On board Cunard's Caronia docked in Callao, the port of Lima, Peru; e-mail via satellite.

Communication   Although the days run together, I think today is Sunday and we've been underway on the Caronia for just over a week. Some explanations about communications are worth giving. I wrote some e-mails on our laptop in the cabin and tried sending them over the phone lines like I did once on the QE2. A couple went out successfully, but the rest didn't. Considering the great expense of doing it that way, yet not having it work, it was particularly frustrating. I relented and came to the computer room, which, like on the QE2, is called the Computer Learning Centre (British spelling). Learning is certainly involved, because every day we're at sea two (married) instructors give a morning, then an afternoon class in English, and later in the afternoon Tanja, the German hostess, gives a session in German. Since I tend to work long periods writing at the computer, having to evacuate the room again and again is bothersome. However, it is gratifying to see so many people getting instruction, especially with an older crowd with little computer exposure. One evening a few days ago, we sat at the computer from six to midnight, totally skipping dinner, dancing, and the show (as you can imagine, we do get enough to eat, making doing that a reasonable possiblity). There is one more irksome thing about the Cunard computers. They're on a timer, and after about 60 seconds of nonaction you're asked if you're still working. Should you be lost in thought or looking at notes, poof, all is gone. The Purser's office gave me a disk, so not only can I save, I save very frequently. Still, once I got caught and lost a paragraph. Whenever lost in thought, it's worthwhile to aimlessly roll the mouse around the pad to fool the computer into thinking you're working.

They show you how to do things so you get minimal charges. All applications are free, including Word and Excel (also games). Actually using the internet, in other words for sending e-mails, costs 70p per minute (pence), which is about $1.28. Therefore, you are instructed to write an e-mail in Word, copy it, cancel Word, click on e-mail, pass your ship ID card through the card scanner to start being charged; when the satellite connection is made you QUICKLY paste the e-mail, then go to the top of it where you've already listed the sender, any CC's, and your title, quickly copy and paste each one in the appropriate box above, send, and quickly exit. You can easily do that in one minute and it's gratifying to then see it appear on the screen that you've been charged the 70p for only one minute.

Incoming mail is printed out free of charge in the Purser's Office andslipped under your door. They are a bit surprised how many mails I get,almost all business, with a few personal ones. It is odd to be in one cabin for so long. It's becoming home, in the way that a college dorm becomes home. I've got a map of South America on the wall.

New York-Tampa-Fort Lauderdale   We left New York right after New Year's, on January 3, and for once flew to Tampa. We had a rental carwhile there, then drove it to Fort Lauderdale ("Port Everglades") anddropped it off. Our sailing date wasJanuary 22. Please note that I didn't say we sailed on January 22.

You will recall our little fracas in Italy last summer getting back on theArtesia. That little rain cloud followed us. We took the hotel shuttle busto the port and checked in. We were then told there was an administrative problem, and we couldn't board quite yet, so they sent us to the Marriott Marina "for the afternoon". At least there were $25 food and drink chits for the asking, as many as you wanted. Time dragged by, and then they told us to check in for the night, so our first night at sea was---in the Fort Lauderdale Marriott Marina Hotel. The next morning we got on the ship, but we still didn't sail until 7 PM. We then putt-putted pretty quickly to make it to the ship's time slot in the Panama Canal. It turns out that the Caronia hadn't been in a US port for over a year, and hadn't been inspected by the Coast Guard (fire extinguishers, safety doors, and so on). Cunard assumed that since the ship had just beeninspected in the UK, all was well. It wasn't. The upshot of it was that everyone's shipboard account was credited with 100 pounds in compensation ($181) per person, and everyone got a 25% discount, addable to any other applicable discounts, for any new, future Cunard trip through 2005. Not bad.

The Caronia   It's a nice ship, but small. It used to be the Vistafjord years ago, and Cunard will sell it again this October. It has an intensely loyal following. One lady at our table has been on it about ten times, another couple numerous times. Somany people have been on it before, and they look at you askance if you say that large ships are nice, too. Let's describe it as intimate, and not claustrophobic.

