Welcome to the Panama Weekly News Roundup! Here’s the latest.
Amazing photos of the $5.25 billion Panama Canal expansion project
With the Canal Expansion opening looming in just a few weeks, it’s all eyes on Panama, and this fantastic engineering project. This week, Business Insider profiled the new Canal, at its incredible perspective through images.
It is an immense effort by any scale, requiring 5 million cubic meters of high-strength concrete — enough to build a highway from New York to St. Louis — and some very impressive engineering.
Unlike the current system, the new locks — scheduled to be completed this month — alongside the current, century-old ones, are designed to recycle more than 60% of the water used via a series of basins built alongside the channel.
Source: Business Insider
Princess Cruises will be coming to Panama with regular service, using new expanded Canal
Continuing with the excitement over the new Panama Canal expansion, Princess Cruises has announced it will start regular service through Panama, utilizing the Canal Zone area as a primary tour zone.
The company this week said the 3,080-passenger Caribbean Princess would operate partial transits of the canal using the new locks at its Atlantic entrance starting in late 2017. The experience will be part of 10-day Panama Canal cruises out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. scheduled through the winter of 2017-18.
There are two new sets of locks at the Panama Canal, one each on the Atlantic and Pacific sides. The locks were added as part of a massive canal expansion project that also included excavating channels to the new lock and expanding existing channels.
Source: USA Today
New challenges for boat captains with expanded Panama Canal
New ships, new size for transport, and a brand new Canal have made for some new benefits. They’ve also made for some new challenges. Here are a few of them that boat captains will be facing, starting this month.
But as Panama readies for its launch party on June 26, Russo and the other 150 or so tugboat operators who work the waterway are nervous. Under the new system, they’ll have to engage in tricky maneuvers in a confined space inside the locks themselves, trying to keep the bulky New Panamaxes from banging into the walls or even crushing the tugs if they lose control.
“Imagine when we’re in front of the prow of those other monsters and have to tie ourselves to them,” said Russo. “If something goes wrong with the tugboat and that ship keeps moving, I may not have time to get out of the way.”
Source: Seattle Times
6 Quick Tips to Help You Adjust When You Relocate or Retire in Panama
When you move to Panama, you’re going to have a bit of a culture shock. This is completely natural, and nothing to worry about in the long run. Getting adjusted is all about taking some simple steps. Here are a few, from our latest blog post.
Leave most of your stuff at home
So many people that relocate to Panama make the mistake of overpacking, and stressing out over bringing all of their things on the long move. The simple solution: leave as much as you can at home. Panama has lots of shopping available in practically every part of the country, at pretty low prices. So, if it’s not an heirloom, or something that’s vital, we say save the stress and just leave without it. You can always replace simple things here, and in the end, it will actually save you money (not to mention time and stress).
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