The Panama Canal
(bobbyrica.com) A trip to Panama is incomplete if you don’t pay a visit to the country’s most legendary destination, the Panama Canal. It would be like going to China without seeing the Great Wall.
The Panama Canal is one of the largest and most arduous man-made structures to have ever been built. Now, if you think a mere tourist attraction is all there is to this monument, think again. Since its opening, the Panama Canal has become the gateway for international maritime trade, not to mention the portal where vessels can cross between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
After the paving of the Panama Canal, what used to be a long and treacherous route through the Drake Passage and Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America was finally averted. The French may hold claim to being the brainchild of the Panama Canal, dating back to the early 16th century, but it was the Americans’ efforts that saw the finishing touches of the 77 kilometer-long structure coming to a close, when it officially opened in 1914. But not after being plagued by problems, including diseases (like malaria and yellow fever) and landslides, taking its toll on 27,500 lslaves.
Thanks to the canal, that travel destination of sea-faring vessels would be completed by crossing into Panama, a mere 9,500 km. Compare that to the usual 22,500 km before the canal was made.
The Panama Canal can lodge vessels from small private yachts up to large trading ships. The maximum size of vessels that can pass through the canal is called a Panamax (that’s Panama and maximum put together), but a growing number of top of the line ships are already exceeding the limit, and are known as post-Panamax or Super-Panamax vessels. Over 40 vessels can traverse the Panama Canal per day, taking an average of nine hours. In 2005, they have recorded 14,011 ships passing through the canal, with an estimated capacity of 278.8 million tons.
The Panama Canal Authority has full jurisdiction of the Panama Canal’s tolls depending on vessel type, size, and the type of cargo carried. Ships, 50 to 100 ft in length, will have to pay somewhere around 500 to 1500 USD. Then again, this is a payment-basis only for small vessels. The tolls of bigger vessels like container ships are assessed based on its capacity measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), which amounts to 54 USD per TEU. To date, the steepest levy for canal passage was charged to Disney Magic cruise liner, which shelled out a whopping US$331,200 just to pass through! But here’s a real winner, Richard Halliburton, an American adventurer, made history when he paid the least expensive toll of 36 cents when he, get this, swam the canal in 1928. On the average though, toll would be around US$54,000 to pass through Panama Canal.
Today, 94 years since it commenced its operations, the Panama Canal continues to be the gateway that bridges two continents together. Although world shipping (and the ship’s sizes themselves) has changed remarkably, it never stopped being a vital link in world trade, carrying more cargo than ever before.
