Panama
Panama Canal
Panama Canal Full Transit: A Day Through the Locks Between Two Oceans
Rather than cutting across Panama at sea level, the canal lifts ships through locks to Gatun Lake, 26 meters above the sea, and lowers them again on the far side. The lake was made by damming the Chagres River. A French company began digging in 1881 and went bankrupt in 1889, the United States opened the canal in 1914, and Panama has run it since the end of 1999. Which locks you pass through depends on your ship's size: older Panamax ships use the original locks, where electric locomotives called mules steady them, and larger ships use the wider locks of 2016, where tugboats do that work.
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What Cruise Travelers Should Know
Expect to stay aboard for the whole crossing. The canal runs about 80 kilometers (50 miles) between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and in 2017 ships took an average of a little over 11 hours to pass between its two outer sets of locks.
- Ships travel from northwest to southeast when heading from the Atlantic to the Pacific, because of the shape of the isthmus at this point.
- Locks at each end lift ships to Gatun Lake, a fresh-water lake about 26 meters (85 feet) above sea level, and lower them again on the other side.
- Ships of the older Panamax size use the original locks, opened in 1914. Larger Neopanamax ships use a third lane of locks that opened on June 26, 2016.
- About 200 million liters (52 million US gallons) of fresh water are used for each ship that passes through.
- The canal is run by the Panama Canal Authority, an agency of the Panamanian government.
Getting Around During a Canal Transit
During a transit, your ship does the traveling for you, so the useful thing to know is the order in which the sights come. From the Atlantic side, a ship climbs through three locks, crosses Gatun Lake, passes through a cut in the mountains, and steps down through the Pacific locks to pass under the Bridge of the Americas.
- Atlantic locks: Ships enter by a 3.2-kilometer (2-mile) approach channel to the Gatun Locks or, for larger ships, the Agua Clara Locks. Each is a flight of three chambers that lifts a ship about 26 meters to the level of Gatun Lake. The Atlantic Bridge crosses the canal at the Gatun locks.
- Gatun Lake: The lake was created in 1913 by damming the Chagres River and carries ships across the middle of the isthmus. Its hilltops became islands, among them Barro Colorado, a nature reserve since 1923.
- Culebra Cut: The cut slices about 12.5 kilometers through the mountain ridge and the Continental Divide, and passes under the Centennial Bridge.
- Pacific locks, original lane: Panamax ships step down 9.4 meters at the single Pedro Miguel Lock, cross the small Miraflores Lake, and descend the rest of the way through the two-chamber Miraflores Locks.
- Pacific locks, new lane: Neopanamax ships descend through the three chambers of the Cocolí Locks instead.
- To the Pacific: Ships then pass under the Bridge of the Americas at Balboa, near Panama City, on their way out to sea.
The Canal as Cultural and Engineering Heritage
The American Society of Civil Engineers ranks the Panama Canal among the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. It is also a place of national memory for Panama, which campaigned for decades to take control of the canal and its surrounding zone.
- The canal was built largely by workers from the Caribbean. About nine in ten of the 40,000 workers on the French project in 1888 came from the West Indies, and most of those who died during the American construction were West Indian laborers, many of them from Barbados.
- Unrest over American control of the canal came to a head in riots on January 9, 1964, in which about 20 Panamanians and three to five US soldiers were killed. Panama remembers the date as Martyrs' Day.
- A monument to the martyrs of January 9 stands at the former Balboa High School, with 21 columns, each carrying the name of one of the Panamanian martyrs.
- In the original locks, ships are steadied by electric locomotives on the lock walls, called mulas, or mules, after the animals once used to cross the isthmus. A large ship can be attached to eight of them. The newer locks use tugboats instead.
History of the Panama Canal
The canal took two attempts and more than three decades to build, and cost tens of thousands of lives, many of them to disease. It opened in 1914 under the United States, passed to Panama at the end of 1999, and was widened with a third lane of locks in 2016.
- A railroad first: The Panama Railroad opened in 1855, linking the Atlantic and Pacific coasts across the isthmus decades before the canal.
- The French attempt, 1881–1889: Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, started work on January 1, 1881. The company went bankrupt in 1889, and about 22,000 workers died of disease and accidents.
- The United States takes over, 1904: The United States bought the French equipment and excavations and formally took control of the canal property on May 4, 1904.
- Fighting disease: William C. Gorgas led a campaign against the mosquitoes that carry yellow fever and malaria, and within about two years those diseases were nearly eliminated from the works. Even so, about 5,600 workers died during the American construction.
- A lake instead of a sea-level canal: The engineers chose locks and a dam on the Chagres River. Gatun Lake, flooded in 1913, was the largest human-made lake in the world at the time.
- Opening, 1914: The canal formally opened on August 15, 1914, with the passage of the cargo ship SS Ancon.
- Treaties, 1977: US President Jimmy Carter and Omar Torrijos, Panama's de facto leader, signed the Torrijos–Carter Treaties on September 7, 1977, providing for the handover of the canal to Panama.
- Handover, 1999: Panama took full control at noon on December 31, 1999, and the Panama Canal Authority took command of the waterway.
- Expansion, 2016: A third lane of larger locks opened for commercial traffic on June 26, 2016, roughly doubling the canal's capacity.
- To learn more ashore: If your cruise begins or ends in Panama City, the Interoceanic Canal Museum on Plaza de la Independencia, Calle 5a Este, tells the canal's story, and the Miraflores Visitor Center overlooks the Pacific locks.
Family Experiences on Canal Transit Day
A transit day suits families who like to watch big machines at work, because the busiest moments come in the locks, when the ship rises or sinks in stages beside the lock walls. The lake and the cut in between are quieter, so plan to be outside for the locks and take breaks in between.
- Younger children: The mules make the locks easy to follow. Count how many are attached to your ship, and watch the water level change against the lock wall as the chamber fills or drains.
- School age: Older children can track the ship's climb to Gatun Lake, about 26 meters above the sea, and the descent on the other side. Each original lock chamber is about 320 meters (1,050 feet) long and 33.5 meters (110 feet) wide, a handy measure for sizing up the ship beside it.
- Teenagers: The history fits a teenager's interest in big projects that went wrong before they went right: a bankrupt French attempt, a war on mosquitoes, and a canal that finally opened in 1914.
- Sun and heat: If you plan to spend hours on an open deck, bring hats, sun protection and water for everyone.
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