Balance of Canal Transit: Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks, & Taboga Island

Our pilot for the balance of our Canal transit prepares to come aboard.

Leaving Gatun Lake and preparing to enter San Pablo Reach.

Mindi, one of the huge dredges used to keep the shipping lanes deep enough.

Titan, a huge crane appropriated from Germany after World War II.

Entering the Culebra, or Gaillard, Cut, the most challenging stretch during construction because of the massive amount of excavation required and the frequent landslides.

Approaching the Centennial Bridge with Gold Hill on the left and Contractors Hill on the right.  The Continental Divide lies between these two.

Gold Hill.

Another dredge.

Approaching the Pedro Miguel Locks.

One of the ferries that provide transportation through the Canal for residents and tourists.

Into the lock channel.

The gates open after the single lock has lowered us 31 feet, and we prepare to enter the stretch of the Canal known as Lake Miraflores.

Fire towers.

Entering the set of double locks at Miraflores.

These two locks have lowered us another 54 feet and we are now back at sea level.  The new locks on the Pacific entrance to the Canal will be a set of three just west of the Miraflores set.

Cargo area for moving containers between ships that are too large for the existing locks and the railroad that will move the cargo by land over the isthmus.

Bridge of the Americas, spanning the harbor of Balboa and the Pacific entrance to the Canal.

Amador Causeway on horizon to the right.

The colorful,Museum of Biodiversity, designed by Frank Gehry.

Our group photo.

And we prepare to spend our third and last night aboard the Discovery moored on the leeward side of Taboga Island in the Gulf of Panama.