At 5:57 AM we passed from the west under the Bridge of the Americas at the entrance of the Panama Canal.
At 6:29 we enter the first locks, the Miraflores Locks. They would raise our level 54 feet in 2 chambers on the way to being to the level of Gatun Lake.
The ship must be tethered to 4 "Mules". A rope is brought to the ship by row boat to tie to the ships cables.
Here the rope connected to the ships cable will be pulled to tie the ships cables with the Mules.
At 6:43 we are connecting to the Mules.
At 7:16 the 4 Mules on both front and back, both sides are guiding us through the locks.
At one point we could talk to the operator driving the Mule.
A view of the Mules steel cables that are connected to the ship.
We enter the 2nd lock of the Miraflores locks.
At 7:59 we are through the lock and on our left (north) a ship on the new third canal floats by. It has been raised up to the level of Gatun lake by the new Cocoli Locks.
A tugboat goes by with a view of the third canal. The original canal is 110' wide and the new canal is 180' wide.
At 8:05 we are going through the Pedro Miguel lock. It is one chamber that will lift us 31 more feet for a total of 85' to the level of Gatun Lake.
The Mules go up to the higher level to stay with the ship.
At 8:30 we are lifted to the higher level.
We prepare to enter Gatun Lake. We leave the Pedro Miguel lock at 8:45 AM. It has taken 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to Gatun Lake through the locks from the Pacific Ocean.
The third canal to the north also uses Gatun Lake to traverse to the next locks.
We come to a second bridge built recently.
At 10:07 we pass through the Calebra Cut.
The Chagres river is the largest river feeding the Gatun Lake.
They are still widening parts of the Calebra Cut.
The dam that created the man made lake, Gatun Lake. It dammed the Chagres River.
The large ships require deep water. The channels are constantly dredged and monitored.
The south side is marked with green buoys.
On Gatun Lake we pose for a very happy moment. One of the greatest places to visit is one of the man made wonders of the world, The Panama Canal.
We come to the Gatun Locks. The arrow says to use the canal on the right. We need to go down 85' to the level of the Caribbean.
The Gatun Locks are a set of 2 locks. A new bridge has been built on this end also. There are now 3 identical bridges spanning the Panama Canal.
At 1:51 we enter the second set of the Gatun Locks. See video set at 1 second equals 7seconds.
At 2:18 we leave the locks of the Panama Canal. We are now at sea level again. It only took us 8 hours to save 8,000 miles to go Pacific sea to Caribbean sea.
To the south is the outlet of the new third canal. From Gatun Lake it went through the new Agua Clara Locks to lower to sea level.
