Immediately after the cut, we begin our entry into Gatun Lake. It is a huge, wide, beautiful lake that once we entered, seems like sailing in the ocean, it is that large. 21 miles in length, with a floor of poured concrete, the lake, as mentioned in the previous post, is a result of the damming of the Chagres River. It’s total size is 164 square miles and it is normally at 85 feet above sea level (how de Lesseps ever thought he could do a sea level canal here is just beyond us – total fantasy!), although it may be a tad less now because the water levels are so low – low enough that we have to slow our speed down through the lake. At the time of construction (1913) it was the largest man-made lake in the world.

For us now, it is time for our lunch break so we won’t miss anything as we sail through this beautiful territory.

We’re back and raring to go by 2:20 when we approach the Gatun Locks. Here, I’ll bore you with Lock information, seeing as it is our last one, or last 3 as the case may be! It took 4 years to build all the locks, and a single lock, stood on its end would be taller than the Eiffel tower. The walls are 1000 feet long, 81 feet tall (higher than a 6 story building) and, if emptied and you stood at the entrance, would look like a 5 block street lined with 6 story buildings. Two million cubic yards of concrete were poured by hand to create the Gatun Locks, the most concrete ever poured for its time. There is enough concrete to build a solid wall 8 feet thick, 12 feet high and 133 miles long.

The gate mechanism is another fascinating story – but I don’t recall all the details, except I think it was the company that designed them had never done anything like this before. What I do know is that the gates themselves are 7 feet thick, made of two separate pieces each 65 feet long that form a V when they close. The hinges weigh more than 36,000 pounds each. They were originally operated by an electric motor, but were changed to hydraulic in 1998. There are auxiliary gates in case of a catastrophic failure, plus chain barriers that stretch across the lock in front of the gate to prevent a ship from ramming the gates.

Moving through the locks, we get more great views of exactly how these gates work, the different water levels and can see how close other ships are as they move through the locks in the opposite direction. It takes about 2 hours to move through all 3 locks, lowering down the 85 feet necessary to get to sea level.

Then poof – we out of the locks and sailing through the narrow cut heading toward Limon Bay. It is much like a little river here, beautiful jungle on each side. The most interesting thing here though, is that we can actually see the remnants of the French excavation, a little river like cut that angles off from the main sailing channel. Exciting!

Our last sight along the channel is the new Atlantic bridge, just recently opened to traffic, but not very used at all – at least not as we are sailing through! But it is incredibly picturesque with the cables and girders shining in the sun.

An apt way to finish our canal transit and a good segue into our normal evening plans! It is almost 5 by now and it is time for the gym, happy hour where Joel guarantees us we will win a Bud Light prize, and son of a gun, we do, a great Bud Light cooler! Hmmmm…wonder how that happened? Then dinner and a show, and late night drinks in Spinnaker, where Sherwin, not to be outdone, guarantees we’ll be a winner with the Bud Light prizes, and gee, guess what? We are! This time a lovely towel that will come in quite handy over the next few days of 90+ degree heat and humidity. An excellent end to an incredible successful, fascinating and at least for us, totally fun day!