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| Panama City in morning haze |
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| Heading for the Bridge of the Americas |
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| Men at work waving from the soaring arch of the Bridge of the Americas |
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| Construction of expansion set of locks on the Pacific Side of the Panama Canal |
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| View from my window...Panama Canal tug nudging big Veendam in position |
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| View from the decks...one of many crocodiles below the Miraflores Locks |
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| Winged passengers transiting the Canal by ship |
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| Gossamer fine Centennial Bridge |
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| Difficult to believe that we actually fit onto this little ditch ahead at the Gatun Locks... |
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| The doors open to the Atlantic Ocean. The smaller bridge with yellow rails is actually a one lane swing bridge for cars, who can cross on the canal here as well, apart from the Bridge of Americas and the Centennial Bridge |
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| Opening the window to the Atlantic Ocean at Colon |
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| Colon - crocodiles lounging at the ocean side of the Gatun Locks |
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| A quick lock at the Bridge of Veendam |
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| Pistol, after transiting the Panama Canal, being taken around the upper decks, peeping out from his doggie carrier |
Anchors aweigh early in the morning to make the first locks of the Panama Canal at the scheduled time of 08:00.
Thanks to 200 million cubic meters of earth being dug up and removed, the waters of the river Chagres being dammed to make the largest man made lake in the world, digging 12.7 kilometers through lime stone and rock of the Continental Divide spanning the Isthmus of Panama, seeing 22,000 canal construction workers die from malaria and yellow fever, and installing the latest 1914 technology inspired three double sets of locks, we now have an 80 kilometer long navigable waterway connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans.
August 15th 2014 is the Centennial celebration of the opening of this main trading artery. 14,000 ships transit through here ever year carrying a large proportion of globally traded goods from one ocean to the other without having to round dreaded Cape Horn at great expense of time, money and danger.
However, 100 years after its inauguration, the canal is to slow and too small for the latest mega ships. the current locks can handle ships 294.1 meters long and 32.3 meters wide - not exactly little runabouts. The new locks will handle ships up to 366 meters long and 49 meters wide. To accommodate these giants of the sea, the Pacific and Atlantic Canal entrances need to be deepened. The navigable channel within man made Gatun Lake needs to be widened and deepened including the narrow steep sided and landslide prone Culebra Cut of almost 13 km length. New locks with rolling doors and water re utilization basins need to be constructed. Gatun Lake's water level needs to be raised. A new Pacific access channel of 6.1 km has to be constructed.
We have now the benefit of heavy machinery, latest technology, an absence of lethal diseases, and international resources in skills and materials but despite all, the Panama Canal Expansion is a daunting project. Panama hoped to complete the expansion by 2014 - the hundredth birthday of the Canal, however, it may need a year or two and a few billion dollars more to flush the first ship through the 21st century waterway.
One thing stays the same, though; the crocodiles are still there. They seem to hang out ocean side of the first and last lock. I have no scientific explanation for that, except that maybe the 51 million gallons of water that are spilled each time a ship enters or leaves these last locks, crocodile edibles are flushed out with it. This time around I counted five fat ones on the Pacific side, and three equally fat ones on the Atlantic side.
Yesterday in panama city, a lady passenger asked me when we talked about the Bridge of the Americas and the Centennial Bridge spanning the Panama Canal as the only viable driving connection from north to south: do we go underneath those bridges.
It took some self control not to answer: no, we drive over them.
