Where are we today? Crossing the Panama Canal

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 Blog By Dave:

Today we crossed the Panama Canal.  We started at 6:30am in the morning and came out about 5pm in the afternoon.  The cruise company paid about $350K to cross the Panama Canal and to reserver their time slot.

The Panama Canal consists of three locks on the Atlantic side and three locks on the Pacific side.  We first went through three locks that raised us up to the level of a large lake in the middle of Panama.  The final three locks lowered us down to the level of the Pacific Ocean.  

I recommend you read about the engineering feat and the challenges they faced to build the canal in the early 1900s.

Here are some pictures as we went through:


The massive bridge over the entrance to the canal

As we enter lock 1 the ship in front us is in lock 2. Ship on left is coming toward us.

You can see the ship in front of us leave and the one coming toward us has been lowered and is moving out

Finally we have been raised and we move into lock 2

We proceeded through all the locks and the lake and ended up in the Pacific Ocean

To close out the day we celebrated with a hamburger feast prepared by the chef on board.  Two patties, cheese, pulled port and an egg !!!!!!!







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