Notes from the Pacific Ocean

It’s Friday, January 11, 2008 and we are on a southwesterly course having left Panama City yesterday around 5PM. The seas are calm and the sky is clear. There is no other ship in sight and no sign of any land. We are in the Pacific Ocean on the first day of our eight sea days on our way to Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas.
Hard to believe that 3 days ago we were in Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. There we toured a working Del- Monte banana plantation and spent some time wondering around Puerto Limon souvenir shopping . After leaving Costa Rica, we began our journey through the Panama Canal. We woke up early the next morning, Jan. 9, to watch our progress through the canal. We were at the first set of locks called Gatun Locks around 6AM. There were 2 other cruise ships making the transit at the same time but our ship was first! We were allowed on the bow of the ship and also near the bridge to watch. The cruise staff had fresh coffee and something called “Panama Rolls” for us to snack on while we watched all the activity of the canal transit. We finished the first set of locks around 10Am and then sailed through Gatun Lake to the next set of locks called Pedro Miguel. Prior to arriving at the Pedro Miguel locks we went through the Calebra Cut and the small canal town of Gamboa. There were a couple crocodiles swimming near the shore who were disturbed by our ship and lots of exotic birds. We also saw the signs of construction for the new Panama Canal locks being built at several points along the way. The country of Panama has embarked on a project to widen the locks to allow larger ships to transit the canal since at the time the canal was built in the early nineteen hundreds, ships were not as wide as they are now. Our ship fit with only a few feet to spare on either side! We cleared the Pedro Miguel locks around 2PM and then it was a short distance to the final set of locks called the Miraflores Locks. We completed the full transit from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean at around 5PM. In the distance we saw Panama City with it’s skyscrapers and the Bridge of the Americas. That evening we anchored off Fuerte Amador and the ship had a barbeque on the Lido deck to celebrate our successful transit of the Canal! Yesterday, Jan. 10 we had the day to explore Panama City and we took the opportunity to see all the sights. After a long day of touring Panama City we stopped at a local restaurant for a rest and sampled the local beer. We were not in a hurry to return to the ship because we knew once there it would be a long time before we would be back on land.
So for the next eight days, it will be lots of sunning and reading and enjoying the endless activities provided on our beautiful ship, the ms Amsterdam.