Another very hot day, well into the 30s. Steaming south and south east in Panama towards our rendezvous with the canal at 0630 tomorrow morning. Very excited for that. It will take about 10 hours to make the transit which consists of some lakes, a long canal and quite a few locks. Some of the stretches will just have about 2 feet spare on either side of the ship so a bit of a tight fit. I wouldn't like to be up on the bridge for that!!!!

Still it is going to be a memorable day. We've been invited to spend the day with our friends Maureen and Mick who came to Napa with us. They - lucky dogs - have a balcony suite which is all very posh and spacious and we will be able to sit on the balcony and inside and watch the canal go by from there. We also plan to spend some time on our little "secret" deck at the bow so I can get some "fully front" pictures especially as we go through the locks. We still have a bottle of champagne left and some nibbles and it should be a most festive day.

Today we spent the morning around the pool. It was just too hot to not be in the water a lot of the time. I managed to get a lot of books downloaded to my Kindle so have plenty of reading material.

We had a bit of a shock when we turned up for art this afternoon. James Grey and his lovely wife Claire had to leave the ship yesterday in Costa Rica as she was taken suddenly very ill. She had not been in the best of health throughout with a variety of complaints but we hope she will be all right. Apparently we are getting a new art tutor in Antigua, weirdly his name is Jack Grey….. So today we had to do our own thing. Bob finished an underwater painting he had started and I "made up" a painting of a Tuscan scene in a sort of impressionist style. I was quite pleased with it. LOL

Back to the pool till about 5pm and then down to the cabin to get ready for the evening. Tonight is our last Captain's cocktail party of the voyage. We only have 2 weeks left which is just staggering. It's gone by so fast although it will be very odd to be home and have to make our own beds and think about shopping…… so I suppose it's been long enough to have become "institutionalised" lol. I must say that despite some misgivings before we left home, this has been the most brilliant trip. If money were no object we would do it again in a flash. We are just so fortunate to have had this opportunity.

Some good news from Lu that it would appear that all is on for the flat purchase for Friday. Everything crossed for her. We thought we would miss all of the moving/settling in because we expected her to move in January so the delay has been good in that we will get to share this milestone moment now.

The cocktail party was great. Most convivial. A nice speech from the captain. We had an interesting chat with Rhys one of the naval cadets. A start to a great career. After the party we went into dinner with Mick and Maureen and another couple, Mike and Sue, whom we have met. A most enjoyable evening and we sat at the table talking for a long time. Then to bed about 11 having set the alarm to be up for our Panama day tomorrow.