PANAMA CANAL
January 9, 2014
January 9, 2014
The most impressive thing about the Panama Canal for me
was the length of it – 50 miles. This
has been on my bucket list and it was a thrill to go through it. Our big cruise
ship looked like it barely fit through there but we were told that some battle
ships had only eleven inches to spare so I guess we had plenty of room. I was
intrigued by the little electric cars that pulled the ship by ropes through the
locks. We were pulled through the three
Gatun locks and into the Gatun Lake.
There were so many ships ahead of us we had to spend four hours in the
lake before we could go on.
This is the 100th Anniversary of the official
opening of the canal on August 15, 1914. The least cost for a ship to go
through the canal is $800 up to $500,000. We don’t know how much our cruise
ship had to pay but I’m sure it was top dollar.
The French were the ones who started building the canal in 1880 but
financial troubles and diseases made the initiative fail. After its independence
in 1903, Panama negotiated an agreement with the United States for the
construction of the canal. It is amazing
to think how this project could have been completed with the tools of 100 years
ago and with the people dying of yellow fever and other diseases.
Just after going into Gatun Lake, on the left, we got a
look at the new construction of two new lock complexes, longer and wider than
the current, in order to allow the passage of ships with greater dimensions.
We did get all through the canal in one day and now we
are in the Pacific Ocean.
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