Panama Canal

We traversed the Panama Canal in 2016. The Panama Canal opened in 1914 and has been a critical shipping channel for the world economy since. A ship is lifted 85 feet from sea level through a series of locks to sail through a man-made lake, a channel cut through the continental divide to another set of locks that lower it to back to sea level in less than 9 hours. It has saved weeks of travel around South American to get from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean or visa-versa. It took a revolution, endless landslides, and the death of thousands of workers to become a reality. It started with the French, who after the success building the Suez Canal decided to build another to connect the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean through Panama (which was then part of Columbia). In just 10 years 20,000 workers died to Cholera, Dysentery, Malaria, and Yellow Fever. The French finally gave up and sold their canal concession to America. However the Americas ran into a problem with Columbia who wanted a lot more money to allow construction than the Americans wanted to pay. Teddy Roosevelt engineered a revolution in Panama and sent to gun boat to support it, hence the term “Gunboat Diplomacy”. Teddy brought in the two right men for the job, John Stevens who was a railroad man and an expert in logistics, and Colonel William Crawford Gorga who eliminated Yellow Fever, Malaria, and the other diseases that plagued the construction workers from the area. To cut through the continental divide they had to move more than 100 million cubic yard of rock and dirt. Stevens came up with new methods of efficiency moving the dirt and rock that were key to success. While there is a lot more to the story, the canal was completed in 1914 and the first ships sailed through. The largest ships that can transverse the canal are 106 feet in width and 965 feet in length, these are called Panamax. A Panamax cargo ship can hold 4900 normal size cargo containers. For a comparison, the Neopanamax cargo ships (which will go through the new lock) can hold 12,000 normal size cargo containers. We started our journey through the Panama Canal on the Pacific side. The first lock sets we sailed through were the Miraflores Locks (2 locks) and then the Pedro Miguel locks (1 lock). Then we sailed through the Culebra Cut (across the continental divide) through the Gatun Lake to the Gatun locks (3 locks) and into the Caribbean Sea. A single ship going through the locks moves 52 million gallons of water from the lake to the ocean, 26 million gallons for each side. Electric mules have replaced the animals that used to help pull the ship through the locks and held it steady to insure it does not scrape the sides of the locks as it moves. The upper locks at both lake sides have a double door configuration to insure that if there is a failure in one set of doors it does not drain the lake. There are 2 bridges with a third being built across the canal to allow people to move freely across the canal. The Bridge of the Americas is on the Pacific side. The Centennial Bridge is across the Culebra Cut, and the new Atlantic Bridge which is currently under construction by the city of Colon. The Canal is an engineering marvel and its successful completion was do to having the right people leading the construction and disease eradiation efforts, and also the hard work of the thousands of people who worked every day, moving rock, servicing machines, cooking meals, etc. These are the heroes of the Panama Canal.