Panama Canal!!

Today we transited the Panama Canal.  We started taking pictures at 6am and continued until dinner.  The last time we in the Canal we didn’t take many pictures.  We more than made up for that this time.  Just over 400 pictures.  We had hoped to see the new locks that are being built, but they are out of sight right now.  We could see the new waterway on the Atlantic side and some of the digging in progress on the Pacific side.  The existing locks are 1000’ long and 106’ wide.  The new locks, which will be in addition to the existing two, will be 1400’ long and 160’ wide.  They need more capacity.  Right now, about 1100 ships go through each month.  The cruise ships pay lots to go to the front of the line of ships anchored in the oceans and lakes, waiting their turns to pass through.  We have heard that the fee is as much as $400,000+ for each cruise ship.  Last time through, in 2001, we heard $160,000, so it is a lot of money even if the $400,000 is inaccurate. 

As this is written, we are anchored in Panama City harbor.  Tomorrow morning, we will ‘tender’ in to the city for a bus/walking tour of the old city and sights.  Typical tourists! To ‘tender’ is to be taken to shore in one of the ship’s lifeboats. They do not have a pier long enough for the ship.  We are to meet our tour group at 6:45am, so tonight will be an early night for us.

The skyline of Panama City is phenomenal, a much larger city that one would imagine.  Over a million people in the urban area.  With the skyline we see, it is hard to believe that there are not many more residents.

Finally, the group that we play trivia with won a game.  We were correct on the first 16 of 20 trivia questions and missed the last four!  Still, it was enough and we felt better about ourselves. We each won a Princess pen!

Colleen and John