On April 22nd, Barbara and I embarked Holland America's ms Zuiderdam in Ft. Lauderdale, FL for an early celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary by cruising the Panama Canal to Los Angeles.

Just like on our 2004 canal transit, we found the Yucatan Peninsula, Panama, and Central America to be very dry and arid, as their rainy season was just a few weeks away. I have tried to chronicle a few of the highlights of our journey, concentrating on the passage of the Panama Canal itself. The history and tidbits throughout this chronicle were excerpted from the "Daily Explorer" provided by Holland America.