Gatun Locks — Local services in Cristóbal

After a pointless and disappointing drive to Portobelo (please do not waste your time) we decided to make the best of the rest of the day and visit the Gatun Locks (or to be more precise the Aguas Claras Visitor Center -- this is what Google Maps expect).

Best decision. The center does not have many visitors, and you can see ships going through very close by. From what I saw of the Miraflores Lock, this one allows a much closer and quieter opportunity to see this incredible feat of engineering.

Even if you don't make the mistake of visiting Portobelo (please don't), I would still suggest a trip to the locks. It is about 60 Kms from Panama, 90% of it on the excellent Autopista...

I really enjoyed going through the locks on our cruise ship. We did a partial transit from the Caribbean Ocean to the Gatun Lake and back. On our inbound journey, we utilized the northern set of locks and were helped along with trains and cables. On our outbound journey, we utilized the southern set of locks and were helped along with tug boats.

They said it is because the southern set of locks can handle much larger ships than the northern set of locks. Consequently, the trains and cables wouldn't be able to handle the larger ships, and they have to use tug boats for the...

In short I ended up with a rare opportunity to transit the canal and observe the full process from inside the bridge. I admit that the canal pilots not only know the ins and outs of the waterways they have to be capable of managing from 10 to 15 different teams simultaneously over various radios. Not to mention they also have to know how to compensate in case one of the teams demonstrates a slow or incorrect responce. It truly is an art of orchestration...