The Cape Cod Canal is an artificial waterway traversing the narrow neck of land that joins Cape Cod to mainland Massachusetts.
Part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the canal is approximately 7 miles, or 11.3 km long of which most follow tidal rivers that are widened and deepened into a ship channel. and connects Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south. The town of Sandwich, Massachusetts is near the Massachusetts Bay entrance and the Massachusetts Maritime Academy lies near its entrance to Buzzards Bay. The approximate 20,000 annual users of the canal save about 135 miles (217 km) by not using the route around Cape Cod. A swift running Canal current changes direction every six hours and can reach a maximum velocity of 5.2 miles (8.4 km) per hour, during the receding ebb tide. The canal is maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and has no toll fees. The canal is 480 feet (150 m) wide and has authorized depth of 32 feet (9.8 m) at mean low water. The canal is spanned by the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge and two highway bridges—the Bourne and the Sagamore. Traffic lights govern the approach of vessels over 65 feet (19.8 m), and are located at either end of the canal.
Read more about Cape Cod Canal: Early History, Digging The Canal, Recreational Uses, Pictures
Famous quotes containing the words cape cod, cape and/or canal:
“Wishing to get a better view than I had yet had of the ocean, which, we are told, covers more than two thirds of the globe, but of which a man who lives a few miles inland may never see any trace, more than of another world, I made a visit to Cape Cod.... But having come so fresh to the sea, I have got but little salted.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors: they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating. To the average man, doomed to some banal drudgery all his life long, they offer the only grand hazard that he ever encounters. Take them away, and his existence would be as flat and secure as that of a moo-cow.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)