I estimate the average age of the passengers to fall between 115 and 120, more likely in the higher range. Of course. What other group would have the time and the money. It is Wheelchair-Walker-and-Cane-City, so we fit in fine. Everyone is happy that there is only one sitting formeals; to me that's unimportant. After the evening show, they pull the sidewalks in. This trip has actually three segments, with divisions in Valparaiso and Rio. It's billed in the US as seven weeks (50 days) out of Fort Lauderdale. Actually, these three segments are the middle three of five segments, since the whole trip is billed in Europe as 8 1/2 weeks (75 days) round trip out of Southampton. There are about 660 passengers, and some 140 are doing the whole five segments. They were invited to a special captain's reception last night. Everyone we've met has been very nice. Of course, they all tend to be very well travelled. It's lots of fun, yet it just doesn't have the same oomph as being on the QE2, and presumably the QM2.

The second language onboard is German. There are about 60 German passengers out of the 660, and they've been provided their own hostess, Tanja, who makes announcements after the ones in English and runs the German computer class. I've spoken with a number of Germans and Tanja thinks it's just great that we know German. She's invited us to the next German get-together.

Other than that, from the moment we left the hotel in Fort Lauderdale, we've been talking to two ladies from Montreal, both in English and French, and they've hooked up with a Belgian couple, so we tend to form the only group working in French (and English). Victor, the Belgian gentleman, is from the German enclave in Belgium, and gets along in German, French, and English. Then he tried to catch me with Spanish, and I answered him. I wondered why he knew Spanish. It turns he used to be the Belgian ambassador to several countries in Central America, and was stationed in Costa Rica.

Sailing here in the Pacific yesterday, the captain announced there were dolphins, marlins, sharks, and whales. The most I saw were two instances of whales spouting water, but no views of the whales themselves. The captain was able to see enough to know that they were blue whales.

The other night we were invited to a reception given by the Captain, David Perkins. He has been Staff (Assistant) Captain on the QE2, but this is his first time as Master of a Cunard ship. I wondered why we were chosen, and it turns out it was for frequent travellers on Cunard, at the platinum level.

I have long vowed I'd never eat haggis, knowing what's in it (don't ask), even though Bev and I usually like to partake in local and special foods. But this time they had me, and I had to try it, since January 25 was Robert Burns night, the traditional time for a haggis celebration. Staff Captain McKie, in a kilt, read the traditional Scots poem by Burns to four haggises in front of him as the chef carved them. Fortunately, they just served it as a tiny scoop of appetizer with a scoop of mashed potatoes. I never realized it was served minced, so it looked like pate. OK, I ordered seconds for us, but I didn't let myself think of what was in it (just picture the worst). At least now we've done it.

Geography   I know geography isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I thrive on it. You can't travel extensively without knowing where you're going. Over the years, as extensively as Bev and I have travelled, we've always limited ourselves to two continents, Europe (plus minimal Middle East and North Africa) and North America (plus Caribbean). We've never gone beyond that, so South America is totally new to us. (Today South America, tomorrow the world!)

I am convinced most people don't really know where South America is. That may sound foolish, but the names of the two Americas are misleading. For instance, South America is most definitely not south of North America, and vice versa. Clear?

If not, do this (mentally). Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center, and one across the middle. Label the upper-left box NA and the lower-right box SA. Now trace your finger due south of NA and you find you're in the middle of the Pacific. As I said, SA is not south of NA. Then go north from SA and jump into the North Atlantic.

The names are misnomers. Ideally, the continents would be named Northwest America and Southeast America. The relationship between the two is diagonal, not north-south. Mentally move NA south and its east coast will roughly face the Andes. Or move SA north and it will partially fill in the space between NA and Europe.

One other thing. Always be suspicious about odd geographic shapes. Look at the Caribbean. Isn't it odd how most of the islands line up to form a backwards C? Trace the C from Cuba, lying just off NA, to Aruba-Bonaire-Curacao, lying just off SA. Isn't that odd?

Also, look at the huge mass of NA and then that of SA. Why should that skinny little strip we call Central America be lying between them? Considering the bulk of the two, it's like a tiny little dike of some sort between them. How could that be? Isn't that odd?

