Panama Trip - Day 2

Today started with a nice run. I got up and went running along the sidewalk and the beaches near the hotel. It was beautiful. It was about 70 degrees with a warm breeze. When I got back Lori, Carolyn and I went for a walk. Doug had meetings starting at 7:30 a.m. so he had already left for his meetings when we started our walk. After a nice walk, we had breakfast. The convention provided a very nice breakfast each day. After eating breakfast we went to the pool and swam. It was a little cool but we had fun. We had decided that we would stay at the hotel each morning until around 12:00 when Dough finished his meetings since no one else wanted to try driving into the city. But that gave us a nice morning and time to do things around the hotel which was very enjoyable.

We had decided that the first day of tourism had to include a trip to the locks on the Panama Canal. We thought that we would eat dinner at the locks so we thought we would spend some time in the city before going out to the locks. We decided to go to the YMCA, which is a market in town. The market is in what was the original gym of the YMCA. So all the locals refer to it as the YMCA. We asked for directions of how to get there. They gave us directions and with confidence we headed out to the market. Well, needless to say, we got lost. They said we would have not trouble seeing the YMCA from the road. But we did (when we finally did find it several hours later) we would have had no trouble finding it if we had known what we were looking for. So we drove around for about an hour looking for the market. We went around and around in circles with people honking at everyone, including us. The taxi drivers were the worst honkers. We finally found a grocery store and stopped to pick up some snacks to eat for lunch. It was about 2:00 by now. Panama uses American money although they do have some coins which are called Balboas. But they use American coins and Balboa coins the same. We decided we might as well go out to the locks and make sure we had a couple of hours out there. We got there about 2:30. There are 3 sets of locks on the Panama Canal. On the Atlantic side are the Gatun Locks. There are three steps which moves the ship up or down 26 meters depending on which way the are going. Heading towards the Atlantic you drop down. On the Pacific side, there are two sets of locks. The furthest from the Pacific is called the Pedro Miquel which has only one step and closest to the Pacific is the Miraflores Locks which has two steps. There is a made made lake between the two called the Gatun lake. It was made by stopping the Gatun and Chagres rivers. The lock that visitors in Panama City go to is the Miraflores Locks.



It was really remarkable watching ships go through the canal. There are always ships waiting out in the ocean to enter the locks. The locks operate 24 hours a day. There are two channels at each of the locks. For eight hours, the channels all go toward the Atlantic, for eight hours they all go towards the Pacific and for eight hours, one goes to wards the Atlantic and the other towards the Pacific. They are building another set of locks which will handle larger ships and they are to be done by 2012. All ships going from the Atlantic to the Pacific have to go through the canal. We saw small sailboats, large freighters, but passenger ships, submarines, all go through. The cost of going through the canal goes from $550.00 for small boats up to $70,000.00 and higher for larger ships. But is is much cheaper than sailing around the tip of South America. When a ship is ready to enter the canal, a Panamanian captain comes aboard who takes charge of the ship and directs it through the canal. Parts of the canal are so narrow that large ships cannot pass each other. When the ships come to the locks, tug boats come along side and help push the ships into the locks. They push from the side and push it to one side of the lock and then it moves forward into it. For larger ships, trains on the side of the canal pull them through the locks. For smaller ones, men hold ropes and pull them through. Below are some pictures of various ships going through the Miraflores Locks.

This first one was a yacht. It had gone down one level and was waiting to go down to ocean level.




These two sailboats were in the lock above the yacht and waiting to drop down to the level where the yacht was.



Here you see the doors on the locks opening so that the ships can now go down to the next level.



Here you see a large ship entering the lock. This is an oil tanker. Notice the boats on the side pushing it to one side of the lock.



This one shows the ship waiting for the water to drop down so it can be lowered to the next level.



If you note now, you can see that the ship above has sunk down to the level of the sidewalk and the water is now level with the next lock so that the ship can go through.



Here you see two ships going through. They are going the same direction.



The whole adventure at the locks was fascinating to me. We decided not to eat there. We went out the Amador Causeway which joins three little islands in the Pacific.

Here are a picture of the causeway.



We found a nice restaurant. We sat on the water and enjoyed a wonderful meal. On our way at the Causeway we found the YMCA but it was closed so it will be for another day. We got back to our hotel around 8:30. It was a great day.