Sisters on the High Seas
- Pru Warren
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
Monday, Dec. 8, 2025
Gatun Lake, the Nat Geo Quest
Our father was an aeronautical engineer by training. I was raised to value the nerdness of the engineering world…and yet it’s just possible that I’ve not given engineering all the credit it is due…
…this realization brought to you by the fact that this entire ship was just lifted 85 feet into the air and deposited in a huge inland sea of a manmade lake. I’ve just been through half of the Panama Canal locks, and I am IMPRESSED.
Hang on, though—allow me to proceed in chronological order. Last night Twig and I tried to be salty, seasoned sailors by turning off the air conditioning in our room and opening the sliding glass door so we could hear the sound of the ship traveling the waves. The lovely breeze felt on the deck, however, refused to come into our cabin without a place to go to, so mostly what happened was that we got wet. The humidity found the once-chilled air and made everything rapidly damp. We lasted about two hours. Twig got up and touched a wall and her hand came away slick with humidity; we caved. Locked the window. Cranked the AC.
That should have made everything better, but I had a paranoid night. When the stateroom is made up as one double bed, there are plugs over the nightstands on either side—but Twig and I asked for singles. And my plug is now BURIED in pillows.
One spark and it was sad when the great ship went down…
So I unplugged all the things that should have been charging. Then I spent the entire night convinced that my phone was going to die just as I was taking a perfect photo of an eighteen-foot-long crocodile. Or Reuben Blades, come to give us an impromptu concert. Or the orange-billed parakeets would be flocking and I’d be SOL.
And the iWatch—how can I maintain my perfect record? This record is NOT having exercised every day; no, the record is having TRACKED that I exercised every day; what’s the value of exercising if I can’t close the stupid ring on my phone? These are the kinds of thoughts that are easily dismissed by a rational mind, but not by a mind at three in the morning. PLUS—oh god, what if I end up on my back and start snoring? I haven’t had a roommate in eight years. I really don’t want to annoy Twig…
The point is, my sleep was intermittent and fraught. Once the sun came up, I realized that I could charge all my chargers to safer plugs (I mean, fucking DUH) so I’m reasonably confident I’ll get a better night’s sleep tonight. We woke up anchored off the small town of Portobelo, which is just picturesque as hell. If it wasn’t for the rusted out cars and flocks of homeless dogs, it would be lovely.
But first it was stretch class on the sun deck, which was reasonably appealing until the sun actually came up, which was when I began to sweat like the walls of our stateroom… Still: What a pretty place to realize that my ankles don’t bend like everyone else’s.
We shuttled to Portobelo in Zodiaks...
... and strolled about with our naturalist guides. Someone in that town is a very good artist; there were several murals that were just outstanding. Plus I saw a mosaic that used mirrors and it struck me as terribly innovative. When it’s the first time you see it, anything seems groove! Twig shrugged. She’s seen it before.
We wandered around the ruins of the old Spanish fort. (Portobelo was where the Spanish loaded up their treasure ships to haul the silver, gold, and gems of central America back to Spain; as such it was honey to grizzly bears when it came to pirates—I mean buccaneers. We were told that Sir Francis Drake had permission from the British government to raid Spanish ships (which made him a privateer rather than a buccaneer), and he’d carved such a massive inroad into the Spanish profits that when Drake died in Portobelo (of dysentery; how humiliating), all the Spanish had a big party.
As always, I felt slightly creeped by any of these cultural events. Portobelo probably laid quietly steaming in the sun for months at a time until the Quest pulled into the harbor and disgorged dozens of gray-haired Americans who peered at their homes and their dogs and their Spanish ruins and then went away again. It feels…icky. I mean, I assume Lindblad pays port fees, and there’s a chance that many of the women who walked past folding tables of shells and actual stores and the gallery—probably some of them felt the burning need to shop. So maybe someone got something for this. Maybe.
