- The Panama Canal runs north to south (more or less).
- The Atlantic/Caribbean end of the Canal is farther WEST than the Pacific end.
- From one end to the other, the Canal is 50 miles long.
- It takes 8 to 10 hours to transit the Canal. About 40 ships a day go through during a 24-hour period of operations.
- There are three sets of locks, a dam, and an artificial lake, Lake Gatun.
- The locks are 980 x 110 feet; some are longer. A "Panamax" ship is the widest ship that can go through the Canal.
- The locks contain 26 million gallons of water.
- They empty at the rate of 3 million gallons per minute.
- This all happens by gravity; there are no pumps.
- 2014 is the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Canal. A second canal was supposed to be finished in 2014 but there have been contract disputes that have resulted in significant delays. The new canal will be wider and will use less water.
Our Canal Day:
Our day transiting the Panama Canal was exciting and fascinating, even though we have been here before. A pilot boarded the ship early in the morning. At some point some other Canal employees boarded.
The ship's lecturer was on the bridge and began narrating our transit. You could see and hear this on the bridge cam channel on the TV in your room.
Upon arriving at the Gatun Locks, a man in a small rowboat rowed out to the ship to grab the bowlines and bring them to the canal locomotives (the "mules"). Our ship required 8 locomotives. They travel along the sets of locks on a cog railway track. They don't pull the ship; they help to keep it centered so it doesn't hit the sides of the locks or, more importantly, the gates. We are on Deck 8. From our balcony we could see people on Deck 7, the Promenade Deck, as they leaned out to watch our transit. There was one man with a walkie-talkie who apparently worked for the Canal. He spent the entire time we were in any of the locks leaning over the railing and watching the gap between the ship and the side of the lock and talking into the walkie-talkie. This gap looked to be between 5 and 8 feet at most.
The ship had some kind of a poster contest, and some people hung Super Bowl banners from their balconies. We hung an Alaska flag from our balcony, using shoelaces and various knots I learned in Girl Scouts. Represent! Some of the ship's photographers had gotten off and they were now on the strip between the locks taking photos of people on their balconies.
When you are in a lock the ship will go up or down quickly enough to notice if you stare at a fixed point. However, you cannot feel any motion.
After we had passed through the final set of locks and underneath the Bridge of the Americas, we watched a number of boats remove people from the ship or deliver them to the ship. We saw the two walkie-talkie guys get off. Then another boat came up, and men in hard hats and safety clothes started climbing down the ladder onto the boat. We counted 25. We think they were working with the lines connected to the locomotives. The photographers were brought back, and another boat brought some other people and some suitcases and a lot of boxes. Finally, the pilot disembarked. Such a lot of activity!
At each end of the Canal, a large number of ships lie at anchor waiting for their turn. Most are cargo ships. We saw tankers, bulk cargo ships, container ships, and a car ship. We also saw an unusual white ship with big electronics installations on the decks. It was too far away to see its flag. We had binoculars, but it is very hard to use them while at sea.
After leaving the Canal, we sailed around the Amador causeway and anchored in the bay by Panama City. The magnificent skyline of the modern part of the city twinkled in the night as the sun set.
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