The Bigger Ditch

 

With the Panama Canal in the rear view mirror. Cartagena is the next stop. I hope tonight’s missive is not full of so much bitching and whining. I hate myself when I get that way. I seem to get that way after the half way through long trips and unfortunately you got the brunt of it. My apologies.

On this cruise I have been sleeping with the curtains on the slider fully open. I really doubt that a passing Seagull or Pelican really would rather look at me naked or sleeping than they would seeing a tasty sardine swim by. As far as either of my neighbors circumventing the balcony partitions, I don’t think they can get their leg high enough to climb the railing. At that point they would be 70 feet above the rushing water, which would definitely discourage me from a quick peek, even if a Only Fans model was Nextdoor.

This was the exception to the open window process. There was a very blindingly bright lamp on the dock and was aimed exactly at my room. To add to that the ballast in it was dying or there was a short in the wiring, but it flickered on and off enough to make sleep for me impossible. With a whoosh the room was enveloped in darkness. I watched 15 minutes of Netflix and that was enough.

Later, I rolled over and a sliver of light was peeking around the curtain. Fucking lamp. Here I am awake at God knows what time all because of the flippin’ light. I rolled over and looked at the iPhone and it read 6am. Maybe it was solar and not electrical light. I pulled back the certain and had a beautiful view across the bay.

Way in the distance nearly obscured by the haze was a huge white tall ship. I could just make out the giant ceremonial flag wafting in the breeze at the stern. It wasn’t the white tall ship I had seen in Buenos Aires, because the flag wasn’t right. It had three vertical stripes a color on each end and white in the middle with a circle centered on the white stripe. Must be Mexican. I wonder if it is the same ship that tried to knock down the Brooklyn bridge earlier this year? I was very surprised they got it fixed so fast.

The closer it came the clearer it became. Those dots on the top of the sails were crew members. Standing proud, arms outstretched to their sides as if they were flying the ship as it came in. They had to climb the rigging to get up there and I hope they were attached in some way, it was an exceptionally long way to the deck or the marginly softer water.

To my right, a brass band that I hadn’t seen was on our dock welcoming the ship. The whole pomp and circumstance. I think the band started a bit early, because their playlist ran out and they had to start again, twice, before the ship was made fast. Ship secured, the crew made their way safely down from the rigging. More brass band stuff and a bunch of welcome words and the pier returned to the normal hum of ship life.

Turns out Peru also has a white tall ship, and this was theirs. I’m starting to think that every nation has a big white tall ship, including landlocked Lichtenstein.

The day had rain on and off most of the day. Seattle rain, not Florida deluge, except unlike Seattle this rain was warm. I’m glad we had good weather yesterday when we were scheduled to be at sea enroute from Costa Rica.

Watching the ship arrive had made the golden hour for photography on land a thing of the past. Based of what the weather app forecast it appeared the golden and the blue hour would not grace us tonight. No picturesque old town photos. Today was going to be a full day of Grey hour.

Except for the old town, the remainder of the city is just high rises and business. I couldn’t see and reason to leave the ship so just settled into a sea day on shore. The shore sea day was much more tolerable than an actual sea day, because it was my choice and not the captain’s.

The day was a routine sea day for me. Shower, breakfast, grab my cross stitch and head up to floor 15. I found ‘H’ sitting alone and she invited me to sit with her instead of your usual window area. Everyone else from the group was off on excursions. We stitched and had an excellent visit. She is quite an interesting woman, Lived and worked and succeeded in a man’s world and didn’t get hardened. Realistic, but not hard.

Three hours of stitching and visiting was plenty for me, and it was time for something light to nosh on. A drink on the deck and several pages reading my current novel. A forgettable Evening meal and back to my balcony.

The ship had a nine-thirty curfew for all ashore to be aboard since we were scheduled to be leaving at ten pm. The Peruvian tall ship Was having a celebration. Tuxed men and high fashion women boarded the ship and joined the festivities. The band was good, and the singer was great, I and half my side of our ship sat on our balconies and enjoyed the festival.

Someone must be ill, but I am not sure if it is our ship or theirs. A black van with the square cross on it, with the medical snake thing (cadeucious?) drove up and just sat on the pier. It must not have been too much of an emergency since it sat there for actual hours.

Boat sport is watching people run to the ship as it starts to leave. Drat, no show tonight. 9:30 comes and goes, the gangway stays stuck to the ship and pier. Ten pm comes and goes, no movement by the dock hand to loose the moorings. 10:45 comes and I give up, pull the curtains shut and call it a night.

