Want to save on toll? One, two, three, jump!

Do what, you ask? Visit the Panama Canal site.

This year, the canal has been in operation for a century, with Panamanians in control since Dec. 31, 1999, courtesy of President Carter. But I figured that since the residents of the White House have their hands full, somebody ought to trot along there and eyeball the ships being raised or lowered by 85 feet as they sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or vice versa.

So my wife and I packed our bags and set sail, so to speak. Had it been the 16th century, we would have done so literally. That is what Vasco Núñez de Balboa did on Sept. 29, 1513. He had started earlier from Spain, but on that day, he became the first European to cross the isthmus of Panama and reach what he called the South Sea. We call it the Pacific Ocean.

Balboa was looking for gold. So was my wife. But I was in search of the secret design of the rumored iPhone model 46XT. Ha ha, just kidding. That design has actually been hacked by the Chinese, not the Panamanians.

Anyway, we took a flight. Our friendly airline took a direct route, as most airlines do. Since Panama City, Panama, is pretty much directly south of Greensboro, N.C., the sensible route is obviously to fly northwest to Chicago first, then on to Houston, and finally to Panama. In retrospect, we would have reached there earlier by Balboa’s sea route.

So what is the big deal about a 50-mile canal? Well, it saves time. And in the shipping business, time is money. A ship crosses the canal in about 8-10 hours. In the old days, if you wanted to sail from Europe to the west coast of North America, you had to go around the tip of South America, adding 2-3 weeks to the trip. The French hated it; so in 1880, they made this plan to cut through Panama, Central America, with a canal from sea to shining sea.

The Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps, of Suez Canal fame, was full of confidence, but he had never visited Panama, and he was not an engineer. He proposed a sea-level canal, like the Suez. But this was not Egypt. The French quit 10 years later, drained of money and patience.

It would take American ingenuity to do the job right. President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in, and American engineers went to work in 1904, building the canal ahead of schedule, and under-budget. On Aug. 15, 1914, the first ship sailed through.

So off we went to Panama City, Panama. Two members of our tour group arrived a day late. They had taken a flight to Panama City also, but the one in Florida. Such are the joys of airline travel.

Panama City looks like Miami and New York rolled into one, except that it has slightly more expensive hotel rooms. It does have many interesting features, one of which is the paradox of sunrise. The Panama Canal runs from the northwest to the southeast in a country which looks like an “S” lying on its side. So you enter the Pacific Ocean from the canal more to the east of your entrance point in the Atlantic. Thus you can see the sun rise over the Pacific and set over the Atlantic.

Well, the Panamanians are running a tight ship, and earn $2 billion a year in profit, one billion going to the government of Panama, and the rest to canal operations. This kind of money requires heavy-duty tolls. The bigger ships can pay over $400,000.

But there is a cheaper alternative. Richard Halliburton of the U.S. paid the lowest toll ever for crossing the Panama Canal: 36 cents in 1928. He swam across, and paid toll based on his body weight.

So all of you folks on a budget: Go on a diet and jump right into the canal. If you go deep, you might even find Balboa’s gold.