We saw in the New Year in Oxford with our friends Jon and Linda. From there we boarded a train to Southampton and joined a cruise ship to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. The photographs below are mainly of the canal and locks but there are a few from La Coruna, Antigua, Aruba,  Nicaragua and San Francisco. 

Swollen River Thames in Oxford

Jon, Linda and Mike in Oxford

Recognise this building from Harry Potter?

Stormy seas in La Coruna, Spain. Stopped here instead of The Azores

Sailing past the Azores, we should have stopped here but it was too rough

Dolled up

Dolled up number two

Docked in Antigua

View of Antigua from ship

New tram in Aruba

Aruba

Mike gets a haircut in Aruba

He's pleased

View of the first locks into the canal. Gatun Locks.

The ship ahead is raised because it has gone through the first lock

Going into the first lock

Long wait for vehicles to cross as the road shuts to let the ships go through

View of the Atlantic side from behind the ship

Road re-opens to let a few cars across

Gates closed on parallel lock

Another ship alongside us

You can see how narrow the locks are from this picture

Another ship alongside us

View of ship behind us, we're raised now and looking down on it

View of Gatun Lake ahead

One of the dams on Gatun lake

Dredging out the cut so that bigger ships can come through in the future

Centennial Bridge, Panama

Approaching Pedro Miguel Lock

Entering the Pedro Miguel Lock

Water draining out of the lock

The ship is guided through using locomotives called mules

Not much space alongside the Miraflores Lock

Final Miraflores Lock

Panama City

Buses in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua

View of our ship from the tender to shore

Mike in San Juan Del Sur, suspension bridge in the background

Local supermarket in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua

View of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

Yep, we've got a great view from the front

Lovely day for it

Not much room underneath the bridge

Great views of the bridge

Sailing race involving 350 yachts in the bay

Alcatraz

Swimming competition in the bay! The little splashes are humans