Panama Canal – transit - Jan 10

In the early morning a Panama Canal Pilot boarded our ship just outside the breakwaters marking the Atlantic entrance to the Canal. Throughout the day we made our way through the three stage Gatun Locks up to Gatun Lake. We then made our way through the Lake and after transiting the canal for a while we passed under the Centennial Bridge before entering the Pedro Miguel Locks and then across Miraflores Lake. We then transited the two stage Miraflores Locks and finally passed under the Bridge of the Americas and entered the Pacific Ocean. It was a lovely day with a great view of the Panama City skyline.

Greg got up early to put out the Go Pro to get a time lapsed video of the entire transit. I had not slept more than a couple of hours (and not all at the same time) due to the pain in my leg. I kept looking out the window and could see the lights from Panama. I got a late start and we headed up to breakfast. I missed the Gatun locks since I was visiting the ship’s doctor. The ship’s doctor is a very nice lady from South Africa and she made sure it was just muscle/tendon pain and not bone. Since I can’t take many meds due to adverse reactions she worked hard to come up with a plan to hopefully deal with the pain. She told me to take my Celebrex twice a day instead of my usual once a day and gave me a cream with heat and pain reliever. Since I react to codeine there really wasn’t anything she could give me. She did recommend an IV with some pain reliever in it for about 15 minutes. It was supposed to help in about 30 minutes, but honestly I didn’t feel any different. I had brought some muscle relaxers from Panama with me and she agreed I should start those. Hopefully, in a couple of days I’ll have less pain.

So, we enjoyed the canal and seeing our adopted country again. We had a nice lunch in the dining room with more interesting people. Then, we went back out on deck to watch as we went by our beloved Gamboa area. Wow, I have never seen the water level so high. If any of you that live there or has visited us, you may remember the railroad bridge we took the boat under to get to Monkey Island. I’m pretty sure you’d have to duck your head now. Then, we came to the Miraflores Visitor Center. I had to laugh at one really loud lady on the same deck as she shouts “why are those people from that hotel staring at us? Oh, it isn’t? What is it?” I assume the crew told her it was a canal viewing center.

It was a very pleasant day with only a small amount of rain very early in the day.

We had dinner in the dining room. My pork dish wasn’t all that tasty to me (still not feeling up to snuff) and our waiter noticed that I had eaten all of my au gratin potatoes and could he bring me some more? How nice! Hit the spot. I have been a bit nauseated and the starches seemed to settle best.

The entertainment tonight was a new show by David Meyer, the Xylosynth player. He also did a song with laser lights that made notes when he passed his hands through them. WOW!

There was a disco deck party tonight, but trying to rest my leg as much as possible to get over this pain sooner, we opted to relax in the cabin.

 Clyde & Terry sent us photos taken by their friends in Panama that saw our ship in the canal and took photos and they emailed them to us on the ship.

We have another sea day tomorrow!