The ship approached the Panama Canal about 6:30 in the morning, giving a great blast of the ship's horn (presumably to announce its arrival, not sheer exuberance). I am not sure what I expected, but the Canal surprised me. It was more like going into a river than a canal. There were locks, but in the middle there is a huge lake that David told me was made by flooding a valley. David had already explained to me that the "mules" that pull the ships through the locks are electric trains, not real mules, so I was prepared for that. The ship took on a Panamanian pilot to guide us through the Canal, and part of his job was to give a running commentary on what was happening. The commentary was broadcast on deck and also shown on the ship’s television. I noticed that the pilot called them “toy trains” instead of mules. It took about nine hours to get through to the Pacific, and many people were out on deck taking pictures and watching until the rain started in earnest. Even then some people stayed on deck. The commentary really added to the experience; we learned a lot of history of the canal and what is being done to modernize it. For instance, they have started a project to add a third set of locks which is expected to complete in 2014, one hundred years after the original canal opened. Also, the canal opening was actually triggered by an electronic signal sent from the White House in Washington DC. The pilot also claimed that the railroad that runs alongside the canal and carries a lot of container traffic is the fastest train in the world, “because it gets completely across the continent from Atlantic to Pacific in one hour.”  (I think that might be pilot humor.)

Because of the geography of the Isthmus of Panama, we were actually going northwest to southeast as we crossed . (I assume this is why we had to give back the hour today.) There are two locks side-by-side where there are locks, but they run them one way almost always (two ships go in the same direction side by side, then after a while the direction shifts). So there are several places where ships going the “wrong” direction anchor and wait. When we got out of the canal and into the Pacific, there were dozens of ships anchored there. The captain said they were waiting for their turn to go through the canal; he said it is great to be a cruise ship because we get priority over cargo ships.

I saw a lot of new and interesting things, and took a lot of pictures, but (despite what Oscar said) – no monkeys. I hope I get some pictures of monkeys sometime. Tonight we have reservations for a special South American dinner in the Pinnacle Grill. I am looking forward to it.