In order to really see the Panama Canal, you need to
transit the entire system. Since our
cruise ship only went as far as Gatun Lake and then returned to Colon to await
the return of the passengers who booked excursions.
We signed up for the tour boat excursion that
traveled form Gatun Lake all the way through the canal including the Pacific
locks and out into the Pacific Ocean. We
disembarked the Coral Princess in Gatun lake by launch to shore, where we took
a bus to the tour boat dock.
The biggest advantage to taking the tour boat was
the change in perspective of what you are seeing. On the cruise ship, you are always at least
ten stories of above the water all the way to 15 stories.
Traveling through a water ditch is not always that
exciting, but the canal has a lot of vessel traffic and currently there is a
lot of maintenance work going on. There
is also a lot of work associated with the building of the new larger locks. Traveling at near the water level gives an up
close and personal feeling. You can
really feel the change in the water level as the vessel descends to the Pacific
Ocean level. And of course there is
always that bit of excitement as you realize the large ship that is going to share
a lock with you would crush our small vessel like a bug if there was any
miscalculation as it slows upon entering the lock behind you.
Below are two short videos of the lock thru.
12 comments:
Chuck that was one cool cruise, thanks for sharing. You just made an addition to my bucket list.
It looks like a fun and interesting trip,but I would prefer to do it in a smaller vessel. Ten or 15 stories above the water is just too much for me.
Thanks for sharing. The videos give you a good idea of what it's like.
I walked across the lock door there at the Miraflores Lock as well as went down into the lock to see the huge mechanisms controlling the doors. It was quite an experience.
Did you happen to see the old Coast Guard 180 that now is part of the Panamanian Navy? It is at the navy base just past the lock and before the bridge on the Pacific side. When we were there they were so happy with it they were asking for another one.
We really like doing cruises. We've done quite a few and the biggest advantage is that you don't have to pack and unpack every few days. However, we've discovered we much prefer the smaller ships. The tours sure are great.
Thanks for a great tour and pics of "the ditch". I'd love to do that myself some day.
It still just amazes me about how they built that canal. My back hurts just thinking about it.
The photos are great!
We went through the Canal, starting in San Diego and ending in Ft Lauderdale with Princess Cruises. I was impressed with how well everything worked. As I remember there are no pumps, all the water is gravity through giant pipes. Glad you liked the Cruise.
Thank you for taking us along on this cool cruise with your photos.
Going through the canal on a smaller ship seems like a much better way to do it. You really got a much closer view than 15 stories up.
Our ship will be going through the canal from end to end this fall, so this small boat excursion will have to wait until the next partial one we do. Seeing the canal from different perspectives gives one a better appreciation of what went into building it all those years ago. Several years ago, we did an excursion that took us to the Gatun Lake Locks VC; timing was perfect as we got to see our own ship going back out of the locks to dock at Colon to pick up the excursion groups.
Love those photo's!
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