Friday 7th April

Woke early today at 5.30am to find us in the midst of ships awaiting passage through the Panama Canal. One either pays a booking fee for a time slot, as P & O did, or wait until a slot is available.

We were on deck at 6.45 & looked up to see a flock of frigate birds lazily keeping pace with the ship. To our surprise we also saw quite a few pelicans & some large unidentified skeins of waterbirds skimming across the bay.

Our canal traverse started at about 7.30 at the Pacific end & had an excellent commentary during our progress. The day was hot & humid & we both found it somewhat tiring after the early start, for us, that is.

We had last traversed it in early 2011 & it seemed to be much busier this time as the new bigger canal locks were opened last year. Other changes included the replacement of the 'Mules' which prevent the ships from scraping the walls & the tugboats all of which looked very spic & span. Some things however are unchanged, such as the use of the rowing boats to carry the lines from the ships to pull in the mule hawsers. We went through the old locks, as before & as Aurora at 70,000 tons is a far bigger ship than the Discovery, it was an extremely tight fit with less than a metre clearance from the lock walls.