January 13, 2025–At Port in Cartagena, Columbia After Navigating the Panama Canal

As you know, we traversed the Panama Canal yesterday.  It took most of the day and it was pretty amazing. We didn’t sit and watch the entire day, but we watched as we were going through the locks. The bridge in the background of the first picture is the Centennial Bridge, which was finished in 2004. It was built to supplement the overcrowded Bridge of the Americas (in the second picture) that the United States built in 1959-1962 at the cost of about 20 million dollars. The Centennial Bridge is on the Atlantic side. The Bridge of the Americas is on the Pacific side. The next pictures are of the locks and what the the side of our ship looked like when we were crossing through.

Also, when we had finally navigated the locks on the Atlantic side, we took a picture of a lighthouse to send to my brother, Don.  If you know Don, you know that one of his hobbies is visiting and photographing historic lighthouses.  Actually, there were 46 lighthouses built on the Canal, 36 of which are still standing.  The first one was built by the French in 1881.  The one we saw was the Atlantic Entrance Range Middle Lighthouse, which was built in 1914.  The lighthouses were built to assist the pilots through the canal.  About 1959, lighting was installed along the Canal, and the lighthouses were no longer as important. After the lighting was added, the Canal could operate 24/7 instead of just in daylight hours.  

After we left the Canal, we saw this freighter, which is indicative of most of the ships that use the Canal. For perspective, each of the cubes on this ship is a full semi load, so you can imagine how huge as this was.

We keep running into Machu Picchu people. Nancy and Don from Australia seem to be on almost every tour we take. When we go to a bar on the ship, Sylvie and Phillip from Belgium are there. When we go up to the pool deck, Stuart and Maxine from Boston are there. When we go to one of the entertainment venues, Melissa and Mike from California are there. When we play bridge, Heather is there. No wait, we don’t play bridge. We only see Heather (sometimes she is with her husband Bill) when she is rushing off for another rubber of contract bridge. Or whatever you call it. Dearest Heather.