Panama Canal

Monday, January 9, 2023

The Panama Canal is everything people say it is and more. The landscapes are absolutely beautiful, and watching how the locks work is fascinating.

Around 7:00 AM, we passed the Cristobal Breakwater, where a pilot came on board to take over the helm. The Panama Canal Zone is the only place in the world where the ship’s Captain must hand over his authority to another.

We passed under Atlantic bridge, which looks like a big tuning fork, and entered the Gatun Locks, which took about two hours.

On the Atlantic side, the three chambers of the Gatun locks raise ships 87 feet above sea level.

Going through the Gamboa area, which is surrounded by forest and wetlands, home to sloths, jaguars, and diverse birds, was beautiful. The enormous Gatun lake was stunning. There were sections with mangrove forests that seemed like the "Thousand Island" areas of Florida.

I had pictured the entire canal as very narrow, but it actually has many portions that are wide water — lake and mangrove estuary areas.

After passing under the Centennial Bridge, we went through the Pedro Miguel Locks (50 minutes) and the Miraflores Locks (50 minutes).

The Miraflores Locks transfer 26 million gallons of water in seven minutes at the Pacific end.

"Mules" move the ship through the locks.

Mountains were carved down to create the canal.

Then we passed under the Bridge of Americas into Balboa, where the pilot disembarked and our Captain once again took over.

The weather was blazing hot, but it was worth it to see every minute of the trip that we could. We watched the rain move in from the mountains, which chased us inside for a while.

We traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific in a little over 10 hours.