Panama Canal

We set our alarm for 6:30am this morning and Wayne went up on deck to start taking pictures.  This is an idea of all of the ships waiting to go through the Canal.  If you don’t have an appointment like we do you have to put your name on a list and wait.

I think the whole ship (passengers and crew) were on one of the decks trying to take pictures.  As usually there were some nice ones and some very rude ones.

As you enter the locks you could see the “mules” lined up.  They attach a line to the ship on either side to keep you from hitting the sides.

At the Gatun Locks, they close the bridge that goes across on the low side and start letting the water out and opening the gates.

The gates are huge.

Here they have closed behind us.

There are a series of three locks on the Atlantic/Caribbean side.  When you get close to Gatun Lake there is a lighthouse warning of the locks.

There is a huge construction project going on.  It will deepen Gatun Lake and build new locks on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides.  Here is a huge dredge with the lines running for a long way back to the edge of the lake.

This wooden bridge dates back to the early 1900’s when the Canal was built.  There  is a railroad bridge and a one-way auto bridge next to it.

Here is a different type of dredge.

This barge drills holes for explosives to break up the rock so that it can be dredged.

This is an example of some of the terracing that is going on as well as some of the stuff this dredge has brought up.

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This is looking back through the Canal at some of the boats and ships following us.

This is a bridge close to Panama City that goes over the Canal between Panama and Costa Rica.

There are several places near the end of Gatun Lake where ships can tie up and wait to go through the locks in the other direction.

 

Next were the Pedro Miguel Locks that took us into Miraflores Lake.  Here we were able to see the work that they were doing on the new locks.

We had to wait in Miraflores Lake for this floating crane to come through the locks before we could go in.  You can see one of the big container ships in the background.

We spent a good portion of the day sitting at these tables in front of the window when we weren’t outside taking pictures.

 

When we went through the Miraflores Locks Jim and Gene went out to take a picture of the Princess ship that was in the other lock.

Here are the Miraflores Locks.

The gates are closed behind us.

  

This gives you an idea of how tight a fit the ships are.

 

Here is the lighthouse on the Pacific side of the locks.

We barely had time to shower and dress for dinner.  After dinner Jim McDonald, a comedian, and Jack Wallace our singer from the previous night split the show time.  It had been a long day so we went to the room right after the show.  Tomorrow is a sea day so I will post this in the morning.