In the scheme of things it seems that cruising
boats are small potatoes as far as PC
budget is concerned. Very small potatoes. I was there this February, helped friends to sail from
Key West to PC and they continued to Pacific. I just hung around for few days before my flight home, didn't go through with them unfortunately.
At the entrance we saw probably close to 100 or more huge container ships just waiting their turn and what not while the sailboats were few and far in between in the Shelter Bay marina. Turns out that the huge
commercial ships pay up to $450K per passage. And there were many more of them than sailboats, at least while I was there. I gather that the cruisers and their
boats are more of a nuisance and just a small business
employment opportunity for the locals than a feeding through for the Canal authority.
Someone posted transit stats here on CL which showed just about 1,000-1,200 transits by sailboats per year, 3-4 per day. That just a few $$mil in
fees. When a large
shipping vessels pays $100K-$450K EACH transit. And they probably do a few dozen or more per day or thereabouts. With the selling
price for the Canal as I
recall at measly $5bil this is the sweetest toll booth deal in the
history of the world.