Panama Canal

Quote of the day: “I just got off the phone from talking to my internet company. I had to get them to reset my password. The guy wasn’t too good with his English so he spelt it out: a is for apple, a is for elephant…”

Today’s passage through the Panama Canal was a real education. We got to the start around 5am, and that’s when the commentary started. The next 8 hours saw us pass from the Caribbean to the Pacific via six sets locks, and the Gutan Lake.

I did this as a 7 year old, and I was surprised that I had actually remembered it fairly accurately. But then the basic layout of the system is virtually unchanged over the last 100 years or so. Sure, the Canal has been deepened and widened, and the gates are now hydraulic, but the system for moving the ships, and for pumping the water in and out of the locks, is still the same.

One thing that surprised me was how green the rain forest was on either side of the Canal. It’s the rain from these areas though (over 200 inches per year) which provides the fresh water needed to operate the system.

Dawn Princess was designed to be the maximum size that can fit through the Canal. I think there was about a metre to spare each side, and a couple of times we scraped the hull a couple of times along the way. We also saw the new construction for the deeper, wider second canal being built along side the existing Canal. That will allow even the world’s biggest ships to pass through, plus larger ships which may be built well into the future.

Sobering statistic: 25,000 people died building the original canal, which is 500 for each mile of its length. These days that would be considered far too high a price, but little comment was made about it at the time. No Health and Safety in those days...