Although we’re not quite certain yet which day Picton Castle will transit the Panama Canal (tentatively scheduled for Friday June 23, 2023, but not confirmed), it will be an exciting day and you can follow the ship’s passage through this marvel of modern engineering.
Picton Castle is usually scheduled for a daytime transit, which means an early morning for the crew so the ship can arrive at the first lock at sunrise or shortly thereafter. The transit will take the full day, arriving on the Pacific Ocean side of the Panama Canal in the late afternoon/evening.
There are three sets of locks that Picton Castle will pass through and each set has a webcam. The first set of locks are the Gatun Locks. Once through those locks, Picton Castle will pass through a large freshwater lake that feeds the Canal system called Gatun Lake, then a narrow section called the Culebra Cut. On the other side of the lake and the cut, the ship will pass through the Pedro Miguel Locks, then finally the Miraflores Locks. Together these locks raise and lower ships 26 metres and make it possible to get between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans without having to go all the way around Cape Horn.
If you’d like to watch Picton Castle’s progress, here is a link to the Panama Canal Authority’s webcams: https://multimedia.panama-canal.com/ Picton Castle will pass through in this order: Gatun Locks, Pedro Miguel Locks, Miraflores Locks.