SCENIC SAILING: PANAMA CANAL

Day  7/138  Sunrise: 6:29 AM  Sunset: 6:06 PM 

Forty eight miles long, the Panama Canal crosses the narrowest stretch of the isthmus of Panama.  Witnesing this engineering marvel at work is truly memorable.  At the Caribbean and Pacific ends, a vast series of locks lifts and lowered our ship 85 feet from sea level, guided by electric engines that do the job performed by mules on more ancient canals.  Between, this astonishing waterway divides continents at the river like Gaillard Cut and the enormous Gatun Lake.  Far from the mechanics of the locks' chambers, the canal is embraced by the lush beauty of Panama.  emerald-green forests stretch into Soberania National Park to the south and Gatun lake is dotted with tranquil islands like so many jewels. 

Sunrise on our way into the Panama Canal on the Atlantic side: 

We passed under two of these bridges over the Canal.  Quite impressive in height and they carried a lot of  vehicle traffic .

Getting ready to go into the canal. There was a very large cruise ship in front of us.  They are paralleling the cruise that we are doing.  I noticed  late tonight after we docked that they are docked on our port side.  We entered Gatun Lock at 9:45 AM and were projected to clear the last lock, the Miraflores by 6:20 PM but we were delayed by a few hours. 

Following are photos of a container ship that was traveling in the opposite direction of our ship. 

The Canal employees were very friendly guys as shown by this worker: 

As we passed through the canal we saw vast lawn areas that were being carefully manicured with weed eaters and leaf blowers; it would appear that it's a way to employ a lot of workers because a few lawn mowers would have been more efficient. 

While ships are passing through the canal they are churning up water that is abundant with fish and that attracts pelicans.  What fun they were posing for us.  

Another mode of transporting cargo containers in the Panama Canal area is by Railway.  We were lucky enough to see this train. 

Our perfect day transiting the Panama Canal ended with a cool refreshing rain storm.