The Canal

My Garmin Sport watch buzzes and displays every email and new text message I receive on my smart phone.

On the morning of October 20 at 2:42 I was awakened by a buzzing under my pillow. My son-in-law, Xavier, sent out a message announcing that my daughter, Vanessa, had gone into labour with her first child. Well, needless to say, that little piece of news had a serious effect on my sleep cycle.

Other messages followed at 3:11, 4:07 and 5:12 to keep us apprised of the progress.

Brenda and I celebrated our twelfth year together and our eight year as husband and wife yesterday and had planned to make an early morning visit to the Panama Canal to start the day. We had been told there are usually ships in the locks early in the morning and late in the afternoon and we had hoped to see one of the vessels making its way through.

Of course, as we traveled out to the Miraflores locks, the last thing on our minds was the workings of the Panama Canal. I was constantly checking my phone for further news,but there was nothing. Finally, at 8:30, I couldn't bear suspense and texted out a request for news, but alas, no reply came.

We arrived at the Canal's visitor center, bought our tickets and were given instructions as to how we were to proceed. We then learned there would be no ships in the locks until 3:00pm, six hours later. As we were waiting to see the short documentary film that was offered, my phone dinged and my watch buzzed with an announcement that our first grandchild, a little girl, Charlie, was born at 9:00am EST. Brenda and I were both very hard pressed to suppress tears of joy and relief at this fabulous news and we were then free to fully enjoy the rest of our day, now with an additional reason to celebrate.

Of course, one cannot go to Panama and not visit the Canal, which truly is one of the man made wonders of the world. There are three sets of locks that allow over 13,000 ships each year to traverse the Panamanian isthmus through the 50 mile long canal, from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. The Miraflores lock, which we visited, raises ships 54 feet to the next stage of their journey. The largest passenger cruise liners pass through the locks with only inches to spare on each side and every ship is charged between $200,000 and $500,000 in tolls, depending on their tonnage. It was an impressive sight to see, although we were a little bit sad we didn't get to see the locks in operation.

We had taken an Uber ride out to the locks, but we decided to be adventurous and take public transit back into the city. A ride on the local bus here costs only $0.25 and the very efficient subway is just $0.35. We hopped onto the bus with the locals and rode it to the Albrook Metro station. The bus ride was a little on the bumpy side and its condition was pretty rundown (to say the least), but it had these great chrome exhaust pipes sticking up from the rear bumper. Who needs maintenance if it looks cool?

The rest of our day was spent celebrating our anniversary, but I'll talk about that in another blog.Read more