14 | The Tribune | Weekend
Friday, July 9, 2021
history
PANAMA Canal
What is the Caribbean?
I
n my youth, BahaSpanish America mians were proud and it was natural that the Bahama that the sea on Islands were not in the two sides if the Caribbean. We the isthmus were preferred not to be called called the North West Indians and the South Sea (now the Sea Islands were a romantic Caribbean Sea) dream of friendly ‘native’ and the South Sea inhabitants. I never stopped (now the Pacific to wonder how those Ocean), which is faraway islands got their how the South name, until I read James A Sea Islands got Michener’s Caribbean. their name. I was relieved that In 1881, France Michener wrote, “The started to build Caribbean, nearly nineteen FORGOTTEN FACTS a canal through hundred miles wide from Panama to the Barbados to Yucatán, does Pacific, but not include … the Bahama Islands.” engineering problems, plus a very To the south, the Caribbean Sea high worker-mortality rate, brought is bordered by South and Central construction to a halt in 1894, until America, to the north by Cuba, the United States took over the proHaiti, the Dominican Republic and ject on May 4, 1904, and opened the Puerto Rico. canal on August 15, 1914. Panama, used as a land-bridge to The Canal is an artificial 82 shorten the journey between Spain km waterway that cuts across the and the Spanish colonies in South Isthmus of Panama, connecting America, became the centre of the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific
Ocean, and is a vital conduit for maritime trade. Around one million ships transit the canal each year. It is interesting to note that the Bahamas played a role in its construction, by providing stevedores and workers. Cargo ships from Europe would stop at Long Cay (Fortune Island) to pick up workers to unload the ships at Panama – then drop those workers off to their homes, on the return journey to Europe. Long Cay got the name Fortune Islands because people from all over our Bahama Islands travelled there to make their fortunes. A lesser-known fact about the Canal is that ships from Europe have to steer a westerly course on the way to Panama, where they make a left turn into the Canal and, when they emerge into the Pacific, they are east of where they were when they entered the Canal.
PAUL C ARANHA
THE PANAMA Canal under construction in 1907
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