Barro Colorado Island and the Panama Canal
Our adventure in Central America began yesterday, when we arrived to our new home the Sea Voyager to start with the first half of our transit through the Panama Canal. Our transit is divided into two sections, the first part were the Gatun Locks coming from the North side of the isthmus. As we left the windy waters of the Panamanian Caribbean, we crossed three sets of locks that would raise us 85 feet onto the calm waters of the man-made Gatun Lake.
Now, today we started at 5am, when our second pilot came on board to move us from our anchoring site, in front of the Gatun Yacht Club, towards our morning’s objective: Barro Colorado Island (BCI). This island is a tropical research site known worldwide!! Many of the facts that our naturalists talk about or that you read about the new world’s tropics come from this exact place. Since the 1920’s, when the island was formed after damming the Chagres River, BCI has collected data on weather, botany, rainfall, zoology, soil biology, and almost anything you can wonder about. We had three choices of exploring the island, two by foot and one by Zodiac. Up and down the trails we went only to be encountered by monkey, birds, anteaters, insects, fungi and more.
But our day didn’t stop there. Our second half of the Canal transit began as soon as our third pilot came on board, and he along with our Captain and crew directed us through the Lake, the Culebra Cut and under the Centennial Bridge towards the southern exit of the Canal. As we waited to cross the last two sets of locks, Pedro Miguel and Miraflores, we had cocktails on the sundeck and admired the phenomenal, lush forests that surrounded us.
Our adventure in Central America began yesterday, when we arrived to our new home the Sea Voyager to start with the first half of our transit through the Panama Canal. Our transit is divided into two sections, the first part were the Gatun Locks coming from the North side of the isthmus. As we left the windy waters of the Panamanian Caribbean, we crossed three sets of locks that would raise us 85 feet onto the calm waters of the man-made Gatun Lake.
Now, today we started at 5am, when our second pilot came on board to move us from our anchoring site, in front of the Gatun Yacht Club, towards our morning’s objective: Barro Colorado Island (BCI). This island is a tropical research site known worldwide!! Many of the facts that our naturalists talk about or that you read about the new world’s tropics come from this exact place. Since the 1920’s, when the island was formed after damming the Chagres River, BCI has collected data on weather, botany, rainfall, zoology, soil biology, and almost anything you can wonder about. We had three choices of exploring the island, two by foot and one by Zodiac. Up and down the trails we went only to be encountered by monkey, birds, anteaters, insects, fungi and more.
But our day didn’t stop there. Our second half of the Canal transit began as soon as our third pilot came on board, and he along with our Captain and crew directed us through the Lake, the Culebra Cut and under the Centennial Bridge towards the southern exit of the Canal. As we waited to cross the last two sets of locks, Pedro Miguel and Miraflores, we had cocktails on the sundeck and admired the phenomenal, lush forests that surrounded us.
