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Panama Canal Cruise
February 2007
We took the bus from Panama City to Gamboa
on the shores of the Canal and boarded a boat along with 150 others and
traveled back through 2 sets of locks to Panama City. The transit is called
a partial transit because we only go through two of the three locks. To go
through the entire canal and locks would take about 8-9 hours. As we took
off on our journey one of the huge cargo ships passed us. The two pictures
of the cranes are cranes that were built specifically to work on the locks.
As we approached the brand new Centennial Bridge we passed another ship.
Just the previous week we had driven on the bridge so it was kind of
exciting to see it from this vantage point. The tug boats are used all the
time, each ship has one to guide them through the canal. Once they get to a
lock, they are anchored by the locomotives and then driven through the
locks. The locks are about 1050 feet long and about 110 feet wide. Now you
must imagine what it is like to be in a boat in a lock then drop anywhere
from 23 to 31 feet in the space of minutes. A wonder to behold and the
design has never been altered. Do read up on this as it is an amazing story.
There is also a museum that tells you all about the building of the canal.
Of course with the third lane being built now, it will add to the number of
ships currently going through the locks. The ships are usually so big now
that when first built with the double lanes, you could have ships coming and
going in both directions but that has changed so now they move in both lanes
in one direction for part of the day and then change to the other direction
for the rest of the day. I have taken pictures of going into a lock, the
gates closing, draining and opening up to another level. When we went
through, there were also two other ships that were ahead of us – because we
were all small we could do this. Then I took some pictures of our skyline as
well as a yacht that was indeed special. Look – it has its own helicopter.
Now we would have settled quite nicely with the sailboat, but the two are
beautiful to look at.
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