mahdnc

I told my wife the same thing. It's just that she happens to be going into the Pacific.

A few random photos of the famous "mules" whose main purpose is to keep the transiting ships centered in the lock and away from the side walls. In some of the photos you can see a pair of thin steel cables coming from the mules and are attached to Summit.

What are "trugs"? Tugs?

Thank you both for the compliment and the information!

The luxury yacht that was one of the three ships to share the same lock at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks was very nice looking. She is named H2O. My Marine Traffic app says that she is Marshall Islands flagged and built in 2023. Perhaps she is headed back to the Marshall Islands--a trip considerably longer than the Capt Andy's catamaran which probably was heading to Kauai. She had two covered jet-skis sitting at the bow. I think two small white rectangles mounted on top of the canopy are Starlink dishes. Very nice. Her anchors were beautiful shiny chrome. I am not sure how you maintain that look in the long run after it's been used a lot.

The Capt Andy's catamaran had its business URL on it, so I emailed some of the photos I took of her to them.

Yesterday when we crossed the Bridge of the Americas (bridge on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal), it was getting dark with nightfall approaching. Built in 1962, the bridge was originally known as the Thatcher Ferry Bridge. The bridge was named after the Thatcher Ferry which operated at that location and the ferry was named after Maurice Thatcher who was associated with the Canal Zone commission. The people of Panama later changed it to its present day name. The "low" height of this bridge prevents some ships from sailing through the Panama Canal even though they might fit through the new locks such as the Oasis class ships. The catamaran sailing under the Bridge of the Americas in the above photo belongs to Capt Andy's according to the signage on the boat. A quick look at their website shows that Capt Andy's operates tours at the famous Na Pali coastline of Kauai. I guess that is where she is heading! She was one of the two small boats that shared the same lock with the large freighter going through the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks. The photo below shows all three ships together at Miraflores in the left most lock. The catamaran is the front-most boat with the thin long white mast.

Even though you are looking back at the Panama Canal, the aft balcony views were very awesome and more relaxing. Here we are watching the doors close at the Miraflores Locks. The Miraflores Visitor Center is the tall building on the right (where the IMAX theater is located). Because it was late in the day (~5:30pm), there were not too many visitors watching us. In fact, there were not too many passengers watching either! Main (Early) Seating at the MDR was at 5:30pm which meant that you would be eating when Summit passed through the Miraflores Locks. Fortunately for us, we had a 7pm dining reservation at the Tuscan Grille. When I walked back to our aft cabin from the helipad just after crossing all three Gatun Locks which was around noon-ish, I was surprised how many passengers were in the interior public areas going about their business like it was a normal cruise day (reading their tablet, doing a puzzle, etc).

I never noticed this before, but many of the freighters we saw yesterday at the canal had nice names--names that you might give to your sailboat or yacht. There was Cool Explorer: Followed by Nirvana Explorer: Crystal Sunrise went through the new locks: Here is Clearocean Music: And then Pacific Jade:

Here are some more random photos taken from Gatun Locks during our canal crossing yesterday. Here is another photo of the passengers line up at the heliport rail. The rain did not seem to dampen our enthusiasm. The crowds seemed to be the largest at the beginning of the day (Gatun Locks). By the time we got to the last set of locks (Miraflores), the crowd had thinned out considerably Gatun Locks' set of 3 locks in each direction was easily my favorite. It was the busiest set of locks when we went through it (luck of the draw). Gatun Locks had the largest elevation gain in the shortest distance so seeing these large freighters elevated above you was absolutely amazing. A view of Gatun Locks from our aft balcony after we sailed through it.

Oh, I almost forgot. Here is a time lapse video taken when we crossed the Pacific side locks: link

And finally, some photos taken at the Miraflores Locks. In the next photo, you can see two small boats sharing the lock in the left of the photo with a big freighter.

Just as there are 3 locks to get up from the Atlantic Ocean up to Gatun Lake, there are 3 locks to take Summit back down to the level of the Pacific Ocean. However the 3 lock chambers are distributed between two named locks--the Pedro Miguel Lock (a single lock) and the Miraflores Lock (which has two locks). Miraflores Lake, a little manmade lake, lay in between Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks. I decided to watch the sailing through these locks from our aft balcony cabin. Here are some photos: The ship in the next photo is heading to the new Cocoli Locks. The narrater said that the ship was short enough to go through the old locks, but it was 15 feet too wide. A view off the starboard side from our balcony: These two small boats shared a the same lock chamber with a large freighter. They were headed in the same direction as Summit was (towards the Pacific) but they were west side locks while we were in the east side lock (both sets are the old locks). Here is the freighter (black hull), entering the lock with the two small boats in front of it (not visible in the photo): Here is a spy photograph of passenger(s) and butler on the balcony of a Celebrity Suite:

After Summit cleared the Gatun Locks, she would sail through Gatun Lake and onto the Pacific side locks. My wife and I headed to the MDR for lunch during that time. The MDR was pretty crowded although we were seated by a window. Here was the lunch menu: I ordered the Chef's Recommendations again. After we finished lunch we took a quick look outside in the port side public deck on Deck 4 before we went back to our cabin. The canal had narrowed considerably while we were at lunch.

Here are a couple more photos before we entered the Gatun Locks. This photo shows what is left of one of the ill-fated French attempts to dig the canal: This yellow tug boat was positioning itself behind Summit as we approached the Gatun Locks: