Panama Canal | Agua Clara Locks | 360º Video | Time Lapse
Channel: virKtual
Date: 2021-05-25

Clear Water Locks

These are part of The Expansion Program is the canal’s largest enhancement project. It included the construction of a new set of locks on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the waterway and the excavation of more than 150 million cubic meters of material, creating a second lane of traffic and doubling the cargo capacity of the waterway.

While the expanded locks are 70 feet wider and 18 feet deeper than those in the original canal, they use less water due to water-savings basins that recycle 60 percent of the water used per transit.

The expanded canal is expected to reshape global shipping routes, increasing shipping traffic to the U.S. East Coast.

North bound transit across Agua Clara Locks, at first we see the Gatun Lake, Spanish Lago Gatún, long artificial lake in Panama, constituting part of the Panama Canal system; its area is 166 square miles (430 square km). It was formed by damming the Chagres River and its smaller affluents at Gatun at the north end of the lake, a key structure of the Panama Canal, operate at a range of 5 feet (1.5 m) between water levels of 87 and 82 feet (26.5 and 25 m) above sea level.
 The ship is being lowered to sea level by a series of locks, on your left you can see the southbound lane of the locks, sometimes when there is high traffic they use them as one way, on your right is the Agua Clara Visitors Center, there you could se an exhibit of photographs and video tour, even a Movie theater to show you an Imax movie narrated by Morgan Freeman.