This week has been fun. On Saturday we went sightseeing, then went to the grocery store.
Pedro Miguel lock
Cette semaine était amusante. Samedi on a été faire du tourisme, puis nous sommes allés au supermarché.
construction of tunnel to left, container port in the middle — just south of the Bridge of the Americas.
On Sunday we crossed the Panama Canal (see my other post for details). On Monday we went on a hike in the jungle with our friends, then we all had breakfast at the marina restaurant. Then we all went to the pool. After that our friends left. After that the craziest thing happened. We went up to the lounge to see if there were any kids there, and some of them were setting up a D&D campaign. Dad volunteered to DM, so I played D&D with them.
On the morning of Wednesday, February 22, we went for another walk along the loop to the old officer’s housing. As we got closer to the abandoned barracks, we could hear the howler monkeys screaming, which sounded otherworldly. We found them near the entrance to the barracks.
When we first walked up, the monkeys went silent and stopped moving. After a couple minutes of watching us watching them, a few of them resumed moving around through the trees. After a few more minutes, they started screaming again, and many more moved around. At the end of the video, Eric zoomed in on the monkeys, and you can see how small the monkeys are. It’s hard to believe such small creatures can make such loud, scary sounds.
Sunrise on Monday, January 20, taken from Mike and Kim’s hotel room:
Shelter Marina Bay is situated on the western side of the Panama Canal in what used to be an American military base called Fort Sherman. The City of Colon is on the eastern side of the canal.
Fort Sherman was constructed in 1911 to be the primary defensive base for the Caribbean sector of the Canal. It was 23,100 acres (93 km2). Only about half of the land was developed; the other half remained jungle. Ft. Sherman was one of the primary military training centers for jungle combat training, particularly during the Vietnam era. It was abandoned in December 1999 along with all the other American military bases in Panama. The Panamanian government turned the undeveloped jungle into the San Lorenzo National Park and deemed the developed portions as protected lands.
On Monday morning we were all up early to go for a walk in the jungle to see some of the ruins from the Ft. Sherman days, and hopefully, some jungle animals. As we were getting ready to go, our friend Teal stopped by to welcome us to the marina. It was wonderful to see him again!
Just outside the entrance to the marina, there was a fork with three roads. We took the road to the right, which we knew would lead us to what used to be the officer’s housing.
The Panama Canal crossing was very tiring. We woke up at around 3:00 in the morning. Our friends arrived soon after. We left the marina at 4:00 to pick up the advisors. I went back to sleep, so I don’t know when they got on board.
Bridge of the Americas
La traversé du canal de panama était très fatigante. Je me suis levé vers 3:00 du matin. Nos amis sont arrivés juste après. Nous sommes partis de la marina à 4:00 pour chercher les conseillers. J’ai re-dormi, donc je ne sais pas quand il sont arrivés sur le bateau.
Pulling into the lock to tie up to the wall
Mom woke me up for the first lock. I didn’t have to do anything because we were rafting with another boat, so I just watched.
continued… It was exhilarating when the last Gatun lock doors opened into the Caribbean Sea. We did it! And with no damage to the boat and no injuries! Woo hoo!
We quickly untied and drove forward into the northern portion of the canal, which was located in the protected waters of Bahia Limon (note, we can’t edit the really old posts, so we want to note that the proper translation for limon is lime, not lemon). While we were in the locks, we’d been mostly protected from the wind, so when we emerged, we were a little surprised about how windy it was. Even in the protected bay, there were whitecaps.
Shortly beyond the locks was the Gatun Bridge, which hadn’t existed when we’d gone through the canal fifteen-years ago.
Brianna and Keith near the Gatun BridgeBrianna and Kim taking a selfie near the Gatun BridgeContinue reading →
