through the Canal — THE CANAL

A day or so ago, Patt, Raleigh and I joined a few, well actually a whole bunch, of our friends of similar situation in life. (The observant will notice hair styles and color.) We cruised up the Panama Canal on the Pacific Queen providing multiple opportunities for photography. Here we are following a tug pushing a barge into one of the locks at Miraflores.

Coming the other direction is a Liberian cargo ship in route. It is being lowered in the locks as we are being floated up.
 

The previous locks we have come through as seen from the stern (Eric is that right?) of our vessel.

The Baltic Patriot is pulled past the tourist museum and observation decks at Miraflores as we move forward. Big ships are pulled by little trains called mules, smaller vessels proceed in the locks under their own power but tied together or to tugs as the water rushing in creates a whirlpool effect.

Important side note - this remodeled multi-floored tourist center was the location of a very pleasant party that Patt and I hosted the evening prior to Stephen and Jen's wedding at Gamboa the next day July 9, 2009.

And we are fully underway going north toward the Atlantic and the Pedro Miguel locks.

While watching the ship rise against the wall of the lock, Raleigh enjoyed his lunch time cookie in the mess hall of our cruise ship - we were well fed twice on the trip. I think this lock had something like a 30+ foot change in water level.

As fortune would have it, there was on board another young boy from Argentina with his parents.  The two boys hit it off quite well and enjoyed each other very much. His name according to Raleigh is "Boy" though they talked entirely in Spanish and the child according to his Mom is 3 years old. I hope his birthday is next week as he is going to be big.

The Chesapeake Highway, a Panamanian ship, is a car carrier and its recent stops in order were Shanghai, Jacksonville,  Newark, and Colon. Its current location is in the Pacific, just west of Panama traveling at a rate of 17 knots. The internet is an amazing thing. The tour guide on our ship said typical car carrier cargo ships like this one could carry 5,500 cars. Large carriers that use the new locks can carry 8,800 cars. FYI.

Said ship going through the continental divide and the location known as the Big Dig where the most digging was required. Well duh.

And this ship was so close and impressive I just missed the name in my photos. Not like you haven't seen one of these before, but it was impressive to see come by.

We did not go all the way to Colon. We got off our ship near Gamboa and took a van back to the City.  A long and fun day and enjoyable conversations too with several of our shipmates.