San Diego was really fun. I got my braces off, and we visited friends and family. It was weird being back in San Diego, especially the part where we couldn’t go to the boat. We took a red eye back to Panama on Friday (we got here on Saturday).
Moments after the braces were removed.
San Diego était tres amusant. J’ai enlevé mes bagues, et nous avons rendu visite à des amis et à la famille. C’était étrange d’être de retour à San Diego, surtout la parti où on ne pouvait pas aller au bateau. On a pris un vol de nuit pour retourner au Panama le vendredi (on est arrivé Samedi).
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.
Saturday, January 18 — We forgot to mention that this week, we’d had the bottom cleaned. The bottom cleaning guy had approached us as soon as we’d pulled into the slip the previous Saturday, and was insistent about doing our bottom. He kept coming back again and again. He didn’t speak any English. When Eric finally asked him the price, Eric thought the guy had said $40, which was an amazingly good deal, so Eric said yes.
The bill he presented us with was $400. We have found out the hard way that in order for a boat to go to the Galapagos, you have to have a super bottom cleaning done, accompanied with a certification. The guy apparently thought we were going to the Galapagos and gave us the uber cleaning, and thanks to the language barrier, Eric didn’t understand what the guy’s intentions were. Eric was able to negotiate him down to $350, but that was an expensive lesson to learn. On the bright side, Kosmos’s bottom is probably the cleanest it’s ever been.
On to today… This morning, Eric spent the morning getting the fenders and lines situated for the canal transit while Christi and Keith did school.
One of the other cruisers had told us that they’d hired a gentleman with a mini-van, named Gustavo, to take them on a sightseeing tour and then to the grocery store. They said he was really good and reasonably priced, so we booked him for this morning. Gustavo picked us up from the marina at 1100, then drove downtown to pick up our crew from their hotel.
From there, he drove us to the Centennial Bridge, which was about 10 miles north. Gustavo explained that up until 1979, the Americans controlled not only the canal, but also a several mile wide strip of land on both sides of the canal. Most of the drive was through the former American territory called the Canal Zone. He pointed out former military bases that had been repurposed for other uses. One was now a small plane airport, another housed a collection of different facilities. We passed the Pedro Miguel lock, along with a couple of small towns, one on each side of the Pedro Miguel locks, that had been purpose built for the canal workers. But the majority of the land was undeveloped.
The Centennial Bridge was built in 2004 to help ease the traffic congestion on the Bridge of the Americas, which at the time was the only bridge across the canal into Panama City. Gustavo drove us across the Centennial Bridge, which had beautiful views of the canal below.
