Transit through the Canal - old locks

I think I was channeling my inner-Dad mechanical engineering nerd today as we went through this amazing place. After reading McCullough's Path Between the Seas it was amazing to actually see it.

In brief, finished in 1914 after a failed French attempt and had been going ever since-still using original locks and everything! In 2016 Panama built a new canal for the bigger ships, but the old is still used. 2 locks up at the Pacific, a small manmade lake they use for refilling, another lock up, the HUGE Gatun lake, then 3 more locks down and voilá, the Caribbean!

We had great weather and I got up at o'dark-thirty to get a great spot up front to watch. It was in some ways like watching very cool paint dry as it's a slow process to hook us to the "mules" and close and open lock gates, etc. But worth it! Highly recommend.

If you want to read more on Carter and the Canal, here you go: How the Panama Canal affects Jimmy Carter's legacy https://www.npr.org/2024/12/29/1161146405/presi…Read more