Manatee and the Panama Canal

Bill and I were walking down the dock near our boat when I spotted something large in the water.  It was about 10-feet long and moving extremely slowly.  Bill recognized it immediately as a manatee.  When we looked closer we saw that it was actually a manatee cow with a very small calf right next to her.  This was a surprise because manatees are not supposed to live here.  They live up near Bocas del Toro, but are not supposed to be right at the entrance of the Panama Canal.  I ran to grab the camera.  If we had thought about it then we would have quickly dug out the water hose and dumped it into the water.  Manatees are supposed to love fresh water coming out of a hose.  But I was so busy watching the darn thing that I did not think about the water hose until it was too late.

On Sunday we took the marina shuttle bus over to Panama City again.  Busy shopping day and the bus was way over crowded.  Would have bought much more if there had been more room on the bus to bring stuff home.  I finally remembered to bring the camera and snapped a couple of photos as we drove over the Lock #1.  I also tried to get a photo of the Bridge of the Americas in Panama City, but it was taken from the window of the bus from a distance as we drove down the road; so the photo is not the greatest.

Weather today was unusually cool and quite windy.  It was so cool that we turned off the air-conditioning and opened the hatches.  Probably won`t turn the a/c on tonight either.  We had hoped to leave here by the end of the week, but looks like that isn`t going to happen.  Winds are too high and seas are 10-12 feet every 8 seconds!  We are not going out into that!  We will wait until either the seas lay down or until the waves are spaced farther apart.  No sense in being tossed about when we can stay safely and comfortably tied to this dock.  There is plenty of time for us to get to Bocas.  We are not in a hurry.