Day 16 Wednesday 21st January 2015 A Sea Day with excitement building for the Panama Canal

In the cabin we have a telly with news, sport and a few recordings of things like Ashes to Ashes, Rev, Call the midwife.   Several of the channels are P and O’s own information and advertising channels, and one is P and O Radio.  For the last 3 days there have been three different documentaries and historical programmes about the channelling of the rocks, the politics and the final building of the Panama Canal to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific. The earliest mention was at the time of Charles V, but it was considered to be impossible.  Projects to cut through began to be considered long before 1900, and then taken over by the USA in 1905.  What a convoluted story. I can’t say I had ever taken any notice of the achievement, and certainly didn’t appreciate the risk to life, the abuse, particularly abuse of the predominantly black workforce, the working conditions or the losses of life because of building, scorpions, tarantulas, Yellow Fever and Malaria.   Until now the Panama Canal to me was just a name.

Each person on Arcadia is charged $180 to get through the canal.  The Captain said he’s received the invoice for $360,000 for the whole ship!  Apparently that includes a no claims bonus!

Highlights, apart from the engineering and general sightseeing and gasping with wonder, are going to include – crocodiles, pelicans, many different species of bird, rainforest, and much more.

But not yet, tomorrow.  The crossing starts in the morning of 21^st January and finishes in the evening, with a commentary and historical overview happening all through the day.  Panama made products are being brought on in the morning for sale in the shops.

Today has been another lovely restful sea day starting with a watercolour of a scene in Venice.  Doing this was really enjoyable, and with exception of one of my buildings looking cock-eyed a good job done by both of us.

We had a great lunch and then walked our first mile of the day on the deck.  It’s 28C so we aren’t racing.  Cloudy at times, but definitely not in a bad way.

At lunch we met someone called Mick, a retired design and technology teacher who we both found really interesting. For leisure and pleasure Mick now makes wooden furniture. Khachik was happy to hear this as most of our wooden furniture was also hand crafted in the barn.  We kept him talking for so long I think we made him late for his partner whist this afternoon.  We shared cruise stories first.  Then he talked about his own experience and compared teaching secondary age students in London, forces students in Germany and in a private school in Wakefield.  He also talked about his wife, Linda, who didn’t join him for lunch today.  I would love to meet her, she has worked in PRU’s with excluded students in a few different places, and most recently in a residential school for students for whom next stop would be a YOI. She did her Masters at Huddersfield where I did my Cert Ed, and is clearly passionate about the well-being of teenage students. I hope we bump into each other again.

Otherwise we have just been sitting with our feet up today, doing crosswords and Sudoku and finishing off paintings.  There’s another smart casual dinner tonight, so I will sign off for now, have a quick cup of tea and get my frock on ready for our next 5 course delight.