We began our approach to the Pacific entrance to the Canal around 6 AM. We sailed under the Bridge of the Americas and made our way into the first of the 2 Miraflores locks, each of which raises the ship 27 feet. It’s always amazing to watch the operation and realize that the gates and mechanisms are the originals from almost 100 years ago. It’s also incredible to think that there are no pumps and that the entire operation uses gravity to accomplish the raising and lowering of these huge ships. Behind us we could see the Celebrity Mercury also making the transit today.
After going through the 2 Miraflores locks we approached the one lock at Pedro Miquel. The last time we went through her a few years ago (on the Coral Princess that time too) we saw a very large alligator in the waters along the shore here. Sure enough, there he was! I’m not a good judge of sizes but a couple of men on the balcony next to ours commented that they thought he was at least 10 feet look. He would have made a lot of shoes, handbags and wallets!
After being raised again we began our all day transit through the Canal. A lecturer was aboard as always and as we went through the Culebra Cut, the most difficult part of the construction, he talked about the more than 30,000 people who died building the Canal. It’s in the process of being widened by the Panamanians.
In the afternoon we sailed through Gatun Lake and approached the Gatun Locks to exit into the Caribbean. Ahead of us we could see our sister ship, the Island Princess which had spent the day in Gatun.
The Gatun locks are three steps down to the sea. We went all the way aft and watched much of the transit and it was most interesting because we had a very large container ship just behind us in our series of locks and the Mercury in the locks next to us. As we were positioned in the 2nd of the 3 locks, the container ship entered the lock above us that we had just left. His bow loomed above us and as he drew closer to the gates it was an interesting sensation to have this huge vessel looking like it was coming right at us.
We finished our trip down and sailed for a brief stop at Cristobal, Panama. In the terminal building there was a market with vendors of lots of touristy things. The favorite purchase seemed to be Panama hats as evidenced by the number of people wearing them as we reboarded the ship.
Now it’s off to a sea day and Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
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