JUNE III

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEREK June 15, 2006
Happy birthday to the big D! Yet another fun-filled evening of drinks and laughter.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEVI June 14, 2006
It was GET teacher Levi’s birthday today. Happy quarter of a century man! We drank and danced all night. It was the most fun night I’ve had in a long time, partly thanks to the good tunes of Sublime coming from Matt aka Sheepy’s ipod.

CANAL DAY June 13, 2006
Today the ship passed through the Panama Canal. My second time to pass through by ship. The canal is suprisingly narrow - the ship almost touches the sides at times. It's much different from the wide area of the Suez.
Interesting Panama Canal Facts – the largest sum of money paid to pass through the canal was by the container ship Maersk Dellys, which paid US$249,165.00 for passage in May of 2006. The least expensive toll was $.36 to American adventurer Richard Halliburton who swam the canal in 1928. The average toll is around US$54,000.

PANAMA IS OKAY IF YOU ARE NOT JAPANESE June 12, 2006
The GET teachers decided to turn a deaf ear to the warnings and snuck out of the port today for the 5 hours we got to spend in Panama. I mean, we aren’t Japanese tourist targets and don’t have huge cameras dangling from our necks so we all figured things we be fine. Guess what?!?! It was TOTALLY fine – no problemo. The group hired a van to take us to an old seaside fort called San Lorenzo. It was such a beautiful place, and NO ONE else was there for us teachers (this is a rare occurance when you are traveling on a ship with 1000 other tourists.) After exploring the fort's nooks and crannys we all headed down to the beach and swam in the ocean for an hour or so. It’s a good thing I didn’t know until afterwards about the water sometimes being shark infested!! One of the locals actually came to retrieve us after a few storm clouds appeared because apparently the sharks seek shallow waters during a storm. I'm glad to have still have all my limbs intact. After feasting on some fresh coconuts the group headed back into town, passing through the Gatun Locks in the Panama Canal. Although warned of the inner city dangers we stopped in town for dinner and shopping. At the restaurant I realized just how dangerous the area could actually be after noticing a guard at the front door sporting a very large machine gun. And this place was total fast food, not a bank! I wonder how many people tried to rob the place for arroz and carne in the past…

BEWARE OF ARM CUTTERS June 11, 2006
Today we had our port orientation for Cristobal, Panama. Even though we will be docked in Cristobal for one whole day and night, the boarding limit is at 7pm for safety purposes, which means we get a measly 5 hours of time to spend off the boat. Supposedly it is the most dangerous city in the world, especially for touristy Japanese. We are not supposed to venture outside the port if not on a ship tour and should refrain from wearing jewelry for fear of getting our fingers or arms cut off or something like that. I am wondering why Peaceboat even stops at this location if it is that bad.

YAH, MAN! June 10, 2006
Today was my very first time in Jamaica, a place I have been wanting to visit for a very long long time. It was only one day (wah!), but a fabulous day nonetheless. I decided to go on a PEACEBOAT snorkeling eco-tour that started with a lecture on the effects of water pollution and coral damage at the Montego Bay Marine Park Resource Center. Afterwards, we headed to one of the dirtiest beaches I’ve ever seen to do an hour of beach cleanup. You should have seen the enormous amount of garbage we collected in such a short time. Alls I can say is "dirty diapers galore!" Our guide from the Marine Park explained that throwing garbage in proper receptacles is not a common occurrence for most Jamaicans. They’d rather throw their garbage on the ground than use bins (although I didn’t see any bins at the beach for people who care to throw things in.) It was probably a strange sight to see about 30 Japanese people picking up trash on a Jamaican beach, and a few locals came over to talk and thank us for the nice job we were doing. The job was dirty and hot, but rewarding to see (at least) half a clean beach after we finished. The hard work was followed by a jerk chicken lunch, and then a ride on a catamaran through a mangrove bay. The NGO staff from the Marine Park were there to point out different species of mangrove and marine life (check out the jelly fish!) After our Mangrove tour we went out near some coral for snorkeling. There weren’t that many fish to see which was a bit dissapointing, but it was nice just being out in the ocean to swim. I did see a few crown-of-thorns starfish, which definitely isn't a good sign (they kill the coral, man.) The best part of the tour was the catamaran itself, with all-you-can-drink rum punch and beer, blasting reggae tunes and a fun lot of Jamaican crew – all of whom danced it up on the way back to the docks.
The evening was spent at a reggae concert on the beach. What a fun event! I also randomly met up with Armstrong, one of the Jamaican cooks on the ship. He picked a few of us teachers up in his jeep and drove us around town for sightseeing and fresh mangoes (6 for 1.00!!) I’d have to say I wouldn’t spend my one day in Jamaica any differently…