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| At left, Brady is walking across the Panama Canal....!!! |
I’m just going to cut to the chase:
We WALKED across the Panama Canal.
In shock and awe, we tripped along the little one lane road running at the base of the Gatun Locks, looking up at the huge double doors holding back millions of gallons of water.
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| Millions of gallons of water being held back by the massive doors. |
The Panama Canal is a modern marvel - truly one of the engineering wonders of the world - which allows ships (and even small boats like ours) to travel across the Isthmus of Panama. The only other option to get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean (or vice versa) is to travel all the way around to bottom tip of South America, a long and often treacherous journey. Just ask Ferdinand Magellan! Many early explorers’ main goal was to find a short, easy, and safe passage from Europe to Asia. But there was no short, or easy way between the great oceans until the Panama Canal was constructed across the narrowest section of Panama in 1914.***
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| A bulk carrier moves on as the canal doors close the lock. |
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The lock on the left is full of water, ready for the next
ship to enter and be lowered down a level. |
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| Looking down the Gatun Locks, out toward the Caribbean. |
The Panama Canal was completed about 100 years ago, giving mariners a “Path Between the Seas” (which is the title of the great book by David McCollough). The canal raises ships up 85 feet to Gatun Lake through a series of “locks”.
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| Image from: http://www.thepanamadigest.com/2011/10/panama-canal-expansion-accident-10-injured/ |
Three locks up, and three locks down now help shuttle thousands of boats across the 50 mile distance from one ocean to the other.
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| Entering the locks from Gatun Lake. |
Now, over 14,000 ships transit the Panama Canal each year.
It's a very busy place!
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As we sailed near the Panama Canal, the radar showed multiple hits. (Understatement.)
We counted at least 35 ships around us waiting for their turn to transit. |
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| Waiting to transit. |
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| Tugs help move ships into the Gatun Locks. |
Our boat was anchored just a bit downstream from the Gatun Dam in the Chagres River. We decided to do some exploring, and see if we might be able to walk across the dam...and maybe get a closer view of the actual canal and locks.
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A cruise ship passes behind the Gatun Dam.
At the far right, a car can be seen crossing the spillway bridge. |
We left our dingy at a small dock in the Chagres River and followed the road uphill toward the dam, which holds back the water forming Gatun Lake. A road leads over the spillway, past the dam and hydroelectric power plant, off toward the Gatun locks. And so we followed the road, watching the ships move slowly behind the mounds of earth supporting the canal.
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| Superstructure of a ship transiting the canal, as seen from the road below. |
We had no idea if we’d be able to get close enough to view the actual locks, but we figured we’d go find out.
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| A Crocodile patrols Gatun Lake. |
After a couple of miles, we hit the west side of the Gatun Locks. The road turned and headed downhill before it came to a dead end, and wondering what could be found there, we continued down the road.
And then, there it was. We saw the guard shack and the one lane road that allows cars to creep across the canal, at least while the gates are closed and ships aren’t passing through.
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| Past the guard gate, black lock doors in the distance... |
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| ...and under the canal walls. |
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| About to cross the bridge across the canal... |
We watched the cars go across, and wondered if we could cross by foot. Finally I decided to go ask the guard. Could we walk across? Si! Our only admonition: No Stopping!
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No Stopping in the middle of the canal!
Check out the water rushing out of the locks toward the Caribbean. |
It was a “pinch me, am I awake?” kind of experience. The doors were enormous from our vantage point, and rushing water below our feet could be seen through the metal walkway. In our excitement we nearly ran across...no stopping!
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OMG!
We are WALKING ACROSS the PANAMA CANAL!!! |
And then, we turned back to look in amazement, not quite believing our luck. Yep, we had just walked across the “ditch”!
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| Two ships in the Gatun Locks...one locking up, one locking down. |
From the east side of the canal, the Gatun Visitor Center can be accessed. So we spent the next few hours watching from the viewing platform, as ships completed their day long passage from the Pacific by locking down into the Caribbean Sea.
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| A bulk carrier fills the canal. |
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| Workers watch from the bow of a ship. |
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| Nearly 100 years in operation...1914-2014. |
We had taken our boat through the canal 20 years ago, so it was great to be able to show the boys where the boat had been, and point out how these very locks had been used to move our boat from the Pacific to the Atlantic. And although we didn't transit the canal by boat this time, we DID get to cross the canal after all...on foot! A memorable transit indeed.
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Expansion construction on the canal is under way,
which will allow even larger ships to transit. |
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New doors for the new, bigger canal addition.
Construction of the new locks is scheduled to finish in 2014. |
Also, this site has a great interactive map of some
of the early explorers:
