Monument of the Millennium

I hope I haven’t lost you. We were cruising and I left you hanging at Costa Rica. Never fear, we’re back on track. The next day of our 15-day cruise was spent navigating the uber impressive Panama Canal, designated as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World and a Monument of the Millennium by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

As far as cruising goes, this was a pretty relaxed and almost – dare I say it – boring day. It was interesting but in order to see what was going on, you had to be on deck where it was about a thousand degrees. And the entire day the ship was barely ever moving so there was no breeze to offer some relief from the intense heat. Most of the information I’m providing below I’ve cut and pasted from on-line articles because there’s no way in heck I’d remember all of these statistics without taking notes, which I absolutely refused to do whilst on vacation. So, without further ado, here’s what you need to know in addition to staying hydrated:

The Panama Canal is a series of watertight locks that rely on simple physics to raise ships from one ocean up 85 feet above sea level before lowering them into another ocean 48 miles away. Ships can enter from either the Atlantic Ocean or Pacific Ocean, depending on the direction of their journey, and the canal is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We entered from the Atlantic Ocean side and did not complete all 3 locks, just the first one. We entered the locks pretty early in the day after passing under the super cool Atlantic Bridge. This bridge is the third bridge over the Canal and is a road bridge to Colon, Panama. It spans the Atlantic entrance to the canal.

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Sorry my photos are not very good. I took most of them from the porthole in our cabin as I was not dressed in time to get up on deck before we made it to the bridge. Vacation is always a toss up for me: get some rest (after all – vacation) or never sleep a moment in order not to miss a single thing. (sigh)

Anyway, back to the facts, from an engineering standpoint, transiting the canal is pretty straightforward. The canal locks operate by gravity flow of water from the Gatún, Alajuela, and Miraflores lakes, which are fed by the Chagres and other rivers. A ship enters one of the lock’s chambers, and a large lock gate closes behind it. This is a very short video I shot of the gates closing behind us as we entered the first chamber of the first lock. Yes, that’s my voice in the video.

As you can see, they move pretty slowly. Once inside the chamber, enormous valves open to let water from Lake Gatun into the lock. The locks fill up over the course of five to eight minutes, using gravity to push water inside, which causes the ship to rise up until the point that the lock is full. From there, the ship transits into a second lock chamber, where the process begins a second time. It’s essentially a water elevator. And yes, there is a tugboat behind us as well to keep us from getting “crooked” while in the chamber.

Here is a video of us entering the very first chamber, which is actually 2 gates that open simultaneously, of the first lock from the Atlantic side. You’ll notice 2 gates ahead of us is a gigantic cargo ship going the same direction. It was impressive to see a vehicle of that size squeeze through the canal. You can also see how much higher it sits than where we are when we entered. We are about to rise up to that level. Cool beans.

After sailing across Lake Gatun, ships enter an additional series of locks where instead of filling the chambers with water, the chambers are drained, which lowers the ship back to sea level so they can continue into the Pacific ocean.

As I said, we only did a partial transit so we used the same locks, the Gatun Locks, twice in the same day, once going into Lake Gatún, and then again returning to the Atlantic Ocean where we had just come from. But, we did use the water elevator going UP the first time through, and then going DOWN the second time. It was weird watching the boat actually “sink” when the water drained out and lowered us to the next chamber.

Here are 2 pictures showing us going back down. We started looking down at this platform. The gates are below us. Those rubber bumpers keep the big ships from banging into the cement wall. That’s how close those big guys fit into the chambers. The following photos in the slideshow, shows how far the water level dropped after we got into the chamber so that you can actually see inside the lock gates. We were literally on a “sinking” ship.

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After we made our way through all 3 gates of the first lock, we spent most of the day just anchored in Lake Gatun. The vast reservoir of Gatun Lake holds the water supply that operates the locks systems of the Panama Canal. It was created by the construction of Gatun Dam across the Chagres River near its mouth at the Caribbean Sea specifically for the locks system. I repeat – this was a pretty boring day. Here are some random pictures I shot throughout the day.

