By Corey Sandler
Welcome aboard. We’re heading out today from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the east coast of the United States to the west coast.
At the time of the California Gold Rush that began in 1849, this sort of journey would have taken months and been an exceptionally dangerous journey.
There were three routes back then:
By wagon train across the vast North American continent, traversing desert and mountains and through sometimes hostile homelands.
By ship from New York, Boston, or the Gulf Coast to a port in Panama or Nicaragua and then a treacherous and difficult crossing of the isthmus to the west coast where a second ship would take travelers up north to California.
Or, the long sea voyage down and around the bottom of South America at Cape Horn and then back up the coast.
None of the options was attractive. Heat, cold, rough seas, insect-borne diseases, unfriendly locals.
All that changed in 1914 with the opening of the Panama Canal, one of the greatest engineering and logistical projects of all time. The canal is still in service, little changed from its original layout; additional sets of wider and longer locks were added a few years ago, like new entryways to an existing highway.
And that is the path we will follow. Silver Whisper, fresh out of the shipyard where she underwent a major facelift, will sail first to Cartagena, Colombia near the top of South America. From there we will pass through the Panama Canal on Christmas Day.
Once we are in the Pacific Ocean, we will head northwest up the coast, with stops at Puntarenas, Costa Rica; Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala; the Mexican ports of Puerto Chiapas and Cabo San Lucas, and then into California in the United States for calls at San Diego and our ultimate destination of San Francisco.
Here’s our plan:
I hope you will follow me here in these pages.
All photos and text Copyright 2018 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. See more photos on my website at http://www.coreysandler.com
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Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
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Here’s where to order an electronic copy for immediate delivery:
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IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.
SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS