The Panama Canal

The trip through the Panama Canal was pretty much like I expected it to be. It was great and definitely the high point of the cruise. After the canal the weather went to hell and the ports we visited were, for the most part, shitholes.

There were an awful lot of sea days as well...way more than we like and we got some unexpected ones at the end of the trip due to the weather and due to a strike at one of the final ports.

I'm not going to bother with too many words about the construction and history of the canal as there's lots of info on the internet for anyone interested.  Here is one good site.

The weather was grey the morning we arrived at the north end of canal - the Caribbean Sea side. We got rained on a bit during the day but for the most part it was a dry crossing. All the ships in the pic below were waiting to go through. We went through with almost no wait at all. Maybe they let cruise ships go through first.  Who knows??

Below is a dredge. Apparently the locks and the canals silt up pretty badly and have to be dredged regularly.

The Puente Atlantico Bridge.  Ships go under this bridge before reaching the first set of locks. The tug boat in the picture is not attached to our ship but only there to help if the ship gets in trouble.

The Port of Colon.

The pic below shows our path. In the past I thought there was a canal that run from one side to the other but in fact most of the way is on a lake - a man made lake.

In the shot below the ship directly in front of us is coming toward us. It is in the middle lock and the doors are opening and when they open fully it will move forward into the lowest lock. The water will then be released in the lowest lock and the doors will open and the ship will move out.

The ship on the other side is going in the same direction as we are going - toward the Pacific. We will soon follow that ship.

The red ship is now in the lower lock and will be getting out soon. The white water that can be seen in the middle of the picture is the water being released from the lock.

A close up of the red ship showing the little electric trains that keep in centered in the lock. The ships transit the locks under their own power.

Our hip is now entering the lower lock. The ship directly in front of us has now reached the upper lock and is probably on it's way to the Pacific by now. A huge freight hauler is coming our way on the other side.

The gate to the middle lock is opening for our ship.

We are now in the middle lock.

Below is the view from the upper lock.  We've risen about 86 feet from the level we started at.

After the locks on the Caribbean side there is a huge man-made lake that must be crossed.

And then you come to the part of the canal that was actually cut out of the rock

These are the locks on the Pacific side. It's a different system from the first group of locks. The guys in the row boat will catch a line thrown from the ship with will then be use to attach a heavier line to the little trains.

This shows how much clearance is available on either side of our ship.

Some of the locks have double doors at one end just in case of a failure.

In 2007 they started a project to create a set of larger locks to handle the ever increasing size of freight haulers. The original locks are shown with the black arrow below and the new locks are shown red arrow,

And below is one of the large ships going the same direction as we are only in the new locks.

One final shot I scooped from the internet. The original lock is on the left and the new wider lock is on the right. Note the double doors.

Another shot of the new locks that I scooped from the web. The original locks are at the skinny ones top right and then the ones directly ahead.

The new addition is the entire portion on the left side of the picture below. There is one huge ship just entering the lock and one just exiting the upper high lock.

That's it for our voyage through the Panama Canal.