Barro Colorado Island & The Panama Canal
We started the morning at anchor in Gatun Lake to start our first expeditions to Barro Colorado Island (also known as BCI). We walked the island and navigated around the island in Zodiacs, marveling at the huge biodiversity of this Nature Monument. Biological research on the island started in 1923 and has since been a tool for the understanding of the tropical forest, and BCI is one of the most studied sites in the tropics of the new world (also known as Neotropics). In 1940, Barro Colorado was declared a “Nature Monument” which means: “Regions to which strict protection is given. The purpose is to protect flora or fauna in the protected site.”
At Barro Colorado, parrots were making their morning calls, howler monkeys roared, and toucans flew above the canopy. During the day, a tamandua anteater was seen while walking on the island in one of the trails and visitors could observe an incredible mammal that is in the same order with the sloths and the armadillos.
We then departed after midday towards our last part of the Panama Canal transit, and passed through some beautiful sections of Gatun Lake. This man-made lake is the main water reservoir of the engineering wonder that is found in the middle of the continent.
We found the passage very pleasant while we were together with an oil tanker in the locks, so the Panama Canal could save water by having two small ships in the same chamber. At the end of the transit we considered the feat and thought it deserved a big hand for the wonderful experience of the canal transit, for the wonderful job of the Panama Canal, and for all the additional things that we had experienced here.