The Spanish fort was built with stones carved from the coral reefs, because coral apparently absorbed cannonball impacts. Nice when Drake came to call, but in all the Spanish devastated the reefs in the area. Our naturalist, Joshua, is part of an organization reseeding reefs across Panama, which was very cool.
The local church has what we were assured was the only black Christ in the Americas (although I’m pretty sure I saw the only black Christ in the Americas in Peru, but I saw no reason to harsh anyone’s buzz). The statues in the church (where all who are wandering are welcome—love that sentiment)…
…the statues are all richly robed. I absolutely love this Latin American tradition because it feels like playing with Barbie for the faithful.
I asked in Peru and was told that the statues all have wardrobes that are carefully tended by a chosen few. What do they look like with their robes off? Are they anatomically correct? Are they just frameworks with heads and hands? Is Christ like a big Ken doll? Enquiring minds want to know…
We were treated to a demonstration of “The Devil Dances,” which are apparently common in lots of places where slaves and former slaves were trying to come to grips with the dual influences of Christian missionaries and the cruelty of those demanding people follow Jesus. It was a cuture, no doubt…but it really felt like getting some black people to dance wildly for the rich white people. The devil costumes WERE impressive, though.
And there were two separate dog fights that attracted a lot of attention. When one of the dancers pulled out a bag of charcoal and began slapping and smearing charcoal on the faces of those he’d drawn into the dance, Twig muttered “Oh, I’m out of here” and left, soon followed by me, and Lexie, and Scott. We weren’t the most appreciative…although we were then shown the trailer for a documentary made by a Panamanian photographer about the “Dansa de Diabolo,” and our interest grew. It’s easier to like cultural things when we can be safely several degrees removed!
We weighed anchor and off we went. We had some talk about the Panama canal in the lounge and I could barely stay awake. I lay down for fifteen minutes before lunch, but didn’t sleep. Then, after lunch, I tried 39 times to get a decent photo of a brown booby (keep your juvenile humor to yourself) and this was the best I came up with.
At last, we came to the canal. Tanker ships were all around us, most the size of science fiction movie creatures. And off we went, lacing between them like Sir Francis Drake in his fleet little ship…
We tucked in behind a monstrous cargo ship named the Crown Topaz while going up the three steps of the old locks. (The new locks are longer than a thousand feet; a small-potatoes ship like the Quest would never get in that one.)
Strong-armed guys at the very end of the canal complex fling huge metal balls over the rail, which get fastened to stanchions. The other end is attached to “mule” locomotives that run along a track on the concrete pier.
The same thing happens on the other side, and the locomotives guide the ship into the first lock. (We actually had four locomotives—two on the front, two at the back, so they can nudge forward as well as brake back).
Once both ships were still and secure, these massive doors in the wall swing slowly, inevitably closed. It’s very “We’ll never get into Mordor now, Mr. Frodo,” and hugely impressive. The water comes in from channels below the waterline so there’s no visible flow—instead, the ship starts to rise. It’s surprisingly fast. The locomotives that were far overhead are soon slightly below us—and the massive tanker going the other way that once dominated the port view sinks into the earth until the heliport (a heliport! Who knew those tankers had heliports?!) was on vivid display.
It really was impressive. There were dozens of people wandering around casually, because this happens all the time for them…it was only magical to me, the naïve innocent. One guy had clearly finished his shift after he closed the first lock behind us, because he engaged something that raised some railings on the top of the gates, walked casually across carrying his umbrella and a file folder, and went home. You know—like you do.
It was quiet and powerful and staggering and common and miraculous. And now we’re eighty-some feet above the surface of the ocean, anchored off an island in this vast manmade lake. It was a bit of a slog to get through the David McCullough history of the creation of the canal, but I’m so glad I did. Right now, we’re probably anchored over unmarked graves of some of the thousands of pool black near-slaves who died making this canal… The history is grim. The result is staggering.
I’m a fan.
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