Panama

1989—As far as I can remember, we almost sped through the country. Hell, we did. While still on the Atlantic side of Panama, waiting for our time to go through the canal—I think that was it—we had fun and meandered around ashore.

The state of things in Panama at the time was rather tense—they were going into or just coming out of a civil war … I don't remember, but I'm sure it would be in the history books when it exactly happened. But the military was tense, and as a result, so were the yachties.

There was this one man on the Atlantic side—I think it was that side -- who was, in essence, a rather mad American. That's not to say that he wasn't nice; no, he was perfectly pleasant and very amenable to everyone. I can't remember his name, but he was travelling on a pension, having gotten it because of an accident in his workplace that declared him unfit for work. It must have been pretty decent … all he had to do each year was visit a psychiatrist and get himself declared unfit for work once more. He'd been doing it for a fair number of years by that time, and honestly as far as I remember he was bewildered that it was happening but not very perturbed. He was off his rocker a bit though. Even Phil said that.

He showed us some videos he had and while aboard had to hold our breaths -- his yacht positively reeked of male cat. The videos were "The Terminator" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"; geeze, I remember them to this day. Damien, Phil, the fellow and I were cramped into the little interior and stared at the screen. I remember hiding my face at the end of "The Terminator", much to Damien's disgust.

The trip up through the canals were a bit hairy. Three yachts were lashed together, and as each level filled with water to take us up to the next, we had to be careful about bashing the sides of our boats. There was one beