Day 5 Panama Canal

This is Barry with his big chance doing the blog.  Jane has some kind of virus and is in bed not talking much but showing signs of recovery already.  She has been quarantined, meaning she is cabin-bound until she recovers.

The Panama Canal is a 77 km ship canal that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for the international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, annual traffic has risen from about 1000 ships in the canal's early days to 15,000 vessels in 2010, measuring at total 300+ million Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS) tons.

One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the canal had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via either the Strait of Magellan or Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America.

A ship sailing from New York to San Francisco via the canal travels 9,500 km, well under half the 22,500 km around Cape Horn. While the Pacific Ocean is west of the isthmus and the Atlantic to the east, the 8- to 10-hour journey through the canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic is one from southeast to northwest.  This is a result of the isthmus's "curving back on itself" in the region of the canal. The Bridge of the Americas at the Pacific end is about a degree of longitude east of the end near Colon on the Atlantic.

The maximum size of vessel that can use the canal is known as "Panamax".  A Panamax cargo ship typically has a DWT of 65,000 to 80,000 tonnes.  As demand is rising, the canal is positioned to be a significant feature of world shipping for  the foreseeable future.  However, changes in shipping patterns--particularly the increasing numbers of post-Panamax ships--has necessitated changes to the canal.  Close to 50% of transiting vessels are already using the full width of the locks. You will see one of our pictures below, taken from the railing of our deck, shows less than two feet of clearance to the lock wall.

An enlargement scheme, similar to the 1939 Third Lock Scheme, to allow for a greater number of transits and the ability to handle larger ships, has been approved by the government of Panama, and is in progress, with completion expected to open for traffic in 2015.  The cost is estimated at US$5.25 billion, and the project will double the canal's capacity and allow more traffic and the passage of longer and wider ships. 

The modern city at the fourth from bottom photo is Panama city as seen from the Amsterdam near the Pacific end of the canal.