We celebrated our luck by opening a bottle of the best wine on board as we waited for the massive doors of the lock to open and let us out into the Caribbean Sea. The steel doors of the Panama Canal opened as if we were about to sail into a storybook. We had completed what most people, even sailors, never experience. I turned to look at the Canal one last time. The concrete walls and steel locks were truly impressive. It is the greatest engineering marvel of the modern world. A boat motored up beside us and Roberto jumped onto it waving goodbye. He would pass through the Canal once more before calling it a day. As for us, we were to spend a night in Colon before heading out to sea.

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