Today we had a wonderful day, making our way to the Panama Canal. We cruised through the Gulf of Panama, one of the few places in Central America where the conditions are right for a major upwelling. As Trade Winds cross the Isthmus and blow away the gulf’s warm surface water, a rush of nutrient-rich cold water wells up and leads to an explosion of marine life. With this in mind, we boarded Zodiacs to explore a few of the islands used by seabirds as nesting colonies during the upwelling. After our morning expeditions, we headed to the Panama Canal to start our first transit of the National Geographic Quest on our way to the Caribbean Sea.