The Panama Canal

There’s not anything I can say about the Panama Canal that hasn’t already been said, other than it truly IS one of the engineering marvels of the world, right up there with Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge.

What I can tell you about transiting the Canal on a cruise ship is that it is surprisingly intimate considering the mammoth size of the structure. The individual locks are 110 feet wide and 1000 feet long – and the guys driving the “mules” (the miniature cog trains that guide the ships through the locks) are right there, as are the folks at the visitor center at the Miraflores locks, and the crews on the ships in the parallel locks.

It also seems quite languid compared to hotfooting it across the high seas. I’m sure that’s just a matter of perception. Your ship spends 15-20 minutes in a lock, which seems like an eternity until you remember that in that time the lock has drained and been re-filled (or the other way around) with 60 million gallons of fresh water. Likewise, the stately motion of the lock doors belies the fact that each of the gates weighs upwards of 700 tons.

We had beautiful weather for the transit, apparently something of a rarity. Hot and sticky, yes, but sunny and only partly cloudy. On the approach to the entrance on the Pacific side, Panama City shimmered in the haze – I had no idea that it was so built-up, the many skyscrapers gleaming white against the dark green hills. The bridges were likewise impressive, especially the Miraflores bridge. I’ll add pictures later.

When I talked to David and Emily last night I reminded them that their maternal great-grandfather, John Robert Baylis, Sr., actually worked on the construction of the canal in the early part of the 20th century. I’m not sure what he did although given his later career (he supervised the construction of the Chicago water works in the 1920s) I imagine it had to do with water purification and/or sanitation. (His monograph, Elimination of Taste and Odor in Water, was published by McGraw-Hill in 1935.)