4 January 2008

4 January 2008
Hello to all from the Panama Canal,
New Years celebration on board ship can be the event of a life time. I’ll admit to have had a few New Years that tended to be a bit on the raucous side but our Pacific Princess event topped them all. As one might well suspect, about a third of the 620 passengers turned in long before the ball started to drop at Times Square. Since we were in the same time zone as New York, we watched that ball closely and were well ready to make some crazy noise when it finally began its descent.
New Years Eve dining was accompanied with a full array of hats and noise makers and they were all in use as soon as the dinner wine began to flow. Who knew that adults well pass the child rearing and supporting years could enjoy acting thirty years younger with such zest and gusto. We certainly did! As we arrived for our late sitting dinner, the early sitting crowd was drifting toward the show lounge blowing their horns with hats askew and laughter galore. We must have appeared a sober sided bunch as we made our way around the revelers toward the dining room. It didn’t take our late sitting group long, however, once the hats at our places were donned and the horns tested to see who could make the loudest most prolonged blast. From that point, spirits rose higher as our pre dinner cocktails began to do their job and the dinner wine was poured for the first round.
After dinner we were entertained by a fifty something girl singer who sang the oldies with enough meaning to make some in our sotted group to shed a tear or so for loves of the past and hope of love in the future. She was great and we stumbled to our feet to clap long and hard enough to get her to come back for a wonderful encore of something you would all recognize if I could only remember the tune. The moment I will remember for a long time!
After the show, the crowd pushed its way to the tenth deck “Pacific Lounge” where the main event of the year’s passing was already underway. A marvelous band played danceable music that could only be heard when you were within ten or twelve from the band stand. Revelers horns were now in full serenade with non stop tooting from all corners of the room. Our assigned dinner guests had all promised to meet so that our new friendship could be bonded with a New Year’s toast. Only one of the couples seem to be in the room as we search ut our group. A quickie dance with the one lady who made it and Marty and I secured ourselves for the fifteen minute wait until midnight. I obtained a cocktail from somewhere and waited the magic moment. It arrived, more horns blasted even more fervently than before, couples around the room embraced, friends shook hands, we all tossed serpentines provided by our host and I sulked back to the loneliness of my room as Marty continued his search for someone who wanted to hear about his last forty-five cruises.
Dawn came up despite the plea of the previous night’s revelers and we met yet another day at sea. As I walked around the ship and greeted strangers but ship mates with “Happy New Year”, I half expected that the staff would have taken down all of the Christmas trees during the night. Not so. Nothing had changed. Ten o’clock brought another group to the lectures that Marty and I present and at two o’clock our usual group of eight tables showed up for afternoon bridge. We were back to business as usual.
On January 2 our primary item of business was to get Marty off of the Pacific Princess, on a flight from Manta to Quito so that he could catch a flight to Miami and his next cruise assignment. All was in order except that the reservation that I had made for Marty to fly from Manta to Quito, Ecuador was one that required confirmation on December 29. I had given the memo that friend Bob Athenour had sent regarding arrangements he had made for me to Marty. Marty didn’t have the memo and we didn’t have the all most impossible to get telephone number that we had to call. I think the plane Marty was going to fly in was a crop duster or something of the same ilk. When the day of departure arrived, we still didn’t have assurance that Marty’s flight was in place. Then we were told that some land tours had to be cancelled because of a planned strike and demonstration near the air port. We weren’t at all sure of anything. Fortunately, one of the crew on the administrative staff listened to our plight and she shared the problem with a port agent who came aboard. He checked things out and all was well. He even gave Marty a lift to the airport. A wonderful example of Ecuadorian helpfulness that until now we had been assured didn’t exist. I later received an email from Marty’s mother in Woodlake, Florida assuring me that Marty made his Miami flight, arrived Miami at midnight, caught a train to woodlake and arrived at 7:30 AM, had an hour long visit with his mother along with breakfast, exchanged suitcases so that he had fresh clothes and formal wear for his pending 58 day cruise around South America, caught another train to Fort Lauderdale and made his Holland America Cruise Ship, the something Dam, before it sailed away. (Holland America ships all have names with two words, the second being Dam. Bet you didn’t know that!)
Yesterday I was on my own with the bridge program for the first time. For the past 12 days of bridge, I lectured beginning bridge players while Marty lectured to advanced players. Yesterday I began a series of lectures on nuts and bolts that should appeal to both level of players. Lectures are in the morning from 10 to 11 while games are after lunch from 2 to 4. The cruises that Marty and I will work in the future will have far less sea days and thus far fewer lectures and games. The forty-eight days we will have in the Baltics will produce no more than twelve games and perhaps only eight.
Today we are transiting the Panama Canal. This is my fourth trip through the locks so I really couldn’t get too excited. Once involved in the process though, it’s hard to ignore it. I remember my (step)grandfather Dohoney telling about his friend’s experiences working on the canal and how he regretted passing up on opportunity as a very young man to operate a steam shovel on “the big dig”.
I recall the first time I went through the canal shooting up gobs of 35mm film each hour. Nothing has really changed since my first passage. Panama City( or Balboa if you prefer), a city now of 2,000,000 still sits at the western entrance along with the Bridge to Americas which carries its part of the Pan American Highway as it makes its way from Canada to Chile. To think, one could drive north from here and wind up on Interstate 5.
Tonight we will have a brief stop at Colon ( or Cristobal if you prefer. Panama is still trying to decide what to name its two major cities) and then we will head back to sea for a short trip to San Blas Island. The last time I was at San Blas I was cruising on a small ship that had a bow lander. When we arrived at San Blas, the ship drove its bow into the sandy beach and the crew winched out a thirty foot gang way that we simply walked down onto the beach. I doubt that the Pacific Princess with her 30,227 tons will do any beach ramming but it would be a new form of excitement around here if she did. Who knows, with a little luck…………………………….
Love and kisses to each and everyone,
Grandpa Bill, Dad, Barnacle Bill