All Ears® Guest Blog

I never thought I’d feel this way on this cruise, but I was hungry! Michael and I first popped back down to Deck 7 aft to see the Pedro Miguel locks closing and their row boats. You will notice in the pics that these locks have double gates.

For lunch today, they had a BBQ on deck 9 – ribs, rib eye steaks, chicken, salmon & shrimp kabobs, veggie kabobs, corn on the cob, cole slaw (YUM), a variety of other salads, and a variety of breads including corn bread and garlic bread. Of course, they had their usual wide variety of desserts. Needless to say, my hunger is gone!

Right now we are passing through “the cut”. We first crossed under the Centennial Bridge and passed over the Continental Divide (a big rock – looks like it has stairsteps, terraced). The cut is simply that. They excavated, or cut, a swath through the mountains to create this passage. Pretty darn amazing. The vegetation (at least on the starboard side) is clearly lush rain forest. One thing we neglected to pack was binoculars. They would have come in very handy today.

The weather today is phenomenal. Although, it is very hot when the sun is not hiding behind a cloud.

It is about 3:20pm and we are nearing the Gatun Locks. Guess what? The weather has changed drastically. No more sun at all. Now we have some serious lightening, thunder, and rain. This is how they replenish the 52 million gallons of water dumped for each ship that crosses! Quite a spectacular storm.

We seem to be completely stopped. We have an APL container ship right across our bow. (Are you impressed? I am really getting into this lingo – starboard, port, bow, stern, aft, midship, forward. Hahaha)

The ship has moved and we are once again moving, approaching the Gatun locks. Still raining.

Photos for this blog to follow.

Lori