After a seamless canal transit last night, the National Geographic Sea Lion awoke, 85 feet higher from sea level, in the waters of the Gatun lake, and before the sun broke the dark sky the anchor was pulled and we made our way to the BCI, our morning outing. The island was a hill top until the Chages River was dammed to form the Gatun Lake, the heart of the Panama Canal.
Barro Colorado Island is one of the several research stations run by the Smithsonian Institute since the 1940s, and since that time one of the most important rainforests in the world because of the thousands of scientists and researchers that have been studying, classifying, cataloging and finding the most amazing data about this magical and stoning ecosystem.
Another unique feature of this outing is, that we are the only vessel allowed to cut in two its transit through this busy water way in order to walk the trails of BCI, so all gear up with long pants, walking shoes, cameras and binoculars the adventure started. Guided by excellent BCI faculty, we learned about towering trees, howler monkeys, army ants, leaf cutter ants plus tropical colorful birds, like trogons. As a little surprise at the entrance to our trail we spotted a less-than-an-inch-long poison dart frog. They were named the native tradition of poisoning the darts with the toxin that these creatures ooze from their skin when disturbed.
But today it was not just nature, we still had in our agendas the rest of our canal transit, so right after lunch we started the navigation through the Gatun Lake and the infamous Culebra Cut, the part of the canal that took a bit more time and money. Now is quite wider in order to accommodate the big ships that will go through when the new sets of locks are ready.
The timing was perfect, the sunset was framing the gigantic cargo ships on both lanes of the locks, while our little boat shared chambers with the Pacific Treasure Freighter, until we dropped the same 85 feet we rose yesterday, with the light of an impressive Panama City and the closure under the Bridge of the Americas so we started the navigation to our next destination!
