crossing the isthmus from the Pacific to the Atlantic

The Panama Canal celebrated its 100 year anniversary last August, something I would have written about only I was in Nicaragua at the time so it rather passed me by.  But last weekend I finally got around to doing the ocean-to-ocean transit, taking the tourist boat Pacific Queen from the harbour on Flamenco Island on the Amador Causeway (the Pacific end) to the port of Cristobal on the Atlantic (Caribbean) coast.  Or at least, that was the plan.

We were all picked up from our various homes/hotels to join the boat, and set off at about 07:30, passing under the Bridge of the Americas into the canal.  A pilot from the canal company had already boarded our boat by this time as no-one, no matter how experienced, is allowed to pilot their own boat through the canal.  We passed the Port of Balboa, with its massive cranes lifting containers on and off the ships that dock here - as much cargo crossing the isthmus is actually carried next to the canal by train rather than through it by ship - and from there arrived at the first of the two sets of locks that one has to pass through in order to rise to 26 metres above sea level.

There was a guided commentary on the boat, and they explained that the canal could not just cross the isthmus at sea level, saving the time, money and lost lives of building three sets of locks in total, because the tidal range of the Pacific is much greater than that of the Atlantic (the former being around 7 metres and the latter only 70cm), and high tides occur at different times on the two sides, and the result of building straight through would have been massively strong currents in the canal that would have prevented safe navigation.

The first locks are at Miraflores, where there is also a landside visitor centre that I must get to one day, and after those the second set, Pedro Miguel Locks.  From there we passed under the Centennial Bridge which carries the Pan-American Highway into the city, and then through the Gaillard Cut, where the canal cuts across the continental divide.  This took us to Gatun Lake, a large area that was flooded when the canal was built; small islands dotting the lake are really the tops of submerged hills.

Finally after Gatun Lake we arrived at the Gatun Locks.  This is the final set, and takes the boats down 26m in three steps.  Here are some of the tourists on my boat photographing our approach into the locks:

and here - well it wouldn't have been right to take photos of injured people lying on the floor in pain - is the front of the boat just a minute or so later - where it clearly should not have been:

We had swung round - I later was told because an engine failed but some passengers said that a crew member on our boat failed to catch a rope that was thrown to him from the lock side - and the back of the boat had crashed into the lock wall, followed by a gentler crash as the front of the boat, shown here, bounced back into the opposite wall.

Many people fell, and there were a number of shocked and injured passengers. The old grey-haired chap at the bottom of the first photo, who had been perched on the seat next to me, was lying motionless on the deck, clearly in a lot of pain, and we feared he had broken his shoulder.  No help came from the crew so fellow passengers tried to help the injured on my deck as best they could.  It seems the crew had been busy downstairs where there were head wounds and neck injuries to deal with.  Finally they made an announcement that we could not complete the canal transit but would have to be towed back to the nearby docks on the lakeside where ambulances were already waiting and buses would (eventually) take the rest of us back to Panama City.

So it was rather more of an eventful day than I had anticipated, not to mention considerably cheaper as the tour company refunded half of our money.  Maybe I'll wait until the new wider canal opens in 2016 before I make another attempt to go right the way through to the Atlantic side.