Then we sat there. For several minutes we sat, or so I thought. It wasn’t until the top of the lock became visible did I realize we were being lifted by the force of seemingly infinite water being let into the lock. Once I started seeing grass, I nearly panicked. Generally I am one of the most observant people. I was looking at the walls checking for signs of water inlets, anything that might allow for the passage of water from one lock to another that I failed to think that it would make most sense to put the inlet/outlet at the lowest point. I felt slightly foolish for this glaring oversight on my part, but in my defense I have never been through a lock system and have never even seen one that functions. Granted I am from a city which still has many antiquated and useless locks, I have spent days climbing on and in those old locks, but never did I stop and think the GIANT hole at the bottom was where the water transferred from lock to lock. So yeah, once I realized I had missed where the water might be coming in from I glanced down and saw the eddies and frothless water flowing into the lock, raising both our vessels. Again this was a silent happening. The only noise was that of the ships quietly humming from the massive diesel generators that supply their power. Even that was somehow muffled slightly, or so it seemed to me.

As our ship rose, there was a quiet excitement filling the air. Granted I had never seen this, so in my typically nerdy fashion I was more than over joyed at the massive feat of engineering that was going on all around me. To think this 48 mile canal began its life in 1881 by the French and was completed by the United States in 1914. So here I am standing on a ship built in the 1990’s going through a lock system that was nearly 100 years old. The technologic changes that the canal has had to deal with since its construction are nearly unfathomable. By todays shipping standards the locks are too small, so they are constructing a third larger lane for the massive super tankers that share our seas today. Just imagine what the canal will look like in another 100 years, probably nearly the same, with the mystique tempered by the ages and the endurance and grace forged in the massive number of ships that travel through it every year. More than 10,000 ships pass through those locks each year. But this is all information you can get from google. You aren’t reading this for that. It is a fundamentally amazing feat of human will power against insurmountable odds that brought it into existence.

So there we were on our journey to ride through a jungle on a research vessel that has just been floated up 80 something feet through three locks, when out of nowhere my allergies started killing me. I guess late May in the jungle isn’t a place for a woman with horrible allergies. Part of the reason I like being out in the middle of the ocean is that they don’t bother me as much. So with sinuses straining my brain for room I went and took Benadryl to avoid the migraines that so often accompany my allergy attacks. Luckily for me I take enough Benadryl on a regular basis that the sedative side effects rarely ever kick in. So able to breath and with the sun setting in a jungle, I was struck by the surrealism of the journey I was on. This canal was cut through the middle of some of the most inhospitable wilderness that the Americas has. Malaria ran rampant through the camps of the people who worked on the amazing feat. So with that in mind I sat back and watched what wonders were to play out before me.

Lake Gatun was marked by buoy markers to mark the ship lanes. Then as we progressed through the dark wilderness we came to these odd markers. So I had to know what these yellow and green markers set high on the slopes were for. They are a set of four total markers set one atop the other. One set is yellow and to the left of the green pair. I asked the chief mate what they were for. He then explained to me how when we are going into a turn the pilot has to line them up, generally lining up the green ones to ensure that we are in the portion of the channel that is deep enough for ship traffic. These markers are set so that at a distance and the correct course heading they line up one on top of the other.

Then we came to what can only be described as the single most beautiful bridge I have even seen. This bridge called the Centennial Bridge rose up out of the jungle in a glistening light show. At first only one of its two massive supporting towers was visible. With the super bright lights shining delicately off the glistening metal cables and steel beams it was like a shining pinnacle of brilliance in the middle of the jungle. The cables which held up the large roadway shone with a grey brilliance that even the most erudite of painters could not conceive of a color to put to canvas this brilliant. The second tower came into view and the symmetry of this concrete and steel expanse left me awe struck in a way that the rest of the canal had. As we passed under the bridge I was hurriedly taking pictures with my phone. The tiny 8 megapixel machine caught the bridge of the Atlantis and this bridge behind it in near perfect succession, our bridge bisecting that bridge; two modern things of beauty sharing the same space and time on the elder canal in perfect unison.  Then we began passing giant bucket dredge barges that were feverishly digging at the canal in what can only be assumed to be expansion efforts for the next phase of this marvel.  

The hours drove on; we were moving slowly, maybe a maximum of 3 knots, so it was going to take every bit of the twelve hours I was promised it would take. We came up to the next set of locks, this one began our decent to the Pacific Ocean. An ocean I had never previously been to. New adventures were before me. A whole new life of things I have never before seen, as if I haven’t experienced enough wonder and awe to fill a life. We passed a large container ship that was moored to two giant stable mooring platforms. The Atlantic Klipper was slowing its approach as we went into the narrow neck of the lock. Again we were boarded by a group of line handlers; again they worked their coordinated effort in our safe passage. This time the water flowed out of the locks, and slowly the walls began to rise up past our ship. It was midnight or later, so I decided to retire, most of the other non-deck crew had long since gone to their bunks. I decided I should soon sleep for tomorrow was a new day, a new ocean, and a world of possibilities and unimaginable adventures before me.