Vacation Reviews

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 A ship that transits the Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific enters the channel form Limon Bay at the Cristobal breakwater.
This sea-level section of the Canal channel on the Atlantic side is 6 and a half miles long and 500 feet wide and runs through a mangrove swamp that is only a few feet above sea level in most places.
A ship is raised or lowered 85 feet in a continuous flight of three steps at Gatun Locks. Each lock chamber is 110 feet wide and 1,000 feet long. The length of Gatun Locks, including approach walls, is one and a half miles.  Gatun Lake, through which the ships travel for 23 and a half miles from Gatun Locks to the north end of Gaillard Cut, covers an area of 163.38 square miles and was formed bya earthen dam across the Chagres River adjacent to Gatun Locks. The two wings of the dam and the spillway have an aggregate length of about one and a half miles. The dam is nearly a half mile wide at the base, sloping to a width of 100 feet at the crest, which is 105 feet above sea level, or 20 feet above the normal level of Gatun Lake.

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