Vacations | Panama Canal | PC 04.jpg
There are actually three locks on each end of the canal that raise you from sea level to the level of the lake, and then lower you again a the other side. Each lock raises you about 28 feet, for a total of 85 feet. On the Pacific side there are 2 locks in the first set (above) and then a single lock across a small lake (Miraflores Lake), The picture below is of the single lock. We watched the ship pass through this lock from the bow of the ship. You can see that our lock is full, waiting for the doors to open (there are two sets of doors for safety). The container ship on the right, our day-long companion, is in the parallel lock, but it has not yet been raised. (Each of the three locks actually has two parallel locks that can be used by separate ships. On this day, there was more Pacific-to-Atlantic traffic, so both these ships are going the same way. It possible for the two ships to be going in opposite directions.) As you can see, the Legend just fits into the locks. The locks are about 105 feet wide. The Legend had about 18 inches on either side. The locks are about 1000 feet long; the Legend about 970. The Legend is what is called a “Pana-max ship” – the maximum size that can fit through the Canal.
