Crossing the Panama Canal is one of the most fascinating cruise you can have. I was lucky and did it several times on board Crystal Symphony, a 52000 ton luxury cruise ship. Before anyone start to wonder how I could pay for all those trips, I have to disappoint: I was working on board Crystal Symphony, so, it wasn't all a luxury vacation, however, I had great chance to see this man-made wonder: the Panama Canal.
The Panama Canal is connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic, and it is one of the most important shipping route for cargo ships, and also being an attraction by itself the Panama Canal also became an increasingly popular cruise for passenger ships.
It is not a similar experience to Suez Canal, where you just cruise threw a narrow channel. Not at all! Opposite to all my imagination, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans water level isn't the same!! Matter of fact, the level of Pacific Ocean is 26 meters higher then those of the Atlantic's. To handle this, they created a lock system in Panama. There is 3 locks, from the Pacific they are: Miraflores, Pedro Miguel, and finally on the Atlantic end the Gatun locks. To cross the Panama Canal takes around 8-9 hours, a total distance of 77 km.
Most my photos here taken at the Miraflores locks.
The locks used to lift or lower the ships during there passage between the two Oceans. For this, they actually don't use anything but the water from the Gatun Lake. The Gatun Lake not only a huge water storage; it is maybe the most spectacular part of the Panama Canal crossing, after the gates. The lake is full of small inlets, and bigger islands, all covered with the lushest emerald of jungle. Rainforest in its best, as it is nothing, but the frequent rain help to refill the lake, thus make possible to work the locks. And they need all the water: every time a ship cross the Panama Canal, they "waste" around 200000 cubic meter of fresh water from the lake!
On the photos, you can see some moments of passing threw the Miraflores locks, a lift of 16.5 meters coming from the Pacific Ocean. You can see easily this lift of the container ship just in front of mine.
I will write a bit more about the Panama Canal in a next entry.
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The Panama Canal is connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic, and it is one of the most important shipping route for cargo ships, and also being an attraction by itself the Panama Canal also became an increasingly popular cruise for passenger ships.
It is not a similar experience to Suez Canal, where you just cruise threw a narrow channel. Not at all! Opposite to all my imagination, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans water level isn't the same!! Matter of fact, the level of Pacific Ocean is 26 meters higher then those of the Atlantic's. To handle this, they created a lock system in Panama. There is 3 locks, from the Pacific they are: Miraflores, Pedro Miguel, and finally on the Atlantic end the Gatun locks. To cross the Panama Canal takes around 8-9 hours, a total distance of 77 km.
Most my photos here taken at the Miraflores locks.
The locks used to lift or lower the ships during there passage between the two Oceans. For this, they actually don't use anything but the water from the Gatun Lake. The Gatun Lake not only a huge water storage; it is maybe the most spectacular part of the Panama Canal crossing, after the gates. The lake is full of small inlets, and bigger islands, all covered with the lushest emerald of jungle. Rainforest in its best, as it is nothing, but the frequent rain help to refill the lake, thus make possible to work the locks. And they need all the water: every time a ship cross the Panama Canal, they "waste" around 200000 cubic meter of fresh water from the lake!
On the photos, you can see some moments of passing threw the Miraflores locks, a lift of 16.5 meters coming from the Pacific Ocean. You can see easily this lift of the container ship just in front of mine.
I will write a bit more about the Panama Canal in a next entry.
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1 comment:
Wow! Nice post! Nice pics taken from various angles. With this post, I reminisce the days when my late father was still a seaman and mentioned for quite several occasions his experience whenever their cargo ship crosses the Panama Canal. He had brought home some nice pics from this place as well. He had spent most of his years as a seaman with Naess Shipping and had been one of the top calibre Radio Operator/Officer of his time. He was called "Spark" by his workmates, and not by his name, due to his profession. Radio Officers are usually called that way.
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