Canal Zone

Ok, I've been promising to write more about the Panama Canal for a few days. My opinion: it's one of the most incredible structures ever built. It's really so big it's not impressive. There's no sense of scale until a Panamax (this is the technical term for commercial vessels that are built to the maximum dimensions allowed in the canal) vessel passes through. At that point, it becomes awe inspiring. The sheer scale of the locks is really hard to visualize. These ships can hold 5000 containers. In simple terms, a container is what you see on the back of a semi-truck. These containers are loaded at a port, put on a ship, and then dropped onto a truck.

Ok, I'm going to do my best to describe what the Panama Canal is and what it accomplishes at the same time. Panama is special because the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are separated by only 40 or so miles. If a ship didn't have to sail all the way around South America, this could save a lot of money. This is why it was built (the Suez canal allows ships to bypass Africa and was basically the inspiration for the Panama Canal).

When a ship wants to go through the Panama Canal, it sails to one of the two ports (Colon and Panama CIty). It then drives into a lock, which are present at both entrances. The lock door shuts and the water level inside is raised.This elevates the ship. For simplicity sake, we will pretend that one lock is sufficient. The ship now sails into Lake Gatun. Once Lake Gatun is crossed, a ship enters another lock and the elevation is decreased, allowing it to sail into the opposite ocean. I hope that made sense.

The construction of the canal was a pretty brutal process. The French were the first to attempt it and it was a bloodbath. Eventually, the Americans picked up the pieces and completed it. There's a really good book I'm reading right now called the The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough. It's a really engrossing book and I knocked off about a quarter off it yesterday. I highly recommend it.