Jodi - I grew up in Panama, on the Atlantic side. We came back when I was 18 and to this day I still miss the place. As you are exiting the Gatun Locks, up on the hill is a lighthouse. We lived in the house sitting in front of that lighthouse... if either are still there, I would love it if you could take a picture.

Please continue to share your experiences and photos, they're loved by all. I'm sorry, no offense was intended. I first heard the flag story years ago from Canadian tourists in Europe and I have heard it several more times. Canada is a lovely country with lovely people (I just returned home from a 10 day visit, one of many I've made). I was repeating what I was told by Canadians, not originating a slur. But on another score, remember that both the people who most benefited from the Allied war effort as well as those who served in the military are mostly long gone. No one is waiting for buses of Allied military descendents to disembark so that gratitude can be expressed. Today there was a ceremony and the French President offered humble thanks for everything that was done. That's what governments and public officials do. The daily reality is that people just get on with their lives without reference to what happened so many years ago that many don't think of it more than once a year when reminded by a TV or newspaper story. Most even seeing that would never give it any further thought. This post was edited by snidely on Fri, Jun 6, 14 at 16:54

A view of one of our 'mules' that will pull and guide us through. Two on each side, keeping their cables taut in an attempt to keep the ship from banging the sides. In the other set of locks is a ship carrying autos. You can see (sorta) that there are only inches on either side of the ship. Ours, carrying less than 700 passengers has several feet on each side. Also, we were only have as long at the other ship.A better view of that other ship.Ouch! Try as they might, ships still bump into the sides. On the other end, we hit and bounced and bounced again.

The same goes for any of my pictures. If there are any in particular that you like perhaps for printing out,I'd be willing to put hi-res somewhere for you to download. When we were there in 2011 they said that the the previous December there was a massive rainstorm that caused mudslides down the coast in Portabello, and caused Gatun Lake to rise enough that even having the spillways at the Gatun Dam fully open wasn't enough, and the water was threatening to overtop the dam or flood the canal area or something very bad. So for the first time in the history of the canal they had all of the gates of the canal locks open with water just racing through. We were told that the leak pictured here was caused by damage that occurred when they did that.