Panama Canal Daylight Transit - January 11

cultural research

some blazing sun, then partly cloudy, 34 degrees, hot and very humid, a bit of rain in the morning (awesome) - it  was VERY hot today...definitely the hottest so far!


The Panama Canal is a rite of passage for cruisers. Today we hit this milestone. The entire day is set aside to do the transit. We

sailing under the Atlantic Bridge

pass under the ‘Atlantic Bridge’ at about 8 AM - this bridge, completed just over a year ago now allows cars to pass to either side of the canal by road. Previously, cars could cross at the

5000 car transport ship beside us

locks or by ferry. We were on this bridge yesterday as part of our tour.


Today’s transit is a very big deal on board. People are up early with their faces pressed against the glass at the front of the boat in one of the ship’s lounges or lining the outer decks to get what they think are the best views possible. I’m not desperate to joint these masses, so I

locks are opening

am happy to watch from the comfort of our balcony. A benefit of watching from our balcony is that we can get very close to the locks. 5 feet separate us from the side of the lock…very cool.


There are 2 sets of locks referred to as the Panama Canal – Gatun and Agua Clara. We are travelling on the Gatun ones – these are the old ones (105 years old) and are for smaller vessels. It would be interesting to be in the new locks just to see how huge some of the ships are. Cost to transit the canal is based on size of

we are going up

ship and cargo (or passengers) – apparently our crossing costs 250,000USD. Another bit of interesting info is that payment to transit these locks (old or new) is taken in cash only! Apparently, ships pay a holding company who then pays the locks in cash…wild.


At the Gatun Locks (where we are) there are 2 lanes allowing ships to pass each other one side going up and the other going down. This is very cool. We pass a shipping

tanker

container, a ship full of 5000 cars (the largest ship holds 8000 cars) and a couple of tankers. As I said, this is very cool, we have seen many large commercial ships from a distance over the years, but never up this close.

Throughout the morning a Panama Canal historian narrates our transit. This is very cool, while in the locks

another tanker

she explains constantly and then whenever something interesting arises. Between the 2 sets of locks (one at the Atlantic side and one at the Pacific side we sail through the Gatun Lake which connects both. The cool part of this lake sailing is the small, jungle filled islands we pass. We aren’t close enough to see wildlife other than birds and then still at a distance. While we were in the

onlookers cheering

locks there were plenty of pelicans swooping and hunting for fish.