The Melia Resort provided a free tour to the Gatun Locks, which are only about 10 minutes away from the resort. Transit through the 50 mile isthmus is made possible by locks that serve to raise and lower ships to the level of a large man-made lake in the middle of the isthmus, Lake Gatun. The Gatun Locks are the locks on the Atlantic side and probably are the best for viewing ships transiting through the canal.

After going through a brief security check to enter the facility, there’s an old electrical locomotive that you’ll pass by—this used to be one of the cars that guided ships through the locks. One of the marvels of the Canal is the fact that ever since its opening in 1914, it has been run completely off of water-generated electrical power. Remarkable considering that the first American factory run off of electricity had only opened the previous year, and that the contractor for the work was a budding new company called General Electric.

A series of stairs brings you up to the observation deck. From here you can see a close up view of ships entering locks and the water being raised and lowered depending on which direction the ship is transiting. The lowest toll ever paid to transit the canal was $0.36 by adventurer and Princeton-dropout Richard Halliburton, who swam the canal in 10 days. This didn’t include the cost of men in boats to shoot any crocodiles that he happened to swim upon. Nowadays, tolls routinely run over $200,000 paid by cash or wire transfer.

One thing that struck me was that the locks weren’t as large as I expected. Though they may have been large enough to accommodate the Titanic with room to spare, a big ship when the Canal was completed (1914) just isn’t that big today. Plans are ready to add a third line to the Panama Canal to accommodate supertankers and other large ships, but this would increase the size of Lake Gatun by 3 times (submerging or forcing the migration of everything in those areas) and still needs voter approval.

Though they’re an inconvenient 48 miles from the comfortable hotels of Panama City, Gatun Locks are one of my most-recommended Panama tourist attractions.

Barely 50 miles wide from Atlantic to Pacific, the Isthmus of Panama has been host to transcontinental traffic since the 1600’s. In the 1850’s, they carved a railroad through the jungle to carry California-bound gold-rushers and their supplies. Finally, after false starts and fearful fatalities to yellow fever and construction accidents, the Panama Canal opened to its first ship in 1914. Unless you want to pay large dollars to ride a ship through it, the Gatun Locks are the best place for admiring this engineering marvel.

Gatun Locks, at the Caribbean end of the canal, are the canal’s largest and busiest. You’re far more likely to see shipping activity here than at the easier-to-reach Miraflores Locks, mainly because there’s only one set of locks instead of the two that ships pass through at the Pacific terminus.

Though you must climb some rather daunting flights of stairs, the visitors’ grandstand at Gatun is larger, higher and more comfortable than the one at Miraflores. It’s also somewhat more friendly to photographers. Although we were ‘skunked’ at Miraflores --- no ships passing while we were there and none scheduled for another several hours --- we saw six ships in less than two hours at Gatun. Several were ‘Panamax’ vessels, meaning that they came within a foot of being too wide or too long for the canal. Specifically, not more than 965 feet long nor 106 feet wide.

Tidbit: Tolls are based on a complex formula based on length, tonnage, and whether a ship is laden or in ballast. According to publicity materials, the lowest-ever toll was 36 cents, paid by an American who was swimming the canal. When I transited the canal in the 2,400-passenger Legend of the Seas in 1996, our Captain said we paid a toll of approximately $200,000.

On arrival at the locks, you’ll be invited to attend short audiovisual presentations on the history of the canal and the mechanics of its operation. You don’t HAVE to view them, but you should. Another tidbit: Those electric-powered ‘mules’ cabled to the ships aren’t for propulsion; they’re for providing precise directional control, with clearances as low as six inches between the ships and the walls of the locks.

When our train from Panama City arrived at Colon, we found no taxi drivers willing to take us on a simple one-way trip to the locks; they’d much prefer we hire them for several hours or a full day. I’d met two other Americans on the train, and the three of us negotiated a set price of U.S. $40 for a trip to and from the locks with the driver waiting with us for two hours or so. (It’s a 20-25 minute drive each way.)

As it turned out, we anted up another $60 and hired him for the full day. But that’s the subject of another entry ...