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Many of the ships that pass through the locks are absolutely enormous, so it takes a huge team to ensure they pass safely without damaging the locks or the boats. When a ship is ready to pass through the canal, a pilot from the Panama Canal Transit Authority boards the ship and is responsible for guiding it from end to end. It’s one of the few times a ship’s captain is not in control of his or her own vessel. When a pilot boards, a speedboat pulls up alongside the ship, a gangplank is extended, and the pilot hops on. Pilots are necessary for smaller ships as well. When the ship is safely out of all of the locks, another speedboat appears to reclaim the pilot and take him to his next assignment.

Here are some of my pictures of our pilot boat. The first two show the pilot boat hooked up at the bow of our ship before we enter the first lock. As I said above, there was also a tug boat at the stern of the boat. Its job was to keep us positioned in a straight line while in the chamber. The third picture shows us as we approach the last gate before dumping into the lake and the last picture is the “speed” boat coming to pick up the pilot to board the next ship to cross going the other way. You can also see another huge freighter in one of these photos waiting his turn to use the locks on his way east.

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The REALLY big ships are pushed into position by tugboats, which ensure they are as close to the locks’ walls as possible. These ships are then connected to electric trains called mules, which are responsible for guiding the ship along a very precise route within the lock chamber. The mules effectively have full control of the ship during this time, and they do no disconnect until the chamber is open and the boat has cleared the lock. Smaller boats that don’t run the risk of damaging the locks do not need assistance from mules, but they do tie up to the walls during filling and draining to minimize the boat’s movement.

Here’s a picture I snapped of a humongous freighter with the tugboats tied up and ready to push it into place after we cleared enough space.

And here are just some random fun facts about the Panama Canal and a few of my photos thrown in just because:

The Panama Canal averages 42 transits each day. If you think that sounds low, it is—ships take between 8 and 10 hours to transit all three locks during a canal passage. It’s a slow, meticulous process! It took us about 90 minutes or so just to get through the first lock set. Then we sat for quite a few hours, waiting our turn to turn around and go back through. Then another 90 minutes to return to the Atlantic Ocean. It was quite the long day of doing not much of anything except witnessing this amazing spectacle.

Ships enter on a first-come, first-served basis. Many ships wait for approximately 24 hours in line, queuing in either Panama City or Colon, before their transit begins.

Lake Gatun was the largest manmade lake in the world until the construction of the Hoover Dam. The lake was built as part of the Panama Canal’s construction; it didn’t exist before 1904.

Every time a lock opens, 26 million gallons of water rush out of Lake Gatun. Lake Gatun is a freshwater lake that is refreshed only by rainwater; however, since Panama gets as much as 16 feet of rain in a given year, keeping the lake full has never been a concern.

When the locks open, Lake Gatun’s fresh water meets the salt water from the ocean. This causes chaos for the fish who live in the lake, and those fish caught in the lock often die or are stunned by the change in water. That’s why you’ll see tons of birds circling overhead around the locks. If you look closely at the photo below you can see a crocodile that preceded us into the chambers. He was a big guy too!

Tolls to take the Panama Canal range based on a ship’s weight, and they can be expensive—to date, at least one ship has paid more than a $1 million toll to transit. Why do shipping companies pay such fees? The alternative is to sail down around South America, which adds 16 days of travel. Knowing that a ship can easily burn $100,000 in fuel each day it is at sea, combined with other operational costs and crew-related costs, the Panama Canal actually saves money in addition to more than two weeks of time. I’m sure after all the poundage I put on at the buffet on-board, the cost of our transit went up a bit more as well.

Here are just some more random photos I shot throughout the day (some may be repeats).

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So tell me, are you impressed with this engineering wonder of the world? Have you been to or through the Panama Canal? How about other lock systems on rivers or elsewhere in the world? Gotta say, it was pretty nifty watching.

I’ve got more exciting things planned for the rest of year that only my newsletter followers will know about. I promise you’ll only get 6 newsletters for the entire year, so I won’t clutter up your inbox. Here’s the link if you want to sign up and be the first to know things: http://bit.ly/JansenSchmidtNewsletter

Word of the Day: Galangal

Fun fact about me: I feel the need to send Carnival Cruise Lines a list of fun activities to keep guests entertained while anchored in Gatun Lake. Maybe a swim deck and diving board off the bow of the ship?

Original post by Jansen Schmidt, September 2022. Images by Google and P. Rickrode. Videos courtesy YouTube (Jansen Schmidt).