Panama Canal

 

December 26

It’s the Day After Christmas and we are entering the 48-mile long Panama Canal – a true engineering marvel with a vast series of locks that lifts and lowers each ship 85 feet from sea level.  We began our journey at 7:30am entering the Gatun Locks. Ships are tethered at the bow and stern to electric locomotives that keep it from hitting the sides of the narrow locks. 


From there, we sailed through Gatun Lake to the Pedro  Miguel Locks and finally out through the Miraflores Locks.  It took 8 hours to get through all the locks and enter the Pacific Ocean.  The Chart Tracker map shows us in Gatun Lake.  Also, you can see there are two individual channels. In one photo, you can see that our channel is full while the neighboring channel remains empty. 



Panama’s capital, Panama City, is lined with modern glass skyscrapers that are reminiscent of Miami.




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