Six in the morning came like the day before with sunlight winking around the edges. We were starting our entry up a river to the Panama Canal. Slowly, ever so slowly we made our way north? We were going through the ‘new’ locks, not the original ones from 1908 or at least Teddy Roosevelt times. It was supposed to be disappointed that it wasn’t the old locks, like it’s going to reduce my bragging rights when impressing the people I tell. I can find more impressive things to brag about. The thing that really surprised me about the new locks was that instead of opening like double French doors they slid like sliding glass doors. It takes a lot of time to move enough water to raise a 5500 person ship 15 feet and my attention span is slightly longer than a Hummingbird I grabbed my cross stitch and went up stairs.

The other women were describing their day the day before. I felt bad for ‘M’. She is a sloth girl. She even as an app on her phone that tracks a tagged sloth. I don’t know where the sloth lives, but she had traveled two feet the previous day. Talk about a slow motion train wreck. Well ‘M’ had gone on an outing that included a possible sloth sighting, and failed. I felt bad for her.

‘T’ was wondering why we didn’t leave at the appointed 10pm, or 11pm or ?? Before finally leaving at 3am. Ya, my, though limited, cruising experience is the at 1 minute after the appointed time we were outta there.

Then there was the usual complaining about being forced to go shopping when on an excursion, because the guide was getting a sellers commission from the tourists he brought into the store. One woman related a story of when one man was getting off the bus, collapsing and dying from a heart attack and having to wait for over two hours before being able to continue on their tour. Even I wouldn’t have the lack of heart to complain about some delay because of that.

Hummm ….. maybe last evening’s medical van was not waiting for a live patient to arrive. Hmmm ….. maybe NCL thought it would be best to delay leaving, to disembark or embark a passenger in a long box until after almost the entire ship was asleep. Like say 2am or 230. Maybe to cause less mental to the senior side of the calendar passengers. We must have to have a mean average ago of 65 on this trip.

Then a brief conversation about my blog among the group, were I said something about ‘crazy parrot ladies, and crazy cat ladies’. ‘W’ admitted to being a crazy cat lady and went on to prove it. I love Dorothy the Wonderbird, but one or two pictures is enough to get the idea across. ‘W’ had pictures of the cats laying side by side, on the window ledge, on a lap, in arms, chasing a bug and on and on. Then she plays a video at volume 8 on her phone of the cat walking around the house meowing. You could hear it across the entire deck. You think a baby crying in a quite location is annoying, try a Siamese cat on speaker. And .. she wouldn’t shut the fucking video down. I withdrew soon after.

A drink on the veranda and then inside. I was bored. We were crossing through a lake between locks and one island and one palm tree look identical to any other island or palm tree after 1/2 an hour. I had a VIP invitation to the art lecture, put on by our friendly auctioneer. Why not?

This was really a VIP event. He started out by saying the company had 3 levels of consumer. I forget what each was called. Maybe it was ‘Dirt’, ‘Shiny’ and ‘God, We Love you !’ For spending $25k (my figures may not be exact, but I think you’ll get the idea) you can be invited to a Domestic cruise, like Alaska or the Gulf of America. $50k, gets you international, like Italy or Japan. Now $80k gets to to exclusive like Antarctica.

True the art is cool and pretty, and generally signed by the artist and limit editions, but in the end they are all pretty much Xerox’s of the original art, just is different media than a laser jet printer. Golly a balcony to Alaska can be had for under $1k, the 12 day trip to Japan I took was $2.5k for a solo balcony. I can’t quote an Antarctic cruise cost, but $80k for a ‘free’ cruise to Antarctica and several walls of reproduced art does seem a little excessive.

One of the pieces he was going on about was an etching by Rembrandt. Rembrandt made the etching on metal in olden days and pressed some copies from it. The metal etching still exists. There was a pressing in 1999 from these etchings. I don’t know, maybe that’s worth it. To me, regardless of my bank account size, Not. Then then there were the copies of Picasso’s, That his grand daughter had copied and she signed and sealed it with the Picasso seal. Who knows? Even if I had that type of discretionary income, I wouldn’t be tossing it away on that.

Back up to the lake that looks like a river and another drink on the veranda. I’m not sure if it is a good sign the bartender knows what you are drinking before you open your mouth to order it, or not. Maybe I am a drunk.

The last locks stair stepped up down from the lake and spit us in to tropical waters. Panama Canal transit complete, a little more than 6 hours.

Have a good night. Curtains open,and ready for peeping Seagulls.