You Know You're on Vacation When . . .
Today we spent the day traversing the Panama Canal. It was fascinating, for sure, but somehow very tiring and we never left the ship. We worked in TWO naps - a really good mark for two old people - and still got the entire Panama Canal experience. Perhaps we were just recovering from two nights ago in Columbus when we were up at 2:15 a.m.
The Canal is a 50 mile waterway that connects the Caribbean with the Pacific Ocean. In fact, it is the only place in the world where the sun rises in the Pacific Ocean and sets in the Atlantic, believe it or not.
Along comes Teddy Roosevelt (a real president, unlike the one who occupies the office today) who succeeded William McKinley following his assassination and, in 1904, using Wall Street money kicked off a second try with the Army Corps of Engineers. Their plan abandoned the sea-level effort of the French and, instead, used locks in strategic places near each coast to accommodate the much higher above-sea-level terrain of the mountains of central Panama. But, after losing another 5,000 men over the next decade, they succeeded in opening the Panama Canal to traffic in 1914. An enlargement of the Canal to allow modern, much larger vessels to transit it was finished in 2017.
The marvel of the Panama Canal is that it greatly reduces the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, allowing them to avoid the much longer, hazardous route around the southernmost tip of South America. Teddy Roosevelt grasped this right away, recognizing the military significance of getting ships from ocean to ocean much faster, cutting transit by 33 - 50%.
The French actually initiated construction of it in the 1880s based on their significant achievement of creating the Suez Canal in Egypt. Unfortunately, they chose the wrong plan and tried to connect the two oceans on a sea-level basis. After losing upwards of 20,000 men to malaria, yellow fever, or work accidents as well as running out of money, they abandoned their quest after about a decade.
Tolls to use the canal are determined by a complex formula that involves many factors. Historically, the cheapest toll ever paid was by an American, Richard Halliburton, who took 10 days to swim the length of the canal (for $0.36), while the most was $4M for an unscheduled trip in 2024 by a Chinese container ship. The average toll is around $54,000.
A British professor from Liverpool (yes, that Liverpool) gave a lecture yesterday and today about the Panama Canal. It was replete with a ton more information and mildly hidden disdain for the French with unshielded respect for Teddy Roosevelt - these were both fascinating and fun. That is one of the nice things about these Viking trips - the quality of the "port talks".
Tomorrow (Monday, 12/22), we dock in Panama's "second city" - Colon - which is near the Caribbean termination of the Canal. We're taking a 3.5 hour excursion to the ruins of Fort Lorenzo, a former Spanish fortress and looking forward to a massage tomorrow afternoon. Until then!
In the meantime, we're going to keep on having the great time that, largely, Uncle Phil (Philips) helped pay for during those 20 years I went to the salt mines for him (Philips). Thanks to him and them.
While you’re at the equator, we are in very frozen Grand Rapids. I can see now why old people move to Florida and Arizona. There's a new biography of Teddy Roosevelt. I guess he was quite a character. The Panama Caanal is a fascinating topic, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of locks.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that the lectures are such high quality. Learning on while on vacation is cool!
ReplyDelete