Best laid plans...

As you may be aware, over the last number of years a second Panama Canal was built. This was to cope with the fact that modern ships such as super tankers are much bigger than their predecessors. This massive pieces of engineering were just too big to be able to pass through the original Panama Canal so something had to be done. Having studied the issue for some time it was realised that the most economic way to cope with the problem was to build a new canal, parallel to the original one.

The second canal was inaugurated around two years ago and there are actually two Panama Canals. They both operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This is truly a massive operation which represents a significant income source for the Panamanian state. As I have mentioned earlier, ships book their passage through the canal for up to 7 years before they are due to travel. The toll to pass through the canal is fixed in accordance with the value of the cargo which means that some ships will pay several million dollars for that one journey. Apparently, it is still worth it as the alternative - to travel down around the tip of Tierra del Fuego, in Argentina - is even more costly. Of course, apart from the cost of the journey, the other reason that the Panama Canal is so important is that foodstuffs and perishable goods would decay and not survive the longer journey.

All has been going well with the administration of the double canal until yesterday when there was a very unusual challenge to be faced. A very large cruise ship, carrying passengers, was passing through the canal when it became clear that the difficulty wasn't going to be its displacement (its physical size) but its height.

Passing through the canal all ships must pass beneath the Puente de las Americas (The Bridge of the Americas) which is a massive construction that spans the canal. As its name suggests, this bridge connects North and South America. Despite the bridge's massive height (117m), the cruise ship was in a tricky position.

The only solution turned out to be to wait until low tide and then to proceed under the bridge. As it did so it was shephered by tug boats and watched over by helicopters to make sue it would make it, which it did - but with very little room to spare.

It seems that each time an engineering problem is overcome, another one is waiting in the wings to mess up the best laid plans...