Yesterday, after breakfast, we went to an interesting lecture by Apollo 9 astronaut, Russel Schweickart. It was quite moving at parts and after the Q&A we spoke to his wife for a short time. It was a beautiful day and we had lunch on deck by the pool, listening to a calypso duo, who were very good. The walking track on the upper deck was full of people doing their morning exercise routine and Izzy was inspired to join them (I think I’ll do some exercise one day), she must have been feeling good as she danced by, swinging her arms almost in time to the music. I felt happy for her, or maybe it was just the effects of my lunchtime cocktail. Last night was Captains Welcome reception, where we all lined up to shake hands with Captain Vincenzo Lubrano and drink as many free cocktails as possible, before rolling along the deck for dinner. We did try to make it to the cabaret last night, the headline star was the world renowned singing sensation, Tony Cherry, (what!… you haven‘t heard of him?), unfortunately when we got there, no acceptable seats were available so we spent some time in the casino, then had an early night since we wanted to get up early in the morning for our transit through the Panama Canal and a special Champagne breakfast offered for the occasion.
This morning we awoke early and after breakfast we found a good viewpoint on the upper deck enjoying a coffee and watching the ships slip through the Atlantic side locks into Gatun lake. We had done this part before, two years ago on Celebrity Galaxy when we had turned around in the lake and went back through the same locks, today we would see the complete passage. Once we were in the lake, the ship anchored in place for about two hours, there were about eight ships making the same trip and we all waited for the ships coming the other way to clear the narrow sections of the canal and the Pacific side locks. After lunch, we moved down to the Promenade deck which was quiet and shaded where we settled into a couple of comfortable loungers. The lake water was quite muddy, nothing like the beautiful blue we’d seen at Cayman Islands, we passed amazingly close to small islands, I wondered how much longer they’d be there as the erosion around their perimeter was quite evident. The sail through Gatun Lake was spectacular, the jungle vegetation was only broken occasionally by small clearings created by the dredger work crews. When we got close to the pacific locks, the decks became busier with the ’sign people’. Princess had arranged for a couple of their photographers to be on shore taking pictures and had offered supplies to anyone interested in making a sign to hang over the edge of the ship to be photographed, most of the signs were messages to family, presumably back home. When we reached the locks, the observation building was absolutely jam packed with people and as we passed through with another ship, the Saga Rose, they all cheered and shouted, don’t know who they were or if this was a normal occurrence, but it was fun. We cleared the canal system about 4.30pm and headed South. After dinner, we finally made it to an evening show, starring Patrick and Matilda, a ventriliquist act, they weren’t bad.
