Corinth canal

 Crossing the canal

As I was in a hurry to get to Greece and prepare for the upcoming guest trip I had permission to pass through Corinth canal, it was saving us precious hours and fuel as well as the stress of bouncing south of Peloponnesus peninsula. I had vested interest to cross one thing off my bucket list as this was going to be my first time going through, I had many times passed over by car in my travels but never gone through by ship. Other canals that I've passed are Suez and Panama, one more on my bucket list would be the Caledonian canal.

Canal approach

I made the approach in very gusty weather, we had at times over 40 knots on the anemometer and lost a few cushions to the this weather. As I approached the canal I made radio contact and was told to keep coming and so I did albeit slowing down from my 11 knots to the dead slow 7 knots. The pilot for the canal came out quickly and clambered onboard by the pilot ladder. On the bridge we shook hands with the usual pleasantries and with my permission he took over the steering and propulsion after my short brief how the systems work. I stood by him the whole transit listening to his chatter. In general he held about 8 knots speed throughout and with very small rudder angles he negotiated the bank effect and kept us going in the middle with seemingly effortless attention.

Canal approach

I really admired his skill as he explained the practicality of going through. As it was my first time I had no qualms letting him do the job and standing by to step in for any emergency. The pilot kept on nattering throughout the transit and I kept making yes sounds and keeping my eye on the channel. I asked about the cave ins that had close the canal for some periods in past years and he showed where the banks had been shored up and where there was still work pending to be done. 

The pilot did not lose concentration and kept at until the end of canal. I handed him some tea money, he said his thanks, then quickly pocketed it and away he went to his ride waiting at the shipside. All in all it went well, the crew got nice sunset pictures on sun deck whilst we came through, it was already dark, perfect timing one could say.

As we exited the Canal night had already begun in earnest and I navigated past many ships at anchor at the mouth of Isthmia and in front of the huge oil refinery off Corinth. Some ships were still coming and going but it was light traffic and so we headed for Piraeus... 

Below are pictures from Cheche that was on sun deck and got some great shots both ways with the sunset and full moon to boot:

Approaching canal

Crew on sun deck

Cheche

In the canal

Olga and Cheche

Full moon

Bridges over Corinth to the peninsula

More bridges

Street lights and moon

View astern

Sun is setting

View astern

Astern had the better colour palette

View astern

View astern

Isthmia at the southern end

Isthmia

As per Wikipedia the Corinth Canal (Greek: Διώρυγα της Κορίνθου, romanized: Dioryga tis Korinthou) is a canal in Greece that connects the Gulf of Corinth in the Ionian Sea with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. Started in 1881 and completed in 1893, it cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnese peninsula from the Greek mainland. The canal is 6.4 kilometres in length and at 24.6 metres wide at sea level, this of course poses as a limit for the larger ships today.

Aerial of Corinth Canal

(credit: Wikipedia)

The Corinth canal concept originated with Periander of Corinth in the 7th century BC. There is a lot of history of how other options were tried and attempts made to dig the canal until it was dug in end of the 1800's. These days it's economic importance is not very remarkable and today the canal serves probably more as a tourist attraction than an economic artery. Still it saved us plenty of hours that we then used to get ahead in our program.