The Panama Canal is about 70Km long and was constructed 100 years ago - it's an amazing engineering feat.
From the Atlantic side, Colon, we entered 3 locks and were raised up to Gatun Lake. We did this at night. When we arrived in the lake we rafted up to a ships buoy for the night alongside our American friends "Field Trip" who are also cruising on a catamaran. We had an Advisor onboard and two additional volunteer line handlers - Aussies Keith and Jennifer from the monohull "Jack's Back". The transit cost us about US$1000 and included 4 long ropes and 10 tyres covered in plastic to use as fenders. We had watched a few DVD's on the construction and history of the canal as so we were familiar with the landmarks.
On the second day we crossed Gatun Lake, a freshwater lake with Caiman crocs (the less aggressive 'freshies'). It was great having Jol onboard, who in the past was a ranger at Kakadu National Park and offered a lot of croc (information)! The crocs are very elusive but we managed to see one crossing our bow. As we motored the 25NM up the passages to the second set of locks we were passed by a number of cargo ships and bulk carriers. Our Advisor is an American who has lived in Panama 30 years and comes from a family with a strong connection to the canal. He had lots of great information to share and made a fantastic tour guide along the way.
We saw the Celubra Cut where the first attempt to dig the Panama Canal failed due to constant landslides and floods in the wet season. 30,000 people died in the construction of the canal, mostly to malaria and yellow fever. When they realised that mosquitoes were the cause of the sickness and took preventative measures progress started to improve. However, the biggest change was in the engineering plans which changed from attempting a direct channel between the oceans to building a dam on the Chagress River with a system of locks. Two companies went broke in the process and the canal was finally finished by a US military engineer with experience in railway construction. We are currently anchored off a causeway made from the spoil from the canal.
The final set of locks, Miraflores Locks, are close to Panama City on the Pacific Ocean side of Panama. Here we had to go between a tug and Field Trip as there was no room in the lock for the ship, the tug, and then two catamarans. Miraflores Lock has a visitor's centre where there were hundreds of tourists watching the show! It felt like we were in a football stadium!
Entering the Pacific Ocean marks the start of a new chapter in our journey....
