From the time Ulysses S. Grant first stepped on the isthmus of Panama in 1852, it would be sixty-two years before a vessel would make the inaugural crossing of the Panama Canal. For a brief history on the Panama Canal, visit the official Panama Canal Web site.

The Canal employs three sets of locks to raise ships eighty-five feet to Gatun lake, float them across the Continental Divide, and lower them into the opposite ocean. The Canal itself is roughly fifty miles long and takes ships about eight hours to complete a full crossing. One of the most staggering statistics is the number of gallons of water added to or drained from each chamber of each lock each time it's filled or emptied: 197 million! None of the water is pumped; gravity is the sole force that propels water into and out of the Canal. More than thirteen thousand vessels take advantage of this gravity each year.

I realize the quality of this photo is pitiful, but I wanted to include it because it was our first photo of the Panama Canal and our only salvageable photo that was taken before the sun rose. I used a tripod with this photo, but it wasn’t to keep the camera still; it was to raise the camera above the throng of fellow cruisers who were also trying to get photos. The tripod’s legs were in my hands. The camera was set to ISO200, which is noisy for the little PowerShot G2, as you can see. I took this photo at 6:11 am (CST), there was little light, and the shutter was open for 1/125th of a second.

So even though the quality is terrible, this photo is our first memory of the Panama Canal.

The Coral Princess has a pilot onboard as we enter the first of Gatun’s three chambers on the Atlantic side of the Canal. Notice the tracks on each side of the chambers. Those are for the mules, which we’ll show a few photos down. Supposedly our ship paid US$245,000 to go through this one set of locks. Ships are charged by their weight. Notice the person walking across the gate. Those handrails fold down when the gate opens. At the end of these three chambers is Gatun Lake. Each chamber is exactly the same width, length, and depth: 110 feet, 1000 feet, and 72 feet, respectively.

Here’s a movie showing the Coral Princess making her way through the second chamber of the Gatun locks. She’s under her own power, but she’s secured by two locomotives, affectionately known as “mules,” one on each side of her, to keep her exactly in the middle of the chamber.

The Coral Princess’s bow is waiting for the gates to the second chamber to open. The mitered gates take approximately one minute and forty-eight seconds to fully open or close. Notice the locomotives on each side of the Coral Princess’s bow.

Her majesty’s bow finally gets to go through the gates to the next chamber.