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Statendam 11-7-10
By Milt Abel | November 13, 2010
| November 13, 2010Statendam 11-7 to 11-12
Malaria may have been one of the things they removed from Panama, besides tons of dirt, when they dug that canal; but they certainly didn’t eradicate the runny nose. My driver from the Panama City airport spent more time handling the terry cloth dish towel he was using as a kleenex than he did on the steering wheel. The same terry cloth dish towel, over and over again. Its absorption powers were beyond any chamois I’ve seen advertised on TV. When we stopped at the port agent’s office, and he reached for my luggage, I dove for the handle ahead of him like and NFL wide receiver. It was flagrantly rude, I really leaped to intervene; go ahead and throw a flag if you must, just as long as you haven’t blown your nose into it a hundred times in the last 40 minutes.
Interesting bit of business, how a foul is signaled in American football. Such a violent sport: some of the biggest, strongest, most aggressive men in sports throw themselves against each other repeatedly, and so ferociously, that helmets and padding are needed so they can continue. Yet, when they do something against the rules, a piece of cloth is tossed in the air. Shouldn’t a gun go off? Or whack the offender with a 2 X 4?Have the ref walk up to the guilty player and begin beating him (he’ll have protective gear) with an oar. That’d be a clear, and proportionate signal that something wrong has happened.
I was joining the Holland America Statendam as it cruised from San Diego to Ft. Lauderdale. I caught it in Panama City, just before it transited the canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic. I thought I had heard they were building an adjunct to the canal, another set of locks that were longer and wider, sized for newer ships; this trip that information was confirmed. I performed the night of our transit and I wrote a joke on the new locks that I tried for both shows…
“They’re making the canal bigger and longer. I hope they hurry up and finish so I’ll stop getting all those emails asking me help ‘make it bigger and longer.’”
It worked better the first show, but failed in general. I’ll shelve it. Should I cruise to China while they are adding to their Great Wall, it’ll be at the ready. I’ll just have to change the nouns in the set up.
The next day the Statendam ported at Cartegena, Columbia. One of the sights to see is the Palace of the Inquisition. The first floor has on display some of the instruments of torture used to by the Catholic church of the day to convince people of God’s divine love, in case they wavered. I chose not to go see that museum. I had seen enough torture in the faces of the late show’s audience when I used that ‘bigger and longer’ joke.
Also moored in Cartegena, just a bit up the dock, was an United States Coast Guard vessel. Regrettably I failed to make a note of the ship’s name, possibly because at first I didn’t think it was anything but a Columbian Navy ship. As I walked by I thought, ‘how considerate of the Columbians. They know an America cruise ship is in port and they change the language of all their labels and flags from Spanish to English. Good sports, those Columbians.’
The Coast Guard vessel had tied up, but was in the process of setting up their gangway when I realized who they really were. I couldn’t help shouting to the sailors working on the gangway, “Have we annexed Columbia?” I regretted it immediately. It was an odd opening line from any stranger, who may or may not be a fellow American, and if it were true it would mean I was at the forefront of an invasion; a place I wouldn’t want to be no matter how exciting. Thankfully no response was offered. And I have since not heard about any foreign policy changes with their country and ours.
It didn’t take me long to realize the ship was there because of the drug trade. Columbia has a reputation. The war on drugs is fought in the waters off Columbia and in the hallways of our children’s schools and it’s the kind of war that will never be over. Too bad we can’t just withdraw.
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