A wonderful bird is the Pelican.

A wonderful bird is the Pelican.
His beak can hold more than his belly can.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week!
But I'll be darned if I know how the hellican?

This is Jim's pelican (because Jim spotted him) and he must have had a beak full and was sleeping it off, despite the ships passing a few yards away. We would see many more pelicans before the day was out, but this was the most fun one.

Then there was the crocodile ......

Quite a big one! And to our surprise it was swimming in the waters outside the locks, i.e. nominally in the Caribbean. We reckoned though that there was so much fresh water coming through the locks that it was probably quite happy and not having to cope with salt water at all.



There was also this one further on along the canal. He (or she?) looked reasonably menacing and emphasised the advice not to swim in the Gatun Lake.



They were some of the first interesting wildlife we saw as we were entering the Panama Canal. And of course the canal itself, and all its well coordinated machinery and people, made for a fascinating passage from the Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean.

Up at dawn, the most noticeable thing was the armada of ships all around us, and a very industrial landscape. We were told that many of the ships weren't actually queuing for the canal so much as waiting for work which might arise on either side of the canal.

It took a while to get into the first lock, but then we made steady progress through the triple staircase locks, up into Gatun Lake.

Ahead of us in the locks (the standard old ones, not the new set completed last year) was the MV Artania, formerly owned/used by Princess Cruises and P & O but now operated by Phoenix-Reisen, a ship not dissimilar to Black Watch in size, but with a slightly greater capacity of 1,200 passengers. Launched in 1984 by Princess Diana, she's 12 years newer than Black Watch but still old by cruise ship standards.

The 'mules' - heavy electric locomotives operating on 440V - lined up, four on each side of the ship, take two strong cables each to hold the ship central in the locks. The ship, under control of a local pilot, propelled herself into and through each lock, the mules keeping pace with us. 

The canal and locks are understandably busy with a tanker queuing behind us and, no doubt, other ships ahead of Artania. The locks operate 24/7 in a very well organised operation. Cruise ships apparently only form about 2% of the total traffic.

The first set of locks to enter the canal proper generated much interest amongst most passengers.

I suspect that it was on many people's bucket lists, as it was on mine.

Some though, old & young (wrinkly and not so wrinkly), surprisingly seemed to think that sun-worshipping was more interesting than the surroundings. Maybe they'd done it before and the Panamanian jungle and other sights, no longer had much appeal?

For us though the sun was a bit too hot this close to the Equator to stay on deck the whole day, so the view from the Observatory Lounge was almost as good, and later lunch with the most amazing views of jungle and other things.

The earlier talk on the Panama Canal and its history had described the early French attempt to dig a sea-level cut right across Panama (no locks). After wasting millions (billions?) of Francs and some 55,000 lives, the attempt was abandoned leaving just this 1 km long cul-de-sac as a memorial to those who died.

This is our route. I was surprised to learn, in the talk about the canal before we got there, that although we were going from the Caribbean to the Pacific, essentially westward, the end of the canal is actually further east than the beginning, and quite a long way south. obvious now that I look at the map:



Then we were cruising gently through the Panamanian rain forest with time to admire the views, even while lunching.

Passing from the lake into the relatively narrow channel which leads to the locks at the Pacific end of the Canal, it was late in the day before we entered the two locks which would lower us into the Pacific.

This time we followed the oil tanker MV New Conquest through the two locks, Artania going through the adjacent locks.

I forgot to put in the photo of the grazing capybaras visible as we went through the last lock. The world's largest rats (well largest rodents):

It was night before we cruised under the Americas Bridge, but possibly all the more spectacular for that.

And that was the wonderful and impressive Panama Canal.

Next stop Manta in Ecuador after a day at sea.