The adventure is drawing to a close.  In line for the last of the locks and they tell us that we are going to squeeze in front of a huge container ship parked at the entry—that didn’t work, we backed and slipped behind.  The lock is about 1000 ft in length, he was 750, we were 152 so we shared the lock.  He was a panamax ship which means he was 108 feet wide for the 110 foot wide lock.  Not a lot of room to spare.  The locomotives on the side keep him centered in the lock.  He had four canal pilots on board to keep of the ship progress while we had one and 5-6 lines men.  The lines men toss and connect the lines for the locomotives.  They do a lot of sitting enroute, but pulling the lines in is hard work and takes all five of them pulling in unison.  It took 1 1/2 hours to transit the last three locks.  The first level took us down 27 or the total 85 feet we needed to go down. Given that we went up 85 feet on the pacific and then down 85 feet on the caribbean side, one might wonder why the canal does not just go straight through.  Good Question—Sue and I disagree on the answer so she is checking on the web….

We docked overnight, had our farewell dinner and saw a guest photo show with some great pictures our fellow travelers had taken, we put some in as well, it is a fun ending to a photo specific trip.  We also got the trip DVD filmed by the ship videographer.  It is always disconcerting when he follows us around filming but the end result is a fun wrap-up of the trip.  

Saturday morning we headed off the ship with ten others on the one day post trip extension.  We headed to the building site for the canal expansion—one lane to accommodate the supermax ships that are currently in use and continuing to be built. The scale of the project is quite impressive.  We saw a movie of the history and current build which included info about the new gates, sliding rather than swinging, built in Italy and brought over 4 at a time by ship, each as high as a ten story building.  We went out to see the 4 that are on site—holy smokes they were huge.  The method for moving them reminded us both of transporting the NASA space shuttles.  The trailers have about 50 wheels in total to move them.  There will be 16 in total, eight on each side of the canal so 8 will have to transit the canal to get to the Pacific.  

Next we went to a museum/observation site at the Pacific side of locks for lunch and a chance to watch two sightseeing boats, three sail boats and a container ship traverse.  They tie the sailboats together and then a linesman walks with the boats to guide progress rather than tying up to the locomotives. When the water level goes down they are close to disappearing from sight.  Fun to watch.  Then off for a tour of the city. Lots of new skyscrapers, many unfinished.  While they boost of a booming economy we are a bit skeptical that they have occupants for all the building going on.  Probably the highlight of the afternoon was a brief walk around the old town, which the Spaniard built after the first city was plundered by pirates in the 1600’s.  This part of town reminded up equally of Cuba and New Orleans.  It is being renovated slowly.  It seems to be the place for artists and great little shops and restaurants as well as residences.  Dinner with local dancing and music to reflect the Panama culture.  It was fun and a good close to the trip.  5:00 am came early and we headed to the airport.  Sitting now in the Delta Sky Lounge in Atlanta waiting to fly home to 3 degrees.  Ouch.

See you next time.  We are off in a couple of weeks for a cruise from Hong Kong to Singapore through many ports in Indonesia.  Thanks for sharing our trips with us.  Cheers.