May 16 – 17, 2015 Field trip! We rented a car this weekend with Alice and Steve (s/v Ocean Star) and headed for Panama City to run errands (read: go to marine chandleries, grocery stores and drink coffee drinks), but the main event was a tour of the expansion area of the Panama Canal. The canal authority opened an area up for the canal employees and their families to tour on Saturday and the public to tour on Sunday – so off we went! We joined 45,000 Panamanians in VERY long lines (they went fast) in the pouring rain (guess where our rain gear was??) and marvelled at the engineering which will double the capacity of the canal by 2016 by creating a new lane of traffic and allowing more and larger ships to transit. The project plans are to build two new locks, one each on the Atlantic and Pacific sides with three chambers in each with watersaving basins. Excavate channels to the new locks and widen and deepen existing channels. This will allow ships around one and a half times the current width and length, with over twice as much cargo to pass. Amazing! During our adventure we crossed the lock bridge, Centennial Bridge, Bridge of the Americas and took a ferry back (over an hour wait to cross) to the marina – we have now travelled them all!