1. Engineering Feat, Dreams, Tragedies, Deceits, Political gamesmanship... The Panama Canal, a Cruise

3. Vancouver British Columbia

4. Our ship the ms Zuiderdam

8. The Queen Mary, Jeanne and Denis in Los Angeles

9. Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

14. A good place to celebrate a birthday!

15. Denis, Jeanne, Steve, John, Jane, Ruth and Harvey

16. Acapulco Mexico

19. A proud mom and her just baptized baby Nuestra Senora de la Soledad

20. !!!

21. Huatulco Mexico

25. Puerto Quetzal Guatemala

28. Corinto Nicaragua

36. The Panama Canal An Engineering Wonder

37. A few facts: -In 1880 French start building a sea level canal under Ferdinand de Lesseps; in 10 years 20,000 workers died. -US buy out the French for $40 million, President Theodore Roosevelt would make it happen. -Chief engineer was John Wallace; a yellow fever outbreak in 2005 led to workers fleeing and to his dismissal. Replaced by John Stevens, he stops all work, insist on proper planning, eradicate disease, new homes and mess halls for workers. Decision to build a lock canal to lift ships 85’ to a summit lake in three locks. Need to built an earth dam to create world’s largest man made lake, Lake Gatun. Most of the electricity used by the canal is generated at this dam. Lake Gatun level must be maintained to supply water to locks, for each large cruise ship that transit 52 million gallons of water is flushed to the oceans. Water flow from Chagres River. On average 14000 ships transit each year.

39. Gatun Dam, spillway and generating station

40. Entering the locks from the Pacific Ocean

42. The “Mules”

46. Bridge of the Americas

49. San Blas Islands Panama

56. Santa Marta, Columbia Bolivar's estate

62. Santa Marta, centre town

70. Half Moon Cay Bahamas

73. Merci Thank you