{"id":5777,"date":"2023-06-27T14:51:24","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T18:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=5777"},"modified":"2023-09-10T09:48:08","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T13:48:08","slug":"the-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=5777","title":{"rendered":"The Canal (part 2 of 7)"},"content":{"rendered":"

On May 4, 1904, the United States took control of the property that would become the Panama Canal. Exactly 83 years later I found myself on a spontaneous flight to Panama, joining Trent Palmer and crew of Challenge<\/em><\/strong>. The sloop was anchored in Col\u00f3n on the Atlantic side and destined for California. The next morning we began our journey through Panama Canal.<\/p>\n

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Entering the canal zone, our pilot came on board to direct us along the way.<\/p>\n

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Approaching Gatun Locks, we saw two large ships ahead of us. One had already entered the first chamber while another waited in line.<\/p>\n

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When it was our turn. I was struck by the chamber’s size and amount of water needed to fill it.<\/p>\n

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Four sailboats rafted up behind us and we were all bridled to counter turbulent rising water.<\/p>\n

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The water source comes from manmade Gatun Lake, a result of dams at the Chagres River. The lake stores more than enough to operate the locks and is recharged by surrounding rain forest. They never run out of water.<\/p>\n

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With the chamber filled, gates open to allow entry to the next step.<\/p>\n

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After going through 3 chambers at Gatun Locks, the last gate opened and we entered Gatun Lake, 85 feet above sea level. \u00a0While we exited, a large vessel waited to enter, heading in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

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Once out on the lake, canal pilot Jim Wood took us to a shortcut, saving considerable time.<\/p>\n

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The shoreline along the lake is dense jungle that once overlooked a lush valley.<\/p>\n

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Perched on the bow of Challenge<\/strong><\/em>, first mate Billy Burr took in the scenery. Transiting Gatun took about 3 hours. Then arriving at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks respectively, we descended into the Port of Balboa on the Pacific side. It totaled 8 hours for us to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific.<\/p>\n

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Challenge<\/em><\/strong> was moored at Balboa a few days while we gathered provisions.<\/p>\n

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Getting underway May 9th, we motored toward the Pacific under the Bridge of the Americas.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On May 4, 1904, the United States took control of the property that would become the Panama Canal. Exactly 83 years later I found myself on a spontaneous flight to Panama, joining Trent Palmer and crew of Challenge. The sloop was anchored in Col\u00f3n on the Atlantic side and destined for California. The next morning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,6,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sailing","category-sea","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5777"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5940,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions\/5940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}