Cruising World - June 2018

june/july 2018

cruisingworld.com

30

I

confess to having the wrong

perspective when it comes to

the city of Colón, Panama, at the

Caribbean mouth of the Panama Canal.

I see it as the last barrier, the last stand,

if you will, of bureaucratic dirt dwellers

attempting to prevent me from reaching

the comparative paradise of the Pacifi c. I

know that this is so geographically unfair.

The port of Colón is more than a den of

greedy thieves intent on robbing you with

a fountain pen — or, so they say.

But my own personal prejudice is

revealed in the fi rst factoid I tell people

about Colón: It is pronounced like the

perfume but smells like the body part.

Oh, the stories I could tell about

the old Panama Canal Yacht Club

before the wharf rats stormed it into

oblivion! The fl y-speckled restaurant

on premises sold a delicious and spicy

“chicken special” (complete with tiny rib

cage) that welcomed no inquiries as to

ancestry. Where else but Colón does a

shotgun-wielding security guard clear the

street before allowing you to dash from

your taxi to the cybercafe?

But every dark cloud has a silver

lining. On one visit, we met a pugnacious

German yachtsman who fi eld-trained in

martial arts each night by strapping on a

fake Rolex and strolling into the no man’s

land just outside the PCYC and taking

on all comers. I ask you, where else but

Panama offers a steady stream of young,

eager live combatants willing to fi ght to

the death daily? Where, indeed?

“And only four times have I lost a

watch,” said the German warrior. “Only

when someone pulled a gun or knife. You

must come with me sometime, Fatty! The

ghost of Bruce Lee would be proud!”

Yes, there were some interesting

lounge lizards at the dilapidated PCYC.

But that was 20 years ago, when the

place had a certain Third World, tequila-

scented charm. It’s much worse now. Put

it this way: In my watery world, the cow-

ards choose Cape Horn rather than risk

a night or two of slithering through the

bureaucratic sewers of Colón. Nonethe-

less, we shoved off from St. John in the

U. S. Virgin Islands on our fourth circum-

navigation with joyous hearts. Part of the

bliss of being a sea gypsy is philosophi-

cal; you have to take the sweet with the

bitter. We’d do a shakedown across the

“How bad can it be?” I asked my wife, Carolyn, who looked stricken and replied, “That is always a

stupid thing to say, Fatty. Always!”

BY CAP’N FATTY GOODLANDER

SHAKEDOWN to COLÓN

On Wa t ch

It was like sailing through

a wave-heaped storm

cauldron with huge geysers

of water clapping together

into random mountainous

wave trains.

Reattaching the control on the

Monitor windvane is dicey in a

protected harbor. Doing it at night,

offshore, in a tempest is nuts.

CAROLYN GOODLANDER