Gatun Lake and the rest of the canal

 Sunday January 11

We spent the day anchored in Gatun Lake near Barro Colorado Island. The island is the high point of land remaining after the Chagres River was dammed to create the lake. Many different species fled to the island as the water level rose, creating a mini Noah’s ark. The Smithsonian has a tropical research center on the island and some of our shipmates went for a walk there. We chose to travel in pangas down to Gamboa and walk in the Soberania National Park. Gamboa sits at the halfway point in the canal path and is home to the maintenance and dredging teams. At the time of the canal construction, 3500 people lived in Gamboa; the current population is closer to 500. We walked through secondary jungle/forest and while we did not see a lot of wildlife, we did see two new bird species, capuchin monkeys and a sloth. 

Any ship passing through the canal is reliant on the canal authority to give them their time slot for passing through the locks. Our original plan (yesterday) expected us to start on the second leg of the canal in the mid afternoon. This morning that shifted to after 7:30 pm. Then at lunchtime it moved to 5:30 pm. Credit to the National Geographic staff for arranging additional panga rides for the afternoon— we saw several different hawks, iguanas and three kinds of monkeys: howlers, capuchins and tamarins. 

We finally embarked towards the pacific side of the canal about 8pm. This meant that we did not get a good view of the famous “cut” through the continental divide, but the actual lock at Miraflores Lake was well-illuminated. We were again kept centered by small electric locomotives; in this case the lines from the ship to the locomotives were assisted by men in a rowboat. Apparently the rowboat approach has been the most reliable, but it was funny to see a rowboat amidst the much larger ships. At 10:30pm we had reached the Miraflores Lake and we did not stay up to watch the transit through the final two locks down to the level of the pacific. 

Pictured:  baby Mantled Howler monkey, White-faced Capuchin, Whooping Motmot