The NA tectonic plate is slowly moving westward into the Pacific plate. That's what the San Andreas fault is all about. The SA plate is also moving westward into the Pacific plate, gouging up the Andes like snow up a snow shovel.

What I found out beyond that in an onboard lecture I find extremely interesting. Between the two big continents, there is a Caribbean plate, which oddly is moving EASTWARD and plowing into the Atlantic plate. On top of that, the Pacific plate is ALSO moving eastward, but faster, and is plowing into the Caribbean plate. It's like a horrible accident where two cars ram each other headon, and then the left-hand one gets rammed again by a faster-moving truck behind it.

The first ramming in the east formed the Caribbean islands in that semicircle.

The second ramming in the west caused the dike we call Central America to fill up the space between NA and SA. That's why they're attached. Without that dike, NA and SA would each be island continents, like Australia is.

Longitude & Latitude (Tangerine Sections & Onion Rings)   Starting with this trip, measuring distances over the surface of the earth has suddenly become much more important to me, and I had to go back and review longitude and latitude.

Actually, the two measurements are only of real importance to navigators and such. In everyday life people replace them with other concepts. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Picture taking an orange apart, or, since it falls apart more easily, a tangerine. Each section is equal, and runs from top to bottom. These are like cuts of longitude going from the north pole to the south pole. Starting at the zero meridian in Greenwich about how many degrees is it to the east coast of the US? How many degrees wide is the US? Who knows? Who cares? Only navigators do.

Everyday people measure these distances using something else. They use time zones. How wide is the US? Four time zones (three changes). How far from New York to London? Six time zones (five changes). Russia's great width is famously measured in time zones, ten, and with Kaliningrad, eleven. On an everyday basis, we don't pay attention to degrees of longitude.

Of course, time zones are not accurate, since they have been widened or narrowed from the classic tangerine-wedge shape, but they still are a good rule of thumb. In a perfect world, each time zone would be 15 degrees, so the five time zone changes from London/Greenwich should put New York at about 75 degrees west, and in fact, it's at 74. The three time zone changes from New York to San Francisco should put SF at about 119 degrees west of Greenwich, and in fact it's at 122. Pretty good rule of thumb.

How does this work for SA? SA has three time zones (two changes). Again considering the diagonal relationship of NA and SA, Eastern time in the US and Canada runs down the western bulge of SA; Atlantic time (Nova Scotia, Dominican Republic) runs down the center of SA, and Greenland time runs down the east coast. That leaves two "ocean" time zones between Rio and London.

In light of all this, in discussing SA in an east-west direction, I'll usually avoid all mention of degrees of longitude west of Greenwich and instead simply refer to Eastern, Atlantic, or Greenland time. It's so much simpler.

Take an onion, lay it on its side, slice off the north pole, and continue slicing onion rings through the equator and on to the south pole. The circles showing degrees of latitude vary as do the size of onion rings. The equator is a bigger ring than the Arctic Circle.

People also tend to avoid these numbers in everyday life, simply picturing the earth in varying temperatures from cold at one pole to hot at the equator to cold again, and that's usually enough. But in a trip to SA, north-south directions become very significant, and I'll be using numbers. Just keep in mind that the equator is by definition 0 degrees, and each pole is at 90 degrees, north or south.

We started 2004 in New York at 41 degrees N (actually 40N43, but I'll regularly round to the nearest degree). Since 45 would be halfway between the north pole and the equator, NY is well centered.

From New York at 41N we flew to Tampa at 28N and drove to Fort Lauderdale at 26N. The Caronia got us to Panama City at only 9N. Then a new experience, we passed the equator at 0 and entered the southern hemisphere, stopping at Manta, Ecuador at 1S (Ecuador is of the Spanish word for equator). As I write this, the Caronia is sitting in Callao, the port of Lima, Peru, at 12S. We'll see how far south we will get.

Panama Canal   Leaving Fort Lauderdale, we went along the north coast of Cuba, quite visible, and passed between Cuba and Haiti (not visible). And then we reached the Panama Canal. It was even more fun than I had thought.

First there is a breach of logic one has to imagine. Going from the Atlantic to the Pacific is a shoot from east to west, right? If you think that, then you must also think that SA lies south of NA.

