The Panama Canal , How does it work?

How Does It Work??

The Panama Canal serves as a maritime shortcut that saves time and costs in transporting all kinds of goods. The 80 kilometer waterway connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in one of the narrowest points of the Isthmus of Panama.

Since its opening in 1914 more than one million ships from all over the world have transited that canal. The historic million mark was reached on September 4, 2010 with the transit of the bulk carrier Fortune Plum

The interoceanic waterway uses a system of locks with two lanes that operates as water elevators and raises the ships to the level of Gatun Lake, 26 meters or 85 feet above sea level, to allow the crossing through the Continental Divide, and then lowers the ships to sea level on the other side of the Isthmus.

The water used to raise and lower the vessels in each set of locks is obtained from Gatun Lake by gravity and poured into the locks through the main culvert system that extends under the locks chambers from the sidewalls and the center wall.

The Panama Canal took ten years to construct and was completed in 1914 The project changed hands several times over the course of the 400 years from conception to construction. Thousands of workers, up to 50,000 at one point- helped to carve through 51 miles of earth and hard granite to form this safe and convenient passage from ocean to ocean. Several thousand lives were lost during the construction. Most workers lost were from the West Indies. Not all lives were lost because of accidents, many died from Malaria and Yellow fever. The Panama Canal cost over 350 million to complete and cruise ships today pay over 100,000.00 to pass through. Our ship today paid 275,000.00 plus a myriad of other fees to cross.

Richard Halliburton swam the full length of the canal in 1929 for a cost of 36 cents.