Thursday, November 24, 2022

A Shortcut from the Atlantic to the Pacific

Day 6 - We set the alarm early this morning. We didn't want to miss the first set of locks on the eastern side of the Panama Canal. The locks take ships up to the level of the man-made lake and saved a whole lot of digging prior to the canal's opening in 1914.
  Day 5 
Cruising the Panama Canal has been on our wishlists for a number of years. We thought we might end up on a re-positioning cruise from the Caribbean to our part of the continent at the beginning of an Alaskan cruise season. Luckily, instead, we were able to take this cruise for the start of winter in Argentina.
  Day 5

The trip took pretty much the whole day.  We weren't up until the first locks were within view.  We ended the canal shortly after taking the locks on the western side back down to the level of the Pacific near Panama City.   The time was after 5:00 pm.  Just four years ago, we saw them from the Visitor Center here.  

The weather was great today and some cloud cover kept things a bit cooler.  What an amazing feat of engineering back when my grandparents were born!

Day 5

We pulled into the cruise port near Panama City at around 7:30 pm and it was dark by then.  We will stay tonight and tomorrow night too.  We didn't take the bus into town tonight but instead met our tablemates for a traditional US Thanksgiving dinner in the dining hall.  

Tomorrow we will take a shuttle and see what's changed here since our last visit in 2018.  At the time we decided not to investigate a complete winter in Panama but we enjoyed this booming city nevertheless.  Tomorrow we will pick up some sundries. 


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