Our transit date was cancelled, in what appears to be very typical panamanian fashion--short notice and bad illogical explanations. After we made arrangements for line handlers. After we got the boat prepared. After all the shopping for the transit was done. After we paid for the being in the marina in order to be ready (we would have left and gone other places otherwise). We are not the only ones. It seems to happen all too regularly. It is simply a badly run operation when it comes to the small boats. Though, word on the street is that it is not as badly run as the Suez.... The cruisers from Europe with experience in the lock systems there seem to get particularly upset. There are many locks in europe with bigger rises and falls, and which carry big ships, but which are simply well managed.

Sooo we wait. Fortunately there is lots of wildlife. We have seen monkeys (including the critically endangered black spider monkey), crocodiles, ant superhighways, sloths, lots of birds and insects, some sort of blue winged moth, vultures and various hawk or eagle like birds of prey. The picture is of about a 4-5 ft crocodile swimming about 5 feet in front of our boat in the marina at Shelter Bay.