Day 2 aboard the Victoria II, and it was a weird one (for the crew at least). My dad decided to wake me up at like 6:30 am and then again at 7, when breakfast was at 7:45. After breakfast, at around 9am, the boat approached the first of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze, Qutang Gorge. I learned that a gorge was like an area where the river was narrow and the mountains were high. However, after the Three Gorges Dam is built, I’m pretty sure that the mountains won’t be as high, and the river will widen meaning that the gorges will either become shorter or disappear. This first gorge is only 8km, making the trip through it very short.

A little after 10am, we arrived in Wushan and disembarked to get on Sampans to explore the Lesser Three Gorges (there’s also a Mini Three Gorges…but in Chinese they’re known as Three Gorges, Small Three Gorges, and Small Small Three Gorges…hahaha). A Sampan is a type of boat with bus-style seats, windows, and a sliding roof. The weather was nice at first, but then it began raining and it was difficult for my dad and I to keep our stuff dry (because we were sitting in the very front and the roof didn’t completely cover all the rain). Along the way, we saw numerous shoals, rock formations, and even a hanging coffin. The hanging coffin was extremely high up the mountain. It was basically a cave in the side of the mountain, and if you looked carefully, you could see a tiny wooden box inside the tiny cave. What’s weird is that the coffin is like 2000 years old, and the wood is still there. Right after we saw the hanging coffin (after we had reached the end of the second lesser gorge), we stopped at an area to eat lunch. Originally, we were supposed to stop at a place earlier on, but since it was raining pretty hard, and there was no cover, we didn’t stop there.

Lunch was a bag lunch given to us before we left the ship. It was kind of interesting that once a crowd of people congregated (in this case to eat lunch), immediately people tried to sell them stuff…remember that this is pretty much in the middle of nowhere in a tributary to the Yangtze River. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the water in the Yangtze is brown, whereas in this tributary (Daning River) it was a beautiful green, making the scenery much more beautiful. Anyways, these merchants (as we later saw) sat in inner tubes, and use tiny paddles to paddle their way from place to place. It was a pretty…interesting…site.

Because of the rain, there were quite a few times where we got stuck in a shoal, and had to rely on manpower to get us out (we even saw another boat get turned horizontal by the current). Right after lunch, the guide told us that we had to turn around and go back to the dock because we were running out of time. However, by my watch we had like over 2 hours, which I found weird (but I’ll explain the reason for this later). On our way back, the ride was quicker, and the rain stopped, meaning that we could remove the roof and enjoy the scenery (actually, I slept some =P).

When we returned to the ship, we entered the second of the Three Gorges, Wu Gorge. Wu Gorge is famous for its 12 mountain peaks, especially the one named Goddess Peak. We were all expecting this amazing mountain top because the guide said it was considered the most beautiful (he also said not to keep our expectations too high), but instead all we saw was this extremely tiny (to us at least) rock on the top of the mountain that barely resembled the figure of a woman. While we sailed through Wu Gorge, we also FINALLY left Chongqing and entered Hubei Province.

At dinner, we learned why everything was pushed earlier. What happened was that the Gezhouba dam was going to be closed all day so that they could clean all the silt and stuff from the dam, and we were scheduled to pass through the dam tomorrow afternoon. However, with this situation, we had to pass through the dam today meaning that we would also pass through the third Gorge, Xiling Gorge, the site of the future Three Gorges Dam, and miss the performance we were supposed to see in Zigui. Instead, we would dock at Yichang, just outside the Gezhouba dam.

After dinner, we entered Xiling Gorge, andsomewhere in the middle, of the gorge, we passed by the construction site that will soon become the Three Gorges Dam (phase one completion in 2003, and total completion by 2009). To the left, we saw the five step shiplock that would bring ships through the dam in five steps, and we also saw the massive construction job. For now, we went through this opening in the dam called the divergent channel. Later on during the night, we reached Gezhouba Dam. At this dam, we would have to enter a shiplock, have the water level lowered, and then exit the dam to Yichang.

During dinner, the waiter gave us a brochure advertising the Gezhouba Dam Lottery. What happens is that people buy tickets and then write down their guess for when the exit gate at the Gezhouba Dam will open for the Victoria II. Of course I didn’t win because all my guesses were too early. We were originally supposed to pass through lock 2, which can fit 6 ships the size of the Victoria II, but instead we were reassigned to lock 3, which could only fit one ship the size of Victoria II. Had we went into lock 2, we would have had to wait for a bunch of ships to enter the lock before they would close the gate and lower the water. This could have taken anywhere from minutes to hours. However, with lock 3, the captain had to use his great driving skills to steer the ship into the lock because the ship is 14 meters, and the width of the lock is 18 meters! Therefore, just entering the lock took a very long time.

Once we got into the lock, the gates behind us closed like a door, and then the water level began to lower about 25 meters. Then, the gates opened, and Jeff Fu, the ship’s river guide, announced the time of 9:13:20. This English guy on board guessed 9:13:10…he probably won. My latest guess was 9pm flat. Oh well, we lost (I guessed for our entire tour group), but at least we passed the time again today playing Mahjong. Now, I’m listening to my dad snore again…he often wakes himself up (kind of) when we chokes on phlegm…hehehe. Nights.