Getting to the locks:The Panama Canal story, part 2

Here I am, with the second part of the Panama Canal story.
After the many details of the Canal previously, let me tell you a bit about how the things work when a ship crossing the Panama Canal.
First of all, like in most ports, crossing The Panama Canal they have a special person who help to navigate the ship: the Pilot. The Pilot is actually a ship captain, who is familiar with the local waterways, much more then a usual ship captain. Actually it is mandatory for big ships to have a Pilot in board, who takes full charge of the ship in the Canal.
Even with Pilots, I still saw 2 accidents during my 20 or so crossing of the Canal, both ship was hitting some small island in Gatun Lake.
So, Pilot on board, all fine.
The most difficult thing is to get the ships safely to the lock, and to get them threw of the locks. For this, there are first the tugboats. These small looking boats has extraordinary power compare to their size. They have usually 2 of them to tow a mid-size ship into the lock, in case a real big ship sometimes 3 of them needed. I assume it also depends a bit on weather conditions, namely the wind.
After the tugboats did their jobs, there are trains to move the ships in the locks.
They attach cables to the ship, not only to pull it forward from one chamber to the next, but also to keep the ship safely away to hit the walls of the locks.
Usually they have 4 trains attached to a ship, but again, for the real big and heavy cargo ships they attach a total of 8 engines often, for extra power.
It is really a well organized teamwork to get the ships threw the locks. And it is a non-stop work as well, as the Panama-Canal has a busy schedule, with many ships waiting for their time to cross. The advantage is being on a cruiseship, that these crossings are in the daytime, so, you can watch and really enjoy the adventure and the nature itself, as it is amazing just as well as the Panama-Canal.