Panama Canal Transit

We had another day at sea while going from Puntarenas to the Panama Canal. It was a rainy and even a little cool. We got word that there was a hurricane hitting Mexico City and this probably was the cause of our weather.

We arrived at Panama City and the entrance of the canal early in the morning as we were scheduled to enter at 8 AM. I was surprised at the great number of ships anchored waitng to go in or had come out. Another passenger counted 45. I took more video of our transit than still pictures. We also purchased a video from the ship photgraphers that shows the transit better than I could do. Here are a few of the pics that I did take.

There are three locks to lift the ship and three to lower the ship. The total lift is about 27 meters or 90 feet. The distance through the canal is about 50 miles and it takes about 5 - 6 hours for the transit. The canal authority has 2 rules that must be followed. Each ship must carry a qualified canal pilot and the ship must pay the toll in cash prior to entering the canal. Naturally agents are used for the money transfer.

The day before we went through,  a sister ship, the Norwegian Pearl transited the canal and set a toll record of $419,000 for the canal.

Here we are in a lock with one of the "mules" that pulls the ships through the locks. These are not the orginal mules as they were replaced only a few years ago. That's Carol supervising the operation! You can see that there is not much clearance between the lock and the ship. We were told that this ship and it's sisters are the largest size allowed through the locks. There is a major project ongoing to add wider and longer locks.

Here is one of the tour boats that are operated on the canal, loaded with passengers.
After exiting the canal we headed for Cartegena, Columbia and will be there tomorrow morning.