Our Panama Canal Cruise

 For me, the whole reason for this trip was to check off my bucket list, travelling through the Panama Canal. For Sheryl, it was being there to support me in this dream. Today's voyage through the canal took 7 1/2 hours, going up 85 feet on the Caribbean side, cruising 51 miles and then lowering ourselves back down to sea level again in the Pacific. There are 3 locks on each side of the canal. For the first 3 locks, I was at the ship's bow, video recording and taking pictures. It took 2 hours, so I got a lot of pics and one heck of a sunburn.  Entering our first lock The gates that hold the water in (or out) are so well balanced that they open and close using a 25-horse motor. These little engines (they call them mules) keep our ship dead centre in the lock) And there is only a little room for error. All are monitored by a few people in this control room. The first of six locks on my bucket list. Locks two and three ahead of us. Two ships passing in the... daylight. Pardon me,...

 Colon is located on the eastern side of side of the Panama Canale (or is it? Colon is actually west of Panama City but is on the Atlantic Ocean/Caribbean Sea). The Panama Canal is more of a north/south route than east/west. Confused enough?  Colon is a port, and there is not much to do, so back to the bus in another effort to find a Toucan. Today's tours had us drive by what I thought was an abandoned old warehouse with barbed wire all around it. Turns out this is a working prison; this building should be enough incentive to stay on the right side of the law. A half-hour later, we arrived at Gatun Lake, where we boarded a boat and set sail in search of wildlife.  Once again, the Toucan eluded us, but we did find a sloth on the move. They are very slow, which makes the next video very long, so maybe grab a coffee before watching it. The sloth turned out to be the highlight of the day and with that done, back to the ship. Tomorrow we sail through the Panama Canal.

 So I found out the hard way that in Costa Rica a lemon is called a Limon, and a lime is called a Limon. Important to know when you're ordering a gin and tonic (make sure you ask for a green Limon). Today's journey was a search for a toucan, so jump on a boat we did to cruise the canals around Limon. We saw lots of birds but no toucan. We did see a sloth but too far away and hidden in the tree for a photo. We also saw a caiman (sort of like a small alligator) but the water was a bit too murky for a real good photo Sorry, best I could do At the end of the day we decided to go on a tour of the town, but to be honest, it was a bit of a disappointment. We did stop at a restaurant for a beer and found this. Closest we came to a toucan Anyway, back on the ship to drown my sorrows with a great meal, too much wine and an evening of dancing (sorry no pictures). 

Very calm waters today, I got to relax some and catch up on some... WORK! Okay, nothing to see here, let's move on to tomorrow.

 Today's tour has us jumping on another bus and heading to Gumbalimba Park in Roatan, Honduras. Apparently, The forest park is full of insects (hmm...) and wildlife (unlike what you find in the bars at Fort Lauderdale). Our guide says we won't be disappointed. To start, we were led into a room where we were told there were 10,000 insects. Fortunately, upon entering the room, we saw they were all dead and properly mounted and framed. We were also pleased to find that a good portion of them were butterflies (there were others, but Sheryl won't let me post those). Here is a brief summary. I think you get the picture (lol) From there, we crossed what I would say was a poorly maintained swing bridge (there were actually a couple planks missing) and then on to meet our "wildlife".  Our first specimens were iguanas, lots and lots of iguanas. There were black ones, green ones, brown ones and orange ones, but hey, when you've seen one iguana, you've seen them all. ...