Transiting the Canal from my Point of View

Porter has already written about our transit of the canal. He did not write about what I was doing after the Gatun Locks. Instead of writing about the facts of the Panama Canal or the events of our transit, I decided I would write about my experience of the canal.

We spent most of the second day of our Panama Canal transit motoring across Gatun Lake and the Gaillard Cut. It probably would have been boring but I made it more interesting for myself. I sat on the spreaders for a little while. Later Danny joined me. Danny is an HMI alumnus that I wrote about in an earlier post. We watched everything go by from up the spreaders. Things look different from that high up. Together, we watched as Sila motored through the muddy water. Amanda also joined me on the spreaders for a while. Several big boats went by. And when I say big boats, I mean container ships that are at least 200 meters long. Even from the spreaders, I had to look up to see the deck of the ships.

 Danny and I on the spreaders in Lake Gatun, Amanda is sitting on the boom below us.

 

 

 And here I am on the spreaders with Amanda

We motored for about five hours before we tied up outside the Pedro Miguel Locks. Then we went into the locks and tied up next to the tour boat. A huge boat came in behind us. Its towering bow was a little nerve wracking because if the ship kept going, it would crush Sila against the forward lock doors. Once the ship was completely stationary, 80 feet behind us, we started to go down surprisingly fast. When we were all the way down, the doors opened and we went out of the lock chamber.

We motored across a small stretch of water called the Miraflores Lake. During that stretch, I climbed back onto the spreaders. When we were in the first of the two Miraflores locks, I sat there and watched everything from a bird's eye view. Beside me, I heard the cameras of the people on the tour boat clicking away: fairly annoying.

 This picture is from the live webcam. Uncle Kevin saw us go through live and sent us this picture and the one below too.  Sila is between the tour boat and the big red ship.

 If you look closely to the webcam picture above, you can see me sitting on the spreaders

 In this picture, you can see both the tourist boat next to us and the big ship behind us in the lock

 And this picture was taken at the same time as the one above. It is before the water started to go out of the lock to lower us down to the level of the Pacific Ocean.

As the doors opened and we went through to the next chamber, I noticed there were a lot of storks standing beside the locks. I took pictures from above as we entered the Pacific Ocean.

 You can see Porter on the boom next to Mama, and Amanda and Jeff sitting on the doghouse roof

 This is a selfie I took. I am sitting on the spreaders and the camera is looking forward toward the lock doors.

 And in this one, the camera is looking back at me and the ship behind us in the chamber

 The doors are about to open onto the Pacific Ocean!

 Here we go, out the locks!

Transiting the Panama Canal was exciting because in a day, we went from the Atlantic to the Pacific in a 100-year old canal that still does its job. – Jack Rabbit