Panama

I tried to serenade the Seminar crowd with the Van Halen masterpiece, as Ish and I did when we sailed down the canal in 2005 -- but I was met with lots of confused faces and covered ears, so I turned the union mix back to the Simon & Garfunkel.


The tricky thing about cruising is the inability to get far. On ship time was 1800 that day, so a trek out to La Isla grande was a stretch, especially when we realized that the water taxis did not leave from the city of Portobelo, which was already 1.5 hrs away. My friends Randi Sue Quat and John Rosenberg joined me on this day trek. Randi was the nurse and her husband John served as our piano man. I knew from the moment I met them in August that I would have cool new friends on the westside to invite to random events, but it was a true testament to their savvy that they went with the flow. My flow -- that left us with only one hour on this beautiful island, far from our port city of Colon.

We were disappointed to find that the main restaurant on the island was no longer serving lunch, especially since we had already picked out a seafood assemblage. The eggs and ceviche however sufficed, and our short day on the beach was filled with lots of sun, praying mantis sightings, and John leaving his trunks on a chair.