The ship provided every documentary ever made about the canal as part of the shipboard television system. The French began the process, working with the same mindset they used successfully with the Suez Canal, but that area was flat, and Panama is mountainous. Also in the late 1800’s yellow fever and malaria transmission were not well understood. The French abandoned the project 10 years later. We passed a hillside covered in white crosses, our guide said it was the French memorial, each cross represented 100 lives.
The US came in early 1900’s, got the mosquito under control, and created the lock system successfully used today. By building a dam they flooded a large area named Gatun Lake and then built a lock system to move boats up to the lake on the Pacific side and down again to the Atlantic side. Your day is spent entering rectangular boxes waiting for water to fill or drain, watching your neighbor in the same but different part of the process and generally milling around the yacht eating, listening to the commentary provided over the speaker system. Our little yacht looked like a toy boat next to those massive car carrying ships, or the container ships.
My daughter, Christin, works for Maersk, and I know she fusses continually on tracking those containers, and making their journey more efficient, and I stood at the side of the ship watching giant cranes moving boxes around like jig saw puzzle pieces and appreciated her business challenges more completely. I also want to travel across the ocean in one of the container ships, I am going to put that one on my bucket list, Oh Christian, I have a favor to ask . . . . . . . .