I’m writing this while cruising the Pacific Ocean, watching flying fish, turtles, dolphins and loads of Brown Boobies fishing, on my birthday, having transited the Panama Canal yesterday

I’m not an early riser, but I set my alarm for 5.30 and was on deck for 6.10am to hear the captains announcement that we had a one hour delay, so I grabbed a cuppa from the buffet and headed back to bed for an hour

Having previously visited Colon in Panama I’ve driven over this bridge several times making it a treat to sail under it then we made our slow procession towards the Gatun Locks

Early on I was lucky to see a belted Kingfisher and a fabulous blue heron. There were so many frigate birds and hawks along the way along with a good number of egrets

We made it to Gatun Lake and wound our way through the islands, I kept checking my binoculars but didn’t see much, other guests told me that late afternoon was better, so I looked forward to some wildlife spotting after class and I certainly wasn’t disappointed

Approaching Miraflores we saw lots of Turkey Vultures and just after so many deers, then the icing on the cake, just after the last lock – 2 crocodiles. My photos are rubbish but I’ve seen other guests pics which are fab

We had some fabulous views of the Panama City Skyline, then we watched out for the art gallery with the funky roof the onboard speaker had told us about before being treated to another beautiful sunset