Brigid Travels

Updates from The Road

still in transit! [2013]

we are now in the pedro miguel lock. we have been tooling through gatun lake all day, and the culebra cut.

we all got tons of sun and boy is it hot!

but very cool to see the construction activities that continue to go on... dredging mostly.

mom got a spot on deck 13 at the front of the boat and we went up to the 14th where the glass only goes up half way.

but now we are in the room as that is the best spot to watch the lock goings on. we are lucky that all the action is on our side of the boat!

on the other side of the lake it took us 3 locks in a single set to lift the boat from sea level to the level of the lake. on the pacific side we go through this single lock first to bring us down to the level of a small lake, then across to the mira flores set of 2 locks. and then we will be in the pacific!

the engineering is flabbergasting here. so simple yet solving such hard problems. brilliant.

suffice to say there will be an overabundance of pictures.

tonight and tomorrow we are out at sea. next check in should be in puntarenas costa rica where steve and i will zipline in the morning and all 4 of us do a train, bus and boat tour that should be wonderful. hope all is well in the world!

in it [2013]

so we have gone about 6 miles from the breakwater to the first lock. we will be traveling in the west set of locks (currently have two and are working on a third, expected to be completed in 2015). it is the norwegian sun ahead of us. they will be using the east set of locks.

now the deck is positively swarming with people. unfortunately i'm not with steve or mom or gert - hopefully they are watching!

we go through the first set of locks, gatun, and then enter a lake to other locks. a few panama canal folks have boarded the boat - they take control of the boat while we are in the canal.

boats go from pacific to atlantic early in the morning and so we are all going atlantic to pacific - so we can take turns in the one way section of the canal, the culebra cut.

the gates of the first lock have opened for the sun. there are cargo ships in the upper locks on both sides.

wow. people are three deep behind me and i'm at the top of stairs!

i think i'll go to the cabin and see if i can hook up with steve. we are so close to the gates i can't really see much...

entering the canal [2013]

it's about 5:30am and are approaching the canal. amazingly i got a spot on the corner of a 13th deck where i can see forward. there are tons of people up here, looks like many have been camped out for a while.  and there is 3g for my kindle!

i count 34 ships on this side of the boat that are waiting to go through the canal. apparently we have an assigned spot because we are proceeding according the schedule according to the 'poop' sheet, as mom calls it. there is a cruise ship ahead of us entering it first - probably the norwegian sun which is doing our same route at the same time! so we will see her in every port.

the sun is coming up now (celestial, not norwegian). so i can see that we are approaching a canal, as opposed to a bay which we entered a while ago. we have a small boat ahead, possibly a tug.