Everyone is up early as we arrive a the first lock just as the sun breaks the horizon , over the last few days we have all been secretly
scouting out the best positions to get the best view of transiting the Panama Canal. Some believe a higher vantage point is best and they opt
for the top deck; for others, the ship’s bow is the most obvious choice.
As we approach the two-lane canal, passengers take up a spot in one section, then move to another – bow, stern, port, starboard, upper,
lower. Some people prioritise breakfast and let the scenery pass by the restaurant window.
Passengers realise that the lowest walk around deck has a great advantage – not usually a highly sought-after vantage point. From this
level, you can see just how close to the canal walls the ship cruises.
So the day begins at 5:30 a.m. on the Atlantic side of Panama (Caribbean Sea).
The cruise ship enters Limon Bay, a natural deep-water harbor leading into the Panama Canal.
A quick stop before the Manzanillo Bay Breakwater entrance allows four Panamanian Pilots to board the ship.
It is their job to safely guide her through the locks.
Slowly it makes it way towards the entrance wall where cables are connected to the electric mules that will stabilize the ship to prevent it
from banging side-to-side.
For safety purpose, ships are guided though the lock chambers by the electric locomotives known as mules, named after the animals
traditionally used to pull barges. The mules are used for side-to-side and braking control in the rather narrow locks.
The forward motion into and through the locks is actually provided by the ship’s engines and not the mules.
The mules themselves run on geared tracks. Each mule has a powerful winch, operated by the driver; these are used to take two cables in or
pay them out, to keep the ship centered in the lock while moving it from chamber to chamber. With as little as a 12 inch clearance on each
side of the ship, considerable skill is required on the part of the operators.
The ship has to be correctly secured to the mules along the Canal locks via cables. Without these “leashes”, the ship is prone to movement
while the water swells or empties beneath it in each lock.
The Ship is 32.3 metres wide. The canal is 33.5 metres wide, leaving just 60 centimetres on each side. The ship has to be perfectly centred
for the process to work: as the ship enters a lock, massive steel gates are closed around it and water gushes through an opening until it
reaches the same level as the next lock, so that the ship can proceed to the next step. When the ship is elevated to the same level as the
human-made Gatun Lake, it is then lowered to sea level on the opposite side of the isthmus.
There is ample time to watch the transit from all angles as passage through the two-lane Panama Canal can take several hours, depending on
the number of other vessels in line.
Known as the world’s greatest shortcut, the canal slices the North and South American continents to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Carved out a century ago, the waterway meant ships could avoid taking the long and often bumpy way round Cape Horn, saving time and money – a practice that continues today.It’s nearly 8,000 miles shorter to traverse the Canal than to go around South America.
In one lane, heading to the Pacific, might be a massive freighter next to a dredger; and in the other lane, sailing to the Atlantic, a yacht
and a tanker. 
When our passenger ship arrives at the canal’s first lock, we are the only holidaymakers. Behind, in front and beside us are queues of cargo ships laden with containers; it’s a traffic jam at sea.
After days of not sighting another vessel, the spectacle of this super-size convoy is fascinating. Everyone is transfixed by the slick
procedure used to take each ship through the canal’s three locks, with both lanes moving in opposite directions.
The Canal opened in August of 1915 and has provided transit to more than 950,000 vessels over the years through a series of three locks
called Gatun (Atlantic side), Pedro Miguel and Miraflores (both Pacific side)
A $5.25 billion expansion of Panama Canal, the waterway handling 5 percent of global trade, will open by June 2015, six months later than originally planned. The canal currently is used by as many as 14,000 vessels a year.
In its first full year of operation, the Panama Canal recorded 1058 transits; last year, the figure was 14,721. The average toll for vessels is $US45,000; a big cruise ship costs $US250,000 a transit, including toll and use of locomotives. Maersk Line, the world’s biggest container shipping company, will stop plying through the Panama Canal to move goods from Asia to the U.S. east coast It states Fees for ships to go through the Panama Canal have tripled in the past five years to $450,000 per passage for a vessel carrying 4,500 containers.
Seeing the famous Bridge of the Americas from the underside in the Panama Canal is an experience that very few can boast –
