The flight out of Mexico City was fine. The whole 1st leg was pretty boring, and it seemed to be slower going, too. It was a clean landing at Cabo Velas for a quick refuel, and then back into the air to head for Panama.

My plan was to follow the canal from the north to the south, flying along the length of it at relatively low altitude, to get some good pictures. It's too bad the weather decided not to cooperate, though. I had to stay high over Costa Rica because of thick, low cloud cover in the mountains. Once I cleared land and got over the Caribbean, i was greeted by a line of thunderstorms with some pretty severre turbulence. I was able to get a few low shots of the canal, but had to climb up above the storm to keep from wrecking the plane. The rest of the flight to Careba was uneventful.

LEG	Start	Start Time	Land	Land Time	Distance	Trip Time	Fuel Used
1	MMTO Mexico City, Mexico	12:30 GMT 11/24/01	MRVC Cabo Velas, Costa Rica	18:30 GMT 11/24/01	960 NM	6 hr 0 min	292 gal
2	MRVC Cabo Velas, Costa Rica	19:00 GMT 11/24/01	SKLC Carepa, Columbia	22:50 GMT 11/24/01	563 NM	3 hr 50 min	166 gal
Day Total					1523 NM	9 hr 50 min	458 gal
Trip Total					29,136 NM	188 hr 6 min	9906 gal

Pictures

Approaching the west coast of Costa Rica	The east coast of Costa Rica
The north end of the Panama Canal	A ship on it's way out of the canal
A set of locks on the canal	A lightning strike in Panama

Where we've been so far

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