylon and onto my clothes. But, the weather was warm and I wasn't in much danger of hypothermia. I pushed myself into a cold, because I violated the heavy/light principle of running by doing the mile every day. I didn't walk much for several days while I got rid of the cold, and then I walked the mile every other day and walked shorter days for the light portion of my walking. The following picture show the walking path around the ship. 



The next picture shows a view of the Panama canal from the ship. The lock gates are about 80 feet high. Water from a higher lock fills the next lock and is fed into the second lock via gravity. Several "mules" travel the tracks that go along the sides of the locks and are attached to each ship and guide the ship through the locks. The ships, however, use their own motors to move the ships; the "mules" do not pull the ships. There are two paths though the canal, and a container ship is in the lock behind us in the other path. We went through the older locks rather than the newer locks.Newer ships that are wider use the new locks.

 

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