Day 7: Panama Canal...one of the wonders of the world
We stayed with the canal all day, toured the facilities and studied all we could about this engineering marvel. It is truly a fascinating engineering feat.
It saves ships an 8000 mile trip so they do not have to go around the bottom of South America in order to get to the other coast. They just finished construction of a 2nd companion canal that opened in 2014. Both canals are pretty much side by side. This afternoon on the Atlantic Ocean side we saw roughly 30 big ships in a conga line ready to go East to West through the canal.
The Panama Canal is 250 miles long. China is the biggest user. They charged our ship $400,000.00 to use the canal. The cost to the Island Princess was based on the number of people on board. They told us that for every ship it is an all cash deal...do and payable within 48 hours.
Tomorrow we will be in Costa Rica...stay tuned.
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| Going up 85' to Gatun Lake using the old docks. |
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| Iron Mules pull the ships. Ships clear sides by 9" to 11" in old locks. |
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| Old locks are on the right and the new locks are on the left. |
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| A view of the new locks. |
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