I was surprised how much I enjoyed the Panama Canal itself and the transit day. For several days before we had port lectures by William Keene, an excellent speaker on the canal. He provided fun and interesting talks on the history, construction, and future of the canal. They were my favorite ship board activity. The day of the transit we were up early and started through the first locks soon after 7 am. We exited the last lock near 4 pm. A highlight was watching the 'mules' keep the ship straight in the locks. The lines were thrown to men in rowboats who transferred the lines to the waiting train engines which are still called mules.
Gatun Lake was bigger than expected and very scenic. They even had lighthouses to mark the way. The building at Gatun Locks was where we had watched from the shore the previous day on our land tour. And we finally saw a crocodile along the shore of the Chagres River as we exited the last lock. And he was a monster!
I was surprised how much I enjoyed the Panama Canal itself and the transit day. For several days before we had port lectures by William Keene, an excellent speaker on the canal. He provided fun and interesting talks on the history, construction, and future of the canal. They were my favorite ship board activity. The day of the transit we were up early and started through the first locks soon after 7 am. We exited the last lock near 4 pm. A highlight was watching the 'mules' keep the ship straight in the locks. The lines were thrown to men in rowboats who transferred the lines to the waiting train engines which are still called mules. 
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