A Man, a Plan, a Canal, Panama!
Dec. 31st, 2024 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerPanama Travelog #29
Panama City, Panama - Sat, 28 Dec 2024. 12pm.
Today we toured the Panama Canal. We booked a half-day ferry excursion that took us from the Pacific Ocean to approximately the midpoint of the canal, at Gamboa. There are 6 locks from end to end, 3 up and 3 down in each direction. Our ferry ascended through 3 locks then docked. Following that we rode a bus back to Panama City.
It was an early day. We set alarms for 4:45am to be out the door at 5:30am to report to the marina at 6am for check-in and boarding. The day started even earlier for me as my body decided at around 2:15am that it really didn't want more sleep. I sat up for 2.5 hours until our alarms rang.
Once at the marina things moved smoothly. Smoothly doesn't mean swiftly, though. One of the things our tour guides on the ship explained is that ships first wait an average of 8-10 hours at either end for the signal from authorities to begin transit, then a full transit through the canal takes 10-12 hours. So, going from ocean to ocean is a 24 hour process. Though that is quite swift compared to having to sail around Cape Horn at the tip of South America.
Continuing with my resolution to avoid backlogging I will share just one photo from this amazing and information-packed trip. This pic shows the ship ahead of us, a car carrier that can hold 3,000 cars, entering one of the locks at Miraflores. We followed it through each of the locks. There was room for both ships.
Note the tugboat in the foreground. It helped guide the freighter into the narrow lock. By narrow I mean that the there is less than 1 foot of clearance on each side of the freighter.
There are also electric locomotives, two on each side of the lock. You can see their rails in the picture. These "mules", as they're called, attach steel cables to large ships fore and aft to pull, push, and guide them through the locks. We didn't have mules attached to our ship because we're narrow enough to fit easily. That car carrier fits in the locks with less than 1' of clearance on each side.
These are the original locks that were designed in 1904 and completed in 1914. The reason ships like this barely fit in the locks is because they're designed that way. For decades freighter ships have been designed specifically to fit through the Panama Canal locks that have been operating for just over 110 years now.
Panama City, Panama - Sat, 28 Dec 2024. 12pm.
Today we toured the Panama Canal. We booked a half-day ferry excursion that took us from the Pacific Ocean to approximately the midpoint of the canal, at Gamboa. There are 6 locks from end to end, 3 up and 3 down in each direction. Our ferry ascended through 3 locks then docked. Following that we rode a bus back to Panama City.
It was an early day. We set alarms for 4:45am to be out the door at 5:30am to report to the marina at 6am for check-in and boarding. The day started even earlier for me as my body decided at around 2:15am that it really didn't want more sleep. I sat up for 2.5 hours until our alarms rang.
Once at the marina things moved smoothly. Smoothly doesn't mean swiftly, though. One of the things our tour guides on the ship explained is that ships first wait an average of 8-10 hours at either end for the signal from authorities to begin transit, then a full transit through the canal takes 10-12 hours. So, going from ocean to ocean is a 24 hour process. Though that is quite swift compared to having to sail around Cape Horn at the tip of South America.
Continuing with my resolution to avoid backlogging I will share just one photo from this amazing and information-packed trip. This pic shows the ship ahead of us, a car carrier that can hold 3,000 cars, entering one of the locks at Miraflores. We followed it through each of the locks. There was room for both ships.
Note the tugboat in the foreground. It helped guide the freighter into the narrow lock. By narrow I mean that the there is less than 1 foot of clearance on each side of the freighter.
There are also electric locomotives, two on each side of the lock. You can see their rails in the picture. These "mules", as they're called, attach steel cables to large ships fore and aft to pull, push, and guide them through the locks. We didn't have mules attached to our ship because we're narrow enough to fit easily. That car carrier fits in the locks with less than 1' of clearance on each side.
These are the original locks that were designed in 1904 and completed in 1914. The reason ships like this barely fit in the locks is because they're designed that way. For decades freighter ships have been designed specifically to fit through the Panama Canal locks that have been operating for just over 110 years now.
