Day 9 - The Panama Canal

Saturday January 11

This should be very interesting, even though James and I had the incredible trip to Panama Sept/Oct. 2018 (you can read about it HERE) going through a lock never gets old. 

The captain told us that they usually don't know when they are actually going to go through the lock. The ship is totally at the mercy of the Panama Authority. 

I think the first photo was taken at about 6 am. 

6:40 am

Our cabin was at a prime location for this. 6008 was just an arm length from a door which is normally locked. A perfect lookout to the front. Of course a lot of people came past our door but that didn't matter of course.

We decided to have our breakfast on our balcony.

Found Kate and David afterwards who were equally close to another door on their side at 6011. 

We only went through the Atlantic side locks into Gatun Lake and anchored. That's where tenders brought people to the shore who had booked excursions. These photos were taken by James.

James was walking around deck 3 and was trapped around 9:30 am as the tenders were taken back on board.. He wasn't sorry about being trapped because it gave him the opportunity to watch.

The Crow's Nest was a great place to watch going back through the lock to the town of Colon where we are going to pick up the people from their excursions.

See our new dice on the middle of the table? Oh yes, they come in handy.

Once docked in Colon we can get off the ship. James and I do that. We check briefly our emails (with the weak WiFi) and walk to the little shopping center. Just walking on solid ground feels good. There is a lot of construction and a lot still needs to be done to make it nice. The photo of this sign makes it look good.

When everybody was back on board we started sailing again. Off to Costa Rica. 

I have very nice photos of dinner food but I spare you that. The four of us had a table right over the engine and the wind had also picked up. It became a problem for people with sea sickness issues. Poor Kate left the table half-way through dinner. James and I feel so lucky that we never had an issue with it. In the night we felt rocked to sleep - except that the strong winds whistled through the door to the balcony all night - loudly!