We
arrived outside the Pacific gateway to the Panama Canal around 1:00 am in the
morning and had to wait to begin the transit. Initially, the ship has to
be able to get under the first bridge, The Bridge of the Americas, just outside
Panama City, the major city on Panama’s Pacific coast. This bridge, built in
1962, connects both sides of the canal on the Pacific side and is on the
original route of the Pan American Highway. This bridge is barely high enough
for the larger ships to sail under; we had to wait for low tide to proceed.
About
2:30 am we began our transit. Not wanting to miss the close bridge clearance, I
got up early to document the passage. We made it with what appeared to be
about 50 ft. to spare.After clearing the bridge, we then had to wait our turn to proceed through the canal. We waited in the bay by the Port of Balboa, the primary commercial port on the Pacific side of Panama just adjacent to Panama City. It is a very busy port and there was lots of activity going on.
After Panama achieved its independence in 1903 it entered into an agreement with the United States to construct a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The French had begun the effort in 1880 but failed due to financial difficulties, engineering challenges and a high worker mortality rate.
Construction began in 1904 and the canal was opened in 1914. The project is widely considered as one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken.
The original canal has two lanes, each with its own set of locks. An expansion project was begun in 2007 and completed in 2016, adding a third lane through the construction of lock complexes at each end of the canal. One lock complex is located on the Pacific side, southwest of the existing Miraflores Locks. The other is located east of the existing Gatun Locks. Each of these new lock complexes have three consecutive chambers designed to move vessels from sea level to 85 ft above sea level at Gatun Lake and back down again.
Each chamber has three lateral water-saving basins, for a total of nine basins per lock and 18 basins in total. Just like the original locks, the new locks and their basins are filled and emptied by gravity, without the use of pumps. The location of the new locks uses a significant portion of the area excavated by the United States in 1939 and suspended in 1942 because of World War II. The new locks are connected to the existing channel system through new navigational channels. The new lock chambers are 1,400.92 ft long, 180.45 ft wide, and 60.04 ft deep. They use rolling gates instead of miter gates, which are used by the original locks. The new locks use tugboats to position the vessels instead of electric locomotives that are used along the original canal.
After waiting our turn for entering the new locks (the ship is too large to use the original locks), we began our transit about 6:00 am into the new Cocoli Locks. After the water level was raised to the water level at Gatun Lake through the series of 3 chambers, we next passed under the Centennial Bridge. It was built to supplement the overcrowded Bridge of the Americas and to replace it as the carrier of the Pan-American Highway. Upon its opening in 2004, it became the second permanent crossing of the canal.
The
Pan-American Highway is interrupted however after the highway reaches the
southern side of the canal due to the dense, impenetrable jungle terrain. If
you are traveling further south on the highway you have to take a boat with
your vehicle to Columbia, the next country down the highway.
We then
transited the Culebra Cut, formerly called Gaillard Cut. It is an artificial
valley that cuts through the Continental Divide in Panama. The cut is the entry
into Gatun Lake from the Pacific side. The lake was created by the building of
the Gatun Dam across the Chagres River during the initial construction of the
canal. At the time it was created, Gatun Lake was the largest man-made lake in
the world. Gatun Dam was also the largest of its kind. It is additionally
the major source of water for operating the locks and the freshwater supply for
the surrounding area. Construction of the cut was one of the great engineering feats of its time; the immense effort required to complete it was justified by the great significance of the canal to shipping, and in particular, the strategic interests of the United States.
The next event was the transit of the Aqua Clara Locks lowering the ship back to sea level on the Atlantic side of the canal. After exiting the locks we passed under the third bridge, the Atlantic Bridge at the Atlantic entrance to the canal near the port city of Colon in Limon Bay. It was then on towards our next destination, Cartagena, Columbia.
It was an interesting and certainly worthwhile experience. Additional information about the history and operation of the canal can be found at:
Here a few stock photos of our ship (Norwegian Joy) transiting the Panama Canal on previous trips:
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