2010 Vacation/Travel Supplement
Continental cruise: Panama Canal is truly a wonder of the modern world
By Cynthia Dewes (Special to The Criterion)
PANAMA—We tend to hear about the manmade marvels of the world—things like the Taj Mahal in India or the Roman aqueducts—and think they sound interesting but are no big deal to us. After all, they are there and we are here.
But when we have the chance to see one of these amazing tourist sites up close, the thrill is almost indescribable.
So it was for us when we transited the Panama Canal on an ocean cruise during March that began in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and included stops at Jamaica, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico.
It was a happy surprise to find that the canal made a simple pleasure trip into a real adventure.
It took nine hours for our large cruise ship to transit the canal. Tugboats aided our ship’s entry into the locks from the Atlantic Ocean early in the morning.
There was only about two feet of free space on either side of the ship, which was guided by cables attached to tiny train engines called “mules” that run along on shore.
Local motorists in cars and trucks were waiting to go to work as we passed the entrance to their tunnel at the first lock of the canal.
A commentator, who had already given two lectures about the canal in the days before we arrived, kept us informed all day over the ship’s public address system.
He described points of interest as we passed, including construction in progress on the current enlargement of the canal to accommodate much larger ships, such as military aircraft carriers and some cargo container ships.
At present, the largest container ships unload their cargoes onto a train which runs across Panama and deposits the cargoes onto other container ships to continue their ocean journey.
He said the shortest transit of the canal ever made was about 2½ hours by a U.S. Navy ship called the Pegasus.
This historical information especially interested us because our sailor son, Will, once served on the Pegasus, a hydrofoil being tried out by the Navy. Apparently, it “skimmed” over the canal’s surface in record time and was the only hydrofoil ship ever to do so since the Navy later abandoned the idea of using them.
In the large central Gatun Lake, there were ships waiting to go east in the canal since the morning is reserved for westbound traffic. Smaller local boats appeared here and there, and the lush, hot tropical scenery was beautiful to behold from the deck of our cruise ship.
Only two bridges cross the Panama Canal. The Peace Bridge was given to the Republic of Panama by the United States under President Jimmy Carter at the initiation of the transfer of canal authority from the U.S. to Panama during the 1970s. The other is the celebratory Millennium Bridge erected by Panama at the turn of the 21st century. Both are beautiful tributes to the history of the canal.
The cruise ship stopped at Jamaica and the Central American countries so we could enjoy sightseeing tours, eat local foods, shop for local crafts and generally get the feel of those cultures. The people everywhere were kind, handsome and polite.
My favorite stop was Guatemala. Their handmade clothing, tote bags and jewelry were well-made and distinctively decorated with Mayan motifs.
In Guatemala, we were treated to a free fashion show. Sitting under a tent, we watched young women and men model colorful regional costumes. These featured elaborate head-dresses and scarves, sarong-type fitted skirts and layers of mostly woolen clothing. Apparently, in that mountainous region the people shed layers as the sun grows hotter during the day.
The idea for a canal across the Isthmus of Darien, the narrowest span across Central America between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was generated in the late 19th century when the triumph of the Suez Canal was still fresh in the world’s mind.
International meetings of engineers, politicians and other experts wer held to discuss the possibility of creating a faster and cheaper route from one half of the world to the other. Among them was Ferdinand de Lesseps of France.
De Lesseps was a charming man from a family of diplomats, an optimist and visionary whose enthusiasm propelled the French into the first attempt to put a waterway across the isthmus.
Unfortunately, he was not an engineer, and ignored the advice of engineers and experts from the United States and other countries who had actually been to Panama.
The French raised a considerable amount of money and began to dig during the early 1880s. But yellow fever, malaria, heat, rain, bankruptcy and the impossibility of the terrain eventually caused the mammoth project to fail.
De Lesseps and others were put on trial, and the idea of creating the canal was put on hold.
Encouraged by President Theodore Roosevelt in the 1890s, American engineers—who had recently built the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan—came up with a solution.
They would build locks on the Atlantic Ocean side, which would raise ships up to the level of a large inland lake to be formed by damming the major Gatun River. Then they would build a relatively short canal through the mountainous spine of Central America containing the Continental Divide, and finally other locks opening into the Pacific Ocean.
“Voila!” as the French would say if they had thought of it first.
And lucky for us someone thought of it because we were privileged to see a truly awesome place. It makes an ordinary Caribbean cruise memorable.
(Cynthia Dewes is a member of St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Greencastle, and is a regular columnist for The Criterion.) †