Freighter ships are all lined up for the Atlantic Ocean entrance of the Panama Canal

Take a number!

You can see all of the cranes at the Port for unloading cargo containers from the behemoths

Colón  in the distance

An Evergreen freighter was exiting the breakwater area as we were going in to the harbor

Notice the shape of the bow, this allows the ship to handle incredibly large seas

More cranes at the Port

Kate enjoying the scenery on the way in to the harbor

This is exciting!  It was a very BUSY place

Headed straight to your local Wal Mart 

The view from the stern

The bridge was about 8 stories high

Smoochies!

We're havin' a Blast!

Colón  here we come!

There is a breakwater, or 2 mile long stretches of rock, to protect the harbor from swells and wake from the huge ships or storms

Notice the rock wall through the middle of the picture

There are towers with lights at the ends of the seawall or breakwater so you can navigate through the pass at night - Don't want to hit this with the boat

Or this!!!

Inside the harbor ships were anchored everywhere

Inside the harbor, Cpt Mark is in control

There was a tall ship called Mandalay at anchor in the harbor, she was well over 100ft long

Mandalay from St. Georges looked like a commercially run vessel

The town of Colón 

Colón  has had a terrible crime problem ever since the Americans handed over ownership of the Canal to the Panamanian govt, it is Extremely dangerous downtown

We were told by the dock master not to leave the Yacht Club

A church in downtown Colón 

An enormous covered containership, possibly transporting cars??

A pilot boat that leads large ships into and out of the breakwater area

Some fees for the pilot boats are well over $10,000

Pier 6

Looks like the control station for the harbor

Pier 6 was gorgeous

It looked more like it was used for a warehouse and commercially as a restaurant or bar maybe??

The anchorage for sailboats

There was wireless internet at the Yacht Club, so we were able to catch up on a lot of business