Colon, Panama

Saturday we docked in Colon.  This is the first time Regent has stopped here.  The morning was at sea as we were not scheduled to arrive until 1pm.  We swam first thing in the morning.  The pool does not open until 7:30am.  This is later than we remember on the other ships.  So we exercised for one hour and then the hot tub.  The pool water is cool.  So it feels great to get in the hot tub when we finish swimming.

Breakfast after we cleaned up.  Today was the first day they have had real crispy bacon.  So of course, I had to have some.

I then attended the lecture by Terry Breen on  the new canal.  It was scheduled to be open in 2014 but now will be open some time this year.  They are building the new locks so that the larger container ships can use the canal.

Our tour this afternoon was to the Gatun Locks and then an Eco boat ride on the lake.  It was very interesting to visit the locks as we have only seen them from a ship.  I posted pictures on my Facebook page.  The eco boat ride was a joke.  The only wild life we saw was a sloth high up in a tree and a hawk.  They are suppose to have over 600 species of birds here but you could not prove it by what we saw.  The interesting part of the boat ride was we took off from a resort that is now in the area that was the Panama Zone owned by the USA.  They are transforming the barracks into apartment buildings.

Back to the ship to clean up for cocktails and dinner.  We were joined in the lounge by Dennis and Judy.  They live in Florida in a 55 plus community outside of Orlando.  So all four of us had dinner together.

The show was a local folk dance crew which I went to but left early.  Bob made the right decision not to attend.  Loud and not very interesting.  Oh well.

Sunday we transit the Canal.  This takes about 8 hours from Atlantic Ocean to Pacific Ocean.