PapaMarshall

WC007 – 12/28/2022 – Colon, Panama

Location Check: N 09º 21′ 44.74″ – W 079º 53′ 33.22″

We woke up this morning in traffic!

We also noticed a sight unique to Panama.

Note the hills in the background (partially obscured by fog). That’s mainland Panama. Also obscured by fog is the sunrise over those hills. (Sorry, I didn’t get the phone out in time.) And we’re in the Atlantic Ocean (actually the Caribbean Sea). So you’d expect sunrise to be over the ocean, not the mainland. The only other place you’ll see that is the west coast of Florida.

We cut exercise short and had a quick breakfast because timing today is interesting. Then it was back to the stateroom to prepare for the day, read the paper, deal with email and Cruise Critic before second breakfast.

Then at 9:50 (just as the crew was engaging in their mandatory safety drill) we headed out on our 5 hour excursion to see flora and fauna in the Panama Canal.

Getting to the boat dock involved a 1.5 hour bus ride thru varied terrain…
and thick forest. Our guide pointed out that the tropical rain forest is in the southern part of the country.

We arrived at the town of Gamboa on the Chagres River.

The Chagres River feeds Gatun Lake and provides most of the water used in the canal.
Where we boarded boats…

And cruised out onto the canal

[insert video of Chagres River to Canal]

We cruised a bit west…

…dodging large container ships…

Arriving at Monkey Islands

Where we saw a few White Faced Monkeys,
(This little guy was lunching on tree bugs.)
An iguana sunning himself on a branch,
A two-toed Sloth taking a nap…

And various birds and such. Sadly we didn’t see any alligators or Caymans. Maybe tomorrow.

Back at the ship we read, napped, did a couple loads of laundry, attended a lecture [ ], ate dinner, subjected ourselves to Bruce’s Brain Busters and returned to our stateroom to finish the day.

One not about BBB – We were invited to join another team of four couples. We had a great time and contributed some to the “success” – even though our score of 14 out of 24 was only good enough for 4th place. So even if the results don’t show improvement at least we’re having fun.

Speaking of fun…Time to close this off. We enter the canal at 6:00 tomorrow morning so we’ll be up early.

till then…R

Let’s hope This ship doesn’t have grating, mast, or cannon.

1 Comment

  1. When you get a chance, Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrandyyyyyyyyyy, how about: [insert video of Chagres River to Canal]. Great photos!

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