Panama Canal Cruise 2/12/08
Day 7 Panama Canal, Panama
Traveling through the canal is an awesome experience. There are 3 massive sets of locks. The Gatun Locks are on the Caribbean side of the Continental Divide and the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks are on the Pacific side. The locks are 984 feet long and 108 feet wide. The ships are raised and lowered 85 feet during their passage. Two other highlights are the Gatun Lake and the Gaillard Cut. At 163 square miles, the Gatun Lake is still one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. Galliard Cut was one of the most difficult excavations during the construction of the canal – It required an 8 mile channel to be cut through solid rock. It takes about 8 hours to navigate through the Panama Canal. We have included only 2 pictures that we took.

We have more of our pictures available at: http://s232.photobucket.com/albums/ee224/gsfeltner/2008-02%20Panama%20Canal%20Cruise/Travel%20through%20Panama%20Canal They tell a story of our travel through the locks and what we saw. Just click on the pictures and it will enlarge with a description of the picture.
The web sites below have great information and lots of excellent pictures for anyone wanting more information, even a live webcam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal
http://www.pancanal.com/
http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html