The Corinth Canal is Cool

Greece is by far the land of cool bridges, sorry Jacksonville… you’ve got nothing.

It started with the canal bridge that unhooked and physically moved over for boats. The mack Daddy of suspension bridges that glowed neon blue in the night.  Now the bridge system for the Corinth Canal promoted Greece to the land of awesome bridges.

The Corinth Canal connects the Ionian Sea and the Aegean Sea by cutting through mainland Greece.  According to the Greek Waters Pilot, the Greeks used to drag ships across the isthmus on a paved road.  Octavian was in pursuit of Anthony after the Battle of Actium, which Greek and Roman rulers discussed building a canal but it wasn’t until Nero’s rule that someone actually started to dig.  He had 6000 Jews at his disposal so it probably sounded like a good idea at the time, but they didn’t even make it to the rock before man power was needed in Gaul.  The present canal was outsourced to a French company and finished by the Greeks in 1893.  Damage was done during WWII and it was expanded at that point to what it is today.

The canal is 3.2 miles long, 25 meters wide, and 6.5 meters deep.  It’s carved out of limestone that rises to the highest point at 79 meters above sea level.   The canal is closed most of the day Tuesday, but we learned that it opened at 4:00pm so we managed to time it out and arrived at around 4:30 Tuesday afternoon.  The book warns that there may be up to a 3 hour wait for bigger ships to go through first and then private yachts follow.  We were the only boat in the entire canal.  It was pretty cool.

When approaching we saw the yellow and black bridge that looked like a road barrier and called to ask permission to enter the canal.  The guy gave us permission and the barrier began to lower.  What happens is the bridge part lowers under the water the 6.5 meters and we just sailed right over it.  It was pretty cool. 

Once in the canal Dad was able to put the engine on almost idle and we road current down the canal at about 5.5 knots.  It reminded me of the EAC in “Finding Nemo”.  We were booking and it was a lot of fun.  I can’t imagine following any other ships or boats, Dad didn’t have the best control over the rudder because of the strong current, but alone it was a blast.  The scenery was awe I inspiring and I was really glad we chose to do the canal.

If you look closely you can see the yellow and black bridge that resembles a barrier.  Generally it’s not a good idea to sail towards land or barriers, but we were trusting the guy in the tower when he said it was ok to approach.

Sure enough the bridge started to go under the water.  We had a red light for awhile, but the guy said it would be ok to continue anyway… then he turned the light green. 

We made it through the bridge and that was cause for celebration 1.  Dad did a great job getting through the canal.

You can see right down the canal through the limestone.  It was pretty cool.  There are three bridges and a railroad bridge to go under.

This is what a bridge looks like as our mast clears it.  There was plenty of space, but like I’ve said it’s always a test as to whether or not the bridge is as high as it advertises.

This is Dad’s view of the canal.  All he needed to see was each side and the bow of the boat to make sure he steers right down the middle.  It was pretty wide, for us, but I can’t imagine being a bigger ship trying to get through.

This is looking back at the canal we had already covered.  It’s pretty impressive.

It technically only saved us a day… maybe a day and a half and it wasn’t cheap.  There are dues that have gotten more expensive as the economy has gotten worse based on the LOA – length overall – of the boat.  It ended up charging us €235 to get from one end to the other.  I personally think it was worth every penny to experience it.