Canal Trip

December 30th I had a chance to go on a private canal tour through a friend of Ryu's. We boarded this yacht around 8am with all the food and drinks provided. What an amazing day!

Bridge of the Americas spanning the south side of the canal.

Cruising to catch our appointed time at the locks.

Miraflores locks at the second step. Each step raises 80' and the compartments are 110' x 1000'. The large Panamax ships only have 2' clearance on each side. They pay based on how many containers they have, the largest are charged between $400,000-$600,000 just to cross Panama. The process takes them a whole day.

Centennial Bridge which crosses north of Panama City between the Miraflores and the Pedro Miguel locks.

They have begun work doing some of the dry excavation for the canal expansion. Later this year they will begin a new set of locks for the Post-Panamax ships which can hold around 11,000 containers compared to the 4,000 being shipped now. The expansion project is budgeted for more than $6 billion.

Here passes a Panamax ship from Israel. The canal provides their own captains which board the ship and drive it all the way thru. These captains make around $160,000 yearly, work only every other day, and have around 3 months of vacation time a year. A Panamax ship like this actually have two captains - one for each side.

Of course pleasure ships pass thru the canal as well. It was pretty amazing passing directly next to his huge cruiser.

And ironically we passed another cargo boat carrying a load of yachts. I'm guessing the cheapest yacht on this ship is worth several million.