Panama Canal

A full transit through the Panama Canal is something of a rarity for passengers. A partial transit is much more common, but the full transit takes place one Saturday each month. I was delighted to find that our trip with the canal trip, so I booked early.

There are three sets of locks through the canal. A full transit takes about 8 hours. Ships are charged based on the size of the ship, and the transit can cost up to $400,000, one way! Our boat was charged $3500.00. The canal is a much safer transit than sailing around Cape Horn, and saves an average of 22 days of travel!

Transit is 'first come first serve'. Ships dock either in Panama City on the Pacific side, or in Colon on the Atlantic side and wait until they are called for transit. The wait can be several hours, or several days. A ship can reserve a passages for a specific day, but they must pay in advance, and the fee is non-refundable. Cruise companies do this, of course, and any ship that has a tight time table.

A canal pilot boards each ship to pilot it through the canal. Depending on the length of the ship, one or two can go through at a time. We went through every lock with another ship.

Day transits are all one-way. The morning ships go from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and in the afternoon they go from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The large ship when went through the fist two sets of locks had to stop in Gatun Lake and wait, because it was too large and slow to make the full transit in the morning. The largest ships only go through the canal during the day. At night they allow smaller ships, and have two way transits. Each set of locks has two lanes.

Many modern ships, particularly oil tankers and some US military ships are two wide to fit through the canal. To accommodate them, a third, wider lane is currently being dug.

To go through the locks, a ships is guided into the canal. The locks (gates) behind it are shut, and then the ship is raised (or lowered at the Atlantic side). Once the water is at the right level, the locks in front are opened, and the ship goes into the next part of the canal and the process is repeated. The Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks have two sections and the Gatun locks have three.

So, today I sailed from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean in 8 hours! Oh, and you can probably tell, it rains the entire day.