Pictures of the Canal

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a stunning feat of engineering. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The statistics surrounding it are astonishing. For example, 30,000 people died in the building of the Panama Canal.

The price of admission is based on tonnage. For us, it was $155,000. And that was just for today’s trip through. We do an about face and go back through, for another $155,000, in a couple days, but with a different group of guests.

I have to be honest, it is a bit eerie to look out the window, while eating breakfast, and see the wall quickly moving down beside us. The rate we rise and fall in the locks is stunning. Unlike an elevator though, it is so even and so gradual you have to be look outside to know you are rising/falling.

And if you ever thought parallel parking was hard, try pulling a 96 foot wide, 51,000 ton ship into a slip with only a feet of clearance on either side. Let me give you an idea how close this is. On deck seven, where I was standing, the ship is wider than deck three, which is where the water line is. When I looked over the side on deck seven while at the top of the locks motion, I was looking at dock, not water. There was no water visible. Given that at the bottom of the lock, the deck seven width has to clear the locks walls, it is mighty close. I imagine I could jump the distance. So that is a few feet clearance on either side of a 96 foot wide ship.

So if you ever feel like complaining about tight parking jobs, don’t complain to our Captain. He has you beat.

In the last two locks, it occurred to me I could share the experience in a cheesy way. So enjoy:





After the last lock, the Captain comes on the public address system, and says, “Well…” And he paused. “That was that.”

um... talk about an undertatement.

Maybe you had to have crossed a continent in a 51,000 ton ship, raised some hundred feet, traveled 50 miles, and lowered, to a different ocean all together, through an amazing display of engineering living well 100 years later, to appreciate what an understatement, “Well… That was that” is.

And you guys were watching some pigskin between overpriced commercials…