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We now have a departure date!

So, after all the anticipation of our trip, we plan on leaving tomorrow! August 1st we’ll be on the road, heading for family connections in Nebraska. We have solar on the roof of the trailer now and the sun is working its magic. We were able to run the fridge using our captured solar power and even run the hair dryer! It’s exciting to see it in operation after the last month of Paul’s hard work. We’re looking forward to trying more extended boondocking and being able to camp in more national parks and forests that often don’t have electric hookups. We also hope to try some stops on public lands as well.

Curaçao

We arrived Wednesday morning in Willemstad and were docked at the port by 10 am. We had another time change yesterday and Paul didn’t get his cell time changed and we had our alarm set so we ended up getting up an hour later than planned. Fortunately we didn’t have an excursion booked until 1:30 so we still had lots of time.

Willemstad, Curaçao

After a quick lunch, we made our way to our bus for a trip to a couple of beaches. We headed for a 50 minute bus ride in an air conditioned coach. Our aim was the western most end of the island to snorkel.

Not the most scenic place we’ve been. Lots of cacti with a bit of hill.
Houses are relatively simple.
They generate about 30-40% of the islands power needs through windmills. The north side of the islands have another windmill farm as it gets the trade winds. The aim is to increase to about 75% by 2030.

Our first beach was Playa Grandi or Playa Pisado. It was the furthest but was chosen because of the likelihood we’d see the sea turtles. We saw a number while we snorkelled. We had about 20 minutes in the water and then back on the bus to Cas Albao where we had just over an hour. The water was clear and this beach had more coral where we saw a number of tropical fish.

Cas Albao
Arriving back to the ship we were welcomed by a couple of colourful ladies from the island who were only too happy to pose for a picture.

Our arrival back to the ship was about 6 pm and the ship sailed about an hour later. Tomorrow we arrive in Oranjestad, Aruba and then 2 days at sea before we arrive in Miami on Sunday. Our flight home is Monday – we’ll be ready to return 🙂

Passage through the Panama Canal

On Monday morning we arrived at the entrance to the Panama Canal to begin our passage to the Atlantic Ocean. We began our passage about 7 am and would be more than 12 hrs in passage. The canal is 82 km long and each ship passing through the locks requires on average 52 million US gallons of fresh water.

We started at the bottom of this picture and went towards the Carribean.

There are locks at both the start and the end of the canal. The first set had 3 locks. We were passing through the most recent enlargement of the canal, opened in 2016, and accommodates the large ships. This is the first time for the Queen Anne to pass through the canal.

Bridge of the Americas behind us on the Pacific side.
From the bow – in the first set of locks – the Cocolí Locks

In order to go through the locks, our ship had to bring their lifeboats in and partially onto the promenade deck since they aren’t allowed to have anything outside of the sides of the ship. It takes about 2 1/2 hrs just to get through the first 3 locks. Then we made our way through the canal unti we were in Lake Gutan. as we made our way to the far side of the lake, we had a couple hours wait for our pilot to arrive and take us through the last set of locks to the Atlantic Ocean.

Container freighter in Lake Gutan. On average there are about 37 ships passing through the canal daily. On our day, there were about 45 ships.
Centennial Bridge midway.
We had a tug boat on each end of the ship to keep us lined up within the lock.
Going through the final locks, the Gutan Locks.

We have another day at sea before we reach Willemstad in Curaçao.