Panama Canal

Gustafson’s confront technical difficulties…..
Before our next summary of the Panama Canal, Larry wanted to explain a few technical problems. To begin with, apparently the picture size we had selected were too large for timely transmission at $0.50 a minute. Unfortunately, even the small pictures are having trouble transmitting from sea, therefore, until we sort it out, or arrive in a port like LA where we can utilize a land based internet café, a narrative log will have to suffice.

PANAMA CANAL

We enjoyed a terrific experience participating in the inaugural transit of the Panama Canal aboard the Queen Victoria. The Panama Canal is a lock-type canal, not dissimilar to the Ballard Locks in Seattle, WA. Approximately eighty kilometers long that unites the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The canal was built at one of the narrowest points of both the isthmus of Panama and the American continent. The canal opened its doors to trade in August of 1914 and since then, close to a million vessels have used the waterway.

The canals three sets of locks, each having two lanes, that serve as water lifts elevating ships 26 meters above sea level to Gatun Lake. Here they cross the continental divide to then be lowered back to sea on the opposite side of the isthmus. The vessels use their own propulsion for the greater part of their transit. Only when passing through the locks are ships powered by small locomotives using cables attached to the ships. These locomotives, affectionately called “Mules” ( from the Erie Canal) and work in pairs to minimize the risk of damaging the canal’s structure. Finally, with terrific vision, two dams were constructed to help supply the approximately two hundred million liters of fresh water for each lock. The water is ultimately flushed into the sea.

Finished in 1913, under the leadership of Teddy Roosevelt, the canal supports a high volume of commerce at a combined cost of $639 million and it took over thirty years to construct. Over thirty thousand lives were lost during construction as a result of accidents, malaria, yellow fever and bubonic plague.

The cost for the Queen Victoria to transit the canal was approximately $230,000. The smallest amount ever paid for a canal transit was in 1928 when a swimmer paid $0.36 in tolls to swim the canal. It took him ten days to complete the trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
While initially operated and constructed by the USA, on Dec. 31, 1999, Panama assumed total responsibility for the administration, operation, and maintenance of the canal.

Larry has some extensive video of our transit. Our canal crossing started at 6AM and we completed our transit by 7PM that same evening. The Panama Canal is located in a tropical rain forest, but we had wonderful good luck, a dry sunny day, although very hot and humid, greeted us on our day of transit.