DAY-30: Cruise Bonus Day #4 - Panama

DAY-30: Cruise Bonus Day #4 - Panama

Day – 30: Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Starting Location: At Sea Aboard the M.S. Marina
Ending Location: Balboa, Panama Anchorage

 We anchored in the Pacific side anchorage at Balboa, Panama around 8:45 this morning. Our ship is the green arrow image inside the red box.
There are a lot of ships here though most are likely waiting for jobs rather waiting to transit. 



 Looks like we're the largest passenger ship in the anchorage so maybe that's a good thing. 

 We scheduled a late breakfast so the day of waiting wouldn't seem so long.

 Around 9:30 a fuel vessel arrived so the ship is taking on fuel as we suspected would happen. 

 At noon the Captain confirmed that we would be transiting the canal on Friday with an expected arrival in Miami on Monday around 1 PM. So with that we just sat back and tried to keep busy. Many of the passengers and crew have been a bit anxious about our fate. The passengers have been wondering when and where we will disembark and the crew wondering about their careers and how they would be getting home to the many countries represented on a typical cruise ship. 

 The passageways can be lonely places these days. But so far there's been no indication that the ship will quarantine passengers to staterooms as has been done on several other ships. Is there anyone home?



 Here's something different, several frigate birds.








From seaward Panama City looks to be huge; many high-rise buildings across a wide swath of coastline.
From here we can see the high bridge which we'll pass beneath at sometime marking our entry into the canal system.

Sheila played bridge and we met up later in the afternoon for a bonus sports talk with Verne Lundquist, mainly a Q&A session.

As we do frequently, this afternoon we had wine and a few snacks in the cabin
before venturing out for dinner at the Polo Grill; tonight dinner for two with window view.

There's not much to show for today so here are some pictures of ships in and around the anchorage.

































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