New Panama Locks
01 September 2016 | Yansalardup, San Blas Islands
Becky/84 degrees, cloudy
The photo above was taken by Roger (our taxi friend) while crossing the new locks to get to our boat in Shelter Bay Marina. The ship in the distance is in the second lock. Roger was telling us the new locks don't have mules. In the old locks, mules have lines attached to them from the ship. This helps control the ship in the lock. The new lock has already had a ship damage it.
Below is some information a cruiser posted:
PANAMA CITY -- A 984-foot Chinese container ship cleared the new massive locks of the Panama Canal on Sunday, becoming the first to officially pass through the expanded canal and sparking a new dawn for Panama and global shipping.
As it entered the canal earlier Sunday, brass bands played nonstop as onlookers - from Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and a host of other countries - waved flags and danced.
The $5.4 billion effort to expand the 102-year-old canal took nearly 10 years and the sweat from 40,000 workers to complete. The new set of locks now allows ships carrying up to 14,000 containers, known as neo-Panamax ships, to cut a quicker path between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. U.S. ports have been investing billions of dollars to expand their facilities in a race to accommodate the mega ships.
Panama marked the long-awaited opening with a weekend party hosted by Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela that includes at least 70 country leaders, members of the U.S. Congress and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Biden.
John Feeley, the U.S. ambassador to Panama, lauded Panama for its "wonder of engineering."
"This is a grand accomplishment for the people of Panama," he said. "This expansion will reconfigure, permanently, the map of the global shipping industry."