emotional moment. Met a lot of nice people. countries.
Above is the Panama's Bridge of the Americas across the canal. One of the ships which will share our first two locks is ahead of us.
This above is our ship before we sailed out of port. The sun was just rising over the Pacific ocean! Weird, but Panama canal goes north/south, so the bay can show the sun rising over the Pacific.
This is the other ship that entered with us. We were both behind the large ship, and this one pulled up along side of us. This ship was from Balboa, California. This is on Al's wish list of boats. The crew had been traveling and fishing on the Pacific and were on their way to San Marteen in the Carribe. Nice way to travel as long as you don't have bad weather.
This is the ship that was going under the bridge, and now is in the locks ahead of us, waiting for us to get into position so the lock doors can close and fill it with water. An water elevator. Look how close it is to the sides, it was this way on both sides. They are in the process of building aditional locks to acomadate larger ships.We did this 3 times to get through the first locks coming from Panama city on the Pacific Ocean. The next set a short distance away, across a small lake, with locks again to raise us up to lake level of around 200 feet. I did not realize it before, but this September the canal will be 100 years old. Wow!
After cruising many miles across the lake (whole distance from sea to sea only about 50 miles), we went into the locks at the carribean that lowered us to sea level. Then we had a sunset cruise into the city of Colon. Which after the railroad tour, Jerry refuses ever to see again. This time we were in the safety of our bus, and were ushered through Colon in the dark. One road was blocked by the Carnaval so we detoured and head back to Panama City. Took about an hour back. Carol
wow wow wow! You guys accomplished your goal! Thank you for sharing
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