Miraflores Lock - June 5

We anchored a fair bit off the coast of Panama this morning and were told that we would be tendering in to the harbor for our excursions into Panama City.  I've never tendered before - which is basically using the lifeboats to get to and from the ship to the shore.  When the lifeboat is bobbing up on the wave, the small platform attached to the ship is bobbing down so it's a careful dance hopping from one to the other with the crew grabbing on to your arm and hauling you from one place to another.  Wicked exciting!

I had a trip scheduled to the Miraflores Lock on the Panama Canal this morning so we were on our lifeboat by 9:00 skimming our way to the harbor.  We immediately boarded a bus and had a 1/2 hour ride to the locks.  The guide got really excited as we approached the lock from the road because he could see a cruise ship in the lock.  So he hurriedly gave us our tickets to the building and hustled us inside.  The building was a combination museum and viewing area for the Miraflores lock.  They had seating but everyone was ignoring it to stand by the railing to get an unobstructed view.


We watched the cruise ship raise up and move on but we didn't have such a great view of it so we waited for a cargo ship to approach.  We waited a loooong time.  That's the thing about the locks - everything is done at a snail's pace.  The ship approaches the lock slowly; the water rises slowly; the gates open slowly; the ship moves forward slowly; the gates close slowly.  Are you getting the picture?  I took a photo every five minutes and that was about the right time lapse.  It was quite fascinating if you are the very patient type.  I would qualify myself as mid-range patient so I was only able to stand still for one ship to go through even though another one was lined up.  The engineers in my family will be appalled with me but to make up for it I mumbled to myself engineering jargon like "what a fascinating primary inter-relationship between the system and subsystem technologies" while watching so I hope that makes up for it. 

After we watched our fill of the ships going through the locks, we took a quick bus tour through the former US military base next to the lock and then we were back to the harbor for our wild ride back to the ship.

In the evening, Anne and I met up with friends and made our way to the old colonial section of the city to a restaurant that had been recommended by friends on the ship.  It was an excellent restaurant but located in a really sketchy part of town.  We were very relieved to get back to the boat at the end of the evening!