Forty-five minutes from Panama City, Gamboa nestles into the rainforest on the eastern side of the canal, where the Chagres River empties into Lake Gatun. Most of the residents of this small planned community are associated either with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute or with the Dredging Division for the Panama Canal. Huge ships transit the canal, bypassing the two gigantic dredging cranes named Hercules and Titan, that stand like twin monsters on the shores of Gamboa.<br> Tourists can boat through a part of the Panama Canal, on Lake Gatun, which supplies most of the water for the locks. The 163 square-mile lake is the Canal's highest point, at 85 feet above sea level. Green and red buoys mark the route for ships traversing the lake under their own power. From a public dock at the town of Gamboa, site of the Canal's dredging division, boats carry tourists on excursions to the Smithsonian research station on the island of Barro Colorado, or to fish for peacock bass which thrive in the lake's warm waters. Barro Colorado is a natural reserve under the protected use of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.<br> You can also take a nighttime cruise on Lake Gatun to observe crocodiles. Crocs up to 18 feet long live in the lake, so be careful! Just beyond Gamboa is the famed Pipeline Road, where ecstatic birders have set world records year after year in the Audubon Society's Christmas bird count. Gamboa and the surrounding Panama Canal area have been protected and preserved for over a century, and large tracts of tropical rainforest, rich in biodiversity, are host to thriving plant and animal populations.