Panama

This was the highlight of the holiday, what we came to see. We all thought that we would do a partial transit of the canal, but that was not so. It costs upwards of 300,000 pounds to transit the canal, so thats why cruises that do do the transit are so much more expensive than those that don't. This time we took the ships tour.

The canal was officially inaugurated on August 15th 1914. The maximum dimensions allowed for a transit are 106 feet beam, 965 feet length and 39.5 feet draft, anything larger than that has to go round Cape Horn adding 30 days to a ships journey. The canal works round the clock.

The canal itself is 80 kilometers long and unites the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, since 1914 more than 957,698 vessels have made the transit. The Canal has three sets of locks and Gatun is the largest. The three locks have two lanes, which operate the water lifts to elevate ships the 26 meters above sea level to the level of Gatun Lake (man made, fresh water).

During the lockages water is used from the Gatun Lake, the miter gates seal the locks chambers and gravity drains the water to the lower levels. Approx 197 million litres of water are used for each lockage.

Vessels use their own propulsion for the greater part of the transit, however, when passing through the locks they are assisted by electric locomotives which use cables to align and tow the ships. These locomotives work in pairs and move on rails, they keep the ships in position within the lock chambers. Depending on the size of the ship anything from 4 - 8 locos are used.

They are having to build a new bigger canal to take larger ships, at present there can be as litttle as 6 inches spare on either side of the ship when it transits the locks.

On the way back to our ship our guide noticed the termites nest and the howler monkey in the tree. A fantastic day.Panama