At Sea

Hi Girlies,

First your comments.  Yes, Budgie, I do wear my blue sunglasses.  I wear them almost every day, they are my favorites.

KT, I don’t know why you can’t make your blog pictures bigger.  I can make mine bigger on my iPad by spreading my fingers.  OK, one more hint.  Those things on top of the picture are little solar panels.  Now can you guess what it is?

So, a little more about the Panama Canal.  I told you yesterday that we entered the canal from the Atlantic Ocean.  We went through the first three locks that raised the ship 85 feet above the Atlantic, or 85 feet above sea level.  We then traveled 50 miles through the length of the canal.  Here is a picture of the narrowest part of the canal called the Culebra Cut. The bridge is called the Centennial Bridge.

At the end of the canal we had to be lowered the 85 feet down to the Pacific Ocean.  This was also done with three locks.  Here is a picture of our ship entering the last two locks.

And here is a picture of the last lock opening.  We are now in the Pacific Ocean!  I think instead of using these locks they should have just built a giant water slide for the ship to go down :).

At the last locks there is a canal visitor center.  Hundreds of people were watching our ship go through the locks.  They were waving and cheering and our ship blew its very loud horn in reply.

This last picture is looking back at the canal channel next to us, and it gives you a nice view of the lock.  All that water is let out of the lock to lower the ships.

As we enter the Pacific Ocean, we passed under The Bridge of The America’s.  We had a narrator on board the ship and he said you could drive on this road from Panama to Alaska. Maybe Nana and Gpa should do that in the RV:).

We did not take any pictures before dinner last night, we dressed casually.   We went to one of the specialty restaurants called Tastes.  They serve small plates, kind of like tapas.  We started with Spanish Morcilla Sausage.

 Oven roasted Cauliflower….Nana’s favorite

 Saffron Marinated Lamb Kebabs

Chimichurri Steak with Sweet Potatoes ……Gpa’s favorite 

Bananas Foster Bread Pudding (Oh my!)

 We also had a Ceasar Salad, Seafood Ceviche, Greek Octopus Salad, Spinach Quesadillas, and Buttermilk Fried Chicken.  I took pictures of those but couldn’t get the blog to load with that many pictures.  All the food was great!    

So, we had a great day going through the canal and a wonderful dinner.  Today we are cruising to Manta.  BTW Lisa.  I know you don’t like Keith’s blog, but he has been posting some really great pictures. Nana put a nice post up today on our blog.

So, bye for now.  We love all of you!

Gpa and Nanoo

xoxoxo