Transcription

feet and watched large oil tanker

being put through the locks. The road

between Gatun and Cristobal was beautiful

and followed along the old French canal.

Saw an iguana run across the road

in front of us. The palm trees interested

me and the rest of the party had a

laugh at my expense when I said "Oh!

look at that lovely palm tree with a

concrete base" Many of the coconut palms

had coconuts on them. After spending

a couple of hours driving around we returned

to Colon and went thru the much-

talked-of Commissary Store there and

a few other stores -- all chinese, I think.

I bought a bottle of talc powder at a native

store for 65¢ & a pair of colored [grass? glass?] bath slippers.

Then we had more drinks -- this time

beer -- and then hired another car

to drive back to Coco Solo inn. It was

5:30 P.M. and being tired & hot took

a cool shower on the Chaumont. My!

but I was hungry too. This "world-cruising"

certainly does give one an appetite!

After dinner turned in but couldn't sleep as

Bill still had the duty and had had the 4-8

A.M. watch this morning and the day's duty

from noon to-day. He was tired too and

turned in but was called twice so gave

up trying to sleep until after midnight.

He was called again at 4:15 A.M. so I didn't

get much sleep.

Wednesday Oct 6th  Temp. Max. 95 Min. 82

I got up at 5:30 A.M. so as to see

everything -- they said we would enter the

first lock of Gatun at 7:00. Had breakfast

at 6:15 with Bill. Watched the approach

into the canal -- how gorgeous it all

was -- one could see back toward the

Atlantic, green tropical foilage on each

side of the entrance and large, clean,

red-roofed lock buildings ahead set in

among well-kept lawns and flower bed. The

Gatun locks -- 3 of them in series -- were

huge and everything was operated with

electricity. It took only 50 minutes to

pass thru all 3 of the locks and then