THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD
Written: Apr 11 '02 (Updated May 09 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A fascinating piece of engineering.
Cons: The transit tour is a bit steep.
The Bottom Line: Well worth a look.
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| JAMES23's Full Review: Panama Canal |
The huge car carrier ship slowly began to sink before my very eyes. Minute after minute it's immense bulk, which appeared even larger as it was only metres away from me, slowly dropped lower and lower in the water. Well it seemed to anyway. Actually it was the water level itself which was being lowered as gallons of fresh water were pumped out of the man made basin. Welcome to the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal, the eighth wonder of the world.
The Republic of Panama does have a lot more to offer to visitors than just the canal. There are beaches, eco tourism, history, fine dining, night life, and plenty of duty free shopping. That said and done, no visit to this area would be complete without a visit to the canal.
The isthmus of Panama has always served as a link from one place to another. It is the land bridge linking North and South America. It was through here that the original aboriginal inhabitants drifted south from the North American continent to populate South America.
When the Spanish arrived in the region in the early part of the 16th Century, they realised the value of a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Through it they could ship the wealth of the new world to the old. A commission was established by King Charles V of Spain in 1534 to study the feasibility of building a canal across the narrow isthmus. The magnitude of the undertaking was well beyond the engineering skills of the day though and it was abandoned.
The Spanish did however establish a cobblestone road from their new settlement on the Pacific coast, Panama City to the Caribbean. Along it mule trains carried the gold and other riches of Peru to the waiting Spanish treasure ships.
In the middle of the 19th Century the first trans continental railway was established across the isthmus. It's main purpose was to provide a quick transit for the legions of fortune seekers who were heading west to the gold fields of California and Alaska.
In 1879 a French consortium under the leadership of Count Ferdinand de Lessops, the man who had designed the Suez Canal, commenced work on the first attempt to build a canal. Ten years later they were defeated and bankrupt. The physical barrier of the Continental Divide and the disease ridden jungle proved insurmountable. A second French attempt in 1894 also ended in failure.
In 1903 the United States attempted to succeed where the French had failed. Panama at the time was a part of Colombia who refused the US request to take over the French efforts. The US then backed a Panamanian bid for independence and signed a treaty with the new country.
The canal took over ten years to complete. The major undertakings were the passage cut through the Continental Divide, the Gaillard Cut, and equally importantly the eradication of yellow fever in the region and bringing malaria under control. This allowed the 75,000 labourers to work in relative safety and complete their tasks. On August 15, 1914 the Panama Canal was officially opened and the SS Ancon became the first ship to transit it.
When plans to construct the Canal were finalised a treaty between the United States and Panama, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty laid out the conditions. The canal it's operations and a strip of land on either side of it would belong to, and be operated by the US in perpetuity. In 1977 this treaty was superseded by the Torrijos-Carter treaty which agreed that the canal and the adjoining canal zone would transfer back to Panamanian control on December 31, 1999.
Since then the canal has been operated under the Auspices of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) an autonomous government body. The canal is a major source of income for the country. With up to 13,000 ships transiting through it yearly and earning upwards of 500 million dollars annually in tolls.
Tolls are set based on a ship's size, tonnage, and/or cargo. The most every paid to transit the canal to date was the cruise ship Radiance of the Seas which paid $202,176.76 on April 12, 2001. The lowest toll ever charged was thirty-six cents in 1928 to Richard Halliburton who swam the entire length of the canal in ten days. The average commercial toll is around $46,656.00
Some of this money is used to maintain and improve the canal's facilities. Future plans involve deepening and widening of the Gaillard Cut and dredging Gatun Lake to improve transit time for vessels. Other improvements will be made to the locks. Finally control and maintenance of the fresh water lakes of the Panama Canal Watershed is important. They provide 95% of the fresh water supply to three provinces and the capital city. They are also essential to the operation of the locks.
Ships proceed through the canal under their own power although highly trained Panamanian pilots are taken aboard. In addition small locomotives called "mules" are used to help guide ships through the three sets of locks. Transit time is usually between 8 and 10 hours, although total time including the waiting period to enter the canal is on average 24 hours. The canal is 80 kilometres in length.
A ship entering from the Atlantic or Caribbean side near the port of Colon will first be raised 26 metres in the Gatun Locks to the level of Gatun Lake. It will then transit through this man made lake and the Gaillard cut named after the American engineer who helped build it, to the Pedro Miguel Locks. Here it will be lowered 9 metres to Miraflores Lake and then enter the last set of locks, the Miraflores Locks. This final step will lower the ship a final 19 metres to sea level again where it passes under the Bridge of the Americas and into the Pacific Ocean.
The locks, which have all been modernised, use fresh rather than salt water to raise and lower ships. Fresh water is used as it easier to pump it from the massive reservoirs than up from the oceans. In addition salt water would corrode the lock mechanisms. Each lock chamber is 33.5 metres wide, 305 metres long and 26 metres deep. This corresponds to the size of the largest ships the canal can handle. The heaviest set of lock gates, on the Pacific side weigh 730 tons. It takes 197 million litres of fresh water to move a ship through each set of locks.
The best way of viewing the canal is of course on a ship transiting through it, and this is a popular feature of many cruise ships. One doesn't have to ship out as a crew member of a container ship to experience this though. Private yachts are always transiting the canal and are always in need of extra line handlers for the trip. Message boards at yacht clubs at both ends are a great source of information for those considering this.
For those with less time on their hands, full and partial transits of the canal are available from a couple of Panama City based tour companies. The partial tour takes half a day and takes one on a ferry from the Pacific through the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel Locks to Gamboa before turning around and returning the way it came.
The full transit takes all day and goes all the way to Colon on the Caribbean side. Passengers are then returned to Panama city by train. The partial transit costs $90.00 US and the full transit $135.00 US.
In addition there is an excellent viewing platform at the Miraflores Locks. Here one can watch massive ships be lowered to the Pacific Ocean or raised up to Miraflores Lake. The visitor centre also contains an excellent scale model of the whole canal and a short audio visual display of the history and operation of the canal.
There are also a couple of electric locomotives or "mules" like those used to assist ships through the locks on display. The present visitors gallery is rather small, but a new is under construction and due to open in 2003. It will offer several hundred visitors at once a panoramic and breathtaking view of the lock operations.
Incidentally the Panama Canal does not run East to West as most presume, but rather North to South.
Further Information:
www.panacanal.com
www.big-dich.com
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Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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Epinions.com ID:
JAMES23
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Member: James Smith
Location: Toronto Ontario CANADA
Reviews written: 450
Trusted by: 222 members
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