CANAL TRANSIT, Part 8, Gatun lake, North End

From the last photograph in the last posting to about the far north end of Gatun Lake, there is only silty water and jungle vegetation to see and photograph. My little camera is wonderful but not good enough to show details of jungle worth reproducing here.

This first photo is of preparation for the new locks by removing most of this hill. if you expand this photo you can see many large trucks, etc. used to haul the hill away, to where no one knew. The big water tower you can see in the background is at Colon, the Atlantic Ocean city on the Canal.


The next photo is of the spillway segments on the dam that created Gatun Lake. It is constructed about a mile west of the Gatun Locks and is what made the Canal possible by flooding the central part of the passage and creating the lake. This structure is far enough away that, once again, my camera wasn't quite up to the challenge of making a good photo.

As on the Pacific side, a world class batch plant is being constructed on the Atlantic side in preparation for building the new locks. As of now, there hasn't been one yard of concrete poured for the new locks. They are to be dedicated in August 2014, about three and a half years from now. Between the plant and the camera you can see the bones of a metal building being erected. I don't know what it will be used for but workmen were placing very long pieces of corrugated roofing as we passed. I took several photos of the process to show how the roofing and the workers got onto the roof. They're in the extras that will be on Facebook after the next posting.

I think the next photo is the last one showing a dredge, this one of the track hoe variety. It's hard to get the scale but think bigger than big and you've got it pretty close.

The last photo is of the Gatun Lake entrance to the Gatun Locks. Going down from the lake to the ocean is much more visually impressive than going from the ocean to the lake.

The next posting is the last in the Canal Transit. It is also, I think, the most impressive part.

JCE