You Shouda Been Here Next Week!

"Yeah, next week everybody naked."

Suddenly I was feeling like I needed some of the wife's seasick medicine as I scoped out the amorphous blobs of aging decomposing flesh around the ship's pool.

"Whole cruise be clothing optional, oh boy!" This seagoing bulletin was being relayed via one of the "pool butlers" who were busy catering to the whims of landlubbers like us bound for the Panama Canal aboard the ship Constellation. And, as it turns out, pool butler Esteban and his compatriots were correct about it all. In fact, most of the ship's crew had been undergoing sensitivity training for the past few weeks to prepare themselves for the coming onslaught of uncovered flesh. (How does that work? "Everybody grab some of these pornos to watch this weekend.") A class on how to overcome the gag reflex would been more useful, but I digress. I began to speculate about the nudie sailing and wondered if there would be prizes. You know..."Best dimpled thighs", "most original use of cellulite", and "Sexiest dried arrangement", the mind reels at the possibilities. Since we hadn't been invited I would have to wait for news of how this one went. (Most of the crew being Muslims from Indonesia; put the odds of a High Seas jihad on Red Alert in my book.)

Linda and I teamed up with my pal of fifty years, The Skipper, and his wife Betty for our "bucket list" check off of the Panama Canal navigation. They are always good for laughs. It's a guaranteed yuk every day just to see what the Skip is wearing. He won't wear clothes with Polo ponies or alligators, but shirts and lids not seen since the days of Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton at the Raccoon Lodge in Brooklyn are consistently in the mix. (see photo)

Marching to a different drummer? The man is the leader of a musical aggregation not of this world. I've often surmised that he's the love child of Whoopee John and Patsy Cline. It is also helpful that the Skipper was actually once a real skipper of big oil tankers and has navigated the Canal on many previous occasions. All I had to do was keep the cocktails coming and the sea stories would unfold as we traversed the locks.

The Canal was amazing. I had read David McCullough's "The Path Between the Seas" several years ago and was again reminded of the massive scale of this remarkable piece of engineering. It is a wonder to behold, and America did it when no one thought it possible. You owe it to yourself to see it. It will make you proud.

After navigating the Canal Zone we made a brief stop in Costa Rica which did not disappoint. There is much beauty in that corner of Central America and the price of just about everything will remind you of the U.S. in the 1960's or 70's. Nice place.

Before sailing to San Diego, (we started in Miami), there were a couple of stops in Mexico.

Mexico always makes me sad. It is such a beautiful country with friendly people and bountiful natural resources yet is, after so many years, unable to realize anything close to its potential. The natural resources alone should make it a rich country; so why does everyone remain so poor? Some day they'll figure it out and get rid of the idiots running the country.

We made it back to San Diego after two full weeks and, as you may have guessed, took a pass on the "clothing optional" leg of the cruise that continued on to Hawaii. I wonder how many of the crew abandoned ship in Honolulu with severely damaged retinas. After eyeing the clowns boarding the ship in San Diego, I tried to imagine how many hands would make it past Point Loma?

"All passengers are invited to participate in the shuffle BROAD tournament on the aloha deck at eight PM."