On Sunday, April the 9th the Mission team from Maranatha Chapel visited the Panama Canal. When mission teams come to Panama we take a day to give them a chance to enjoy something unique of the country itself. On this visit we took them to see this amazing man constructed water way that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and cuts through the entire country of Panama. Some consider the Panama Canal to be one of the seven wonders of the world.
The Panama Canal is an artificial waterway that transports huge ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The canal is a key passage for international maritime trade. There are locks at each end of the canal to lift and lower ships up or down to the Gatun Lake, an artificial holding tank that was created to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the making of the canal.
France began to work on the canal in 1881 but stopped due to engineering problems and a high mortality rate of the workers. The United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15, 1914. The canal also served as a route for the plundered silver from Bolivia and Peru to the Atlantic ports. The Panama Canal constitutes of immense complex of locks, dams, artificial lakes, and engineered channels. It is one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken. The Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduces the time for ships to travel from one side of the world to the other, enabling them to avoid the lengthy, hazardous Cape Horn route around the southernmost tip of South America.
The U.S. continued to control the canal and surrounding Panama Canal Zone until the 1977 Treaty between presidents Torrijos and Carter that provided the agreements for the handover to Panama. After a period of joint American–Panamanian control, the canal was finally taken over in 1999 by the Panamanian government and is now managed and operated by the government-owned Panama Canal Authority.
Annual traffic has greatly increased from about 1,000 ships in 1914, when the canal opened to more than 815,000 vessels by 2012. It takes six to eight hours to pass through the entire Panama Canal by boat and just a few minutes the cross over the canal by car, via the Bridge of the Americas or Centenario. It is all a fascinating and worthwhile sight to see.