In one hand hold a length of string in the air. With the other hand pinch a section and give it a quarter turn. This is Panama, which runs east west. If you give the string another quarter turn, which would be too much, you'd see that to go from "east" to "west" you'd need to go from west to east. However, the situation is not that extreme. Go back an eighth turn and that is how Panama twists just where the canal is. To go from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Panama Canal you go from northwest to southeast, as illogical as that would seem. Yet true it is.

Passenger ships do not have priority over freighters. They wait their turn. Time slots are allocated in advance. Fees are also paid in advance, through a port agent. Surprisingly, the traffic in the canal is usually one-way, to speed up traffic, depending on the time of the day. However, passenger ships do get a break here. They are often allowed to go against the flow of traffic to maintain their schedule.

A lecturer onboard explained the history of the canal. In colonial days, the Spanish had a trail across Panama at this point. In 1855, the Panama Railway was built in the same area, which made a fortune bringing people and goods across. The Frenchman de Lesseps had very successfully built the Suez Canal, and at sea level at that (no locks). He tried to do the same in Panama, at sea level, even though the route went through the continental divide. It was a notorious failure, not only because a sea level route was ill advised here, not because of the corruption, but because yellow fever, malaria and other diseases killed the workers and their families en masse. Worse, hospitals were set up by nationality, so there were a few yellow fever patients dispersed among all the others. To prevent crawling insects from getting into beds, the legs of the beds were set in bowls of water, ideal breeding areas for yellow fever mosquitoes. From what we know now, it's so easy to look back and see the folly, but who knew? When the Americans took over, the diseases were eradicated first. Then the decision was made to forget trying to go at sea level. The lecturer showed a map of Panama before the canal. It appeared to be all jungle. Then he showed a post-canal map, after the Chagres River had been dammed to form man-made Gatun Lake. Most of the center of Panama showed the huge lake. The heaviest work was cutting through the continental divide, and this is known as the Culebra Cut (also called Gaillard Cut). If you understand that there is a lake and the cut almost crossing Panama at a height of 26 meters (about 26 yards), you'll understand that all that was needed is a set of locks on the Atlantic side to raise or lower ships between lake level and the sea, and another set on theother side to reverse the process. There is no pumping of water done. The locks are filled with fresh water from the lake by gravity feed. Except for updating communications equipment, the entire canal still is as it was on opening in 1914. The Panama railroad was essential to building the canal, since it hauled away huge amounts of excavated material. The canal started 24-hour operations in 1963 with the installation of adequate lighting.

The Caronia entered the Canal in the late afternoon, and we all followed the action as we went up the Gatun Locks. After dinner, in the dark, but with illumination, we watched us leave the lake and enter the cut. By the time we were approaching the locks on the other side, it had gotten to the point of being like watching paint dry, so we went to bed as we descended and entered the Pacific. I think the entire transit of 80 kilometers/50 miles took something like eight hours.

The next morning we were offshore at Panama City. From a distance it was amazing at the number of skyscrapers it has. There was one thing I wanted to do.

We've crossed NA many times by train across the US or Canada. Usually it takes 3-4 nights in a sleeping car. That day in Panama we crossed NA by train in one hour. We were brought to the newly refurbished gorgeously wood-paneled coaches of the Panama Railway for the very pleasant ride mostly right along the side of the canal, from Balboa on the Pacific back to Colon on the Atlantic. There we were bused to Gatun Locks to watch other ships doing what we had done the evening before. It was a very pleasant trip.

Fortunately I had narrowed the width of the wheelchair to fit on the two buses. The chair manoeuverings were formidable: onto tender; off tender, onto bus, off bus, onto train, off train, onto bus at other end, off bus, then the same thing going back, plus one extra: on returning: the tide had gone out, so the gangway had become very steep to go down to get back on the tender. I used my backwards technique, with Bev behind me facing backwards as I came down the gangway. All went well.

Finally, the tally for the Travelers' Century Club: Panama was country/destination # 87 for us, Ecuador # 88, and here in Peru, # 89. It is 6 PM and we are about to sail for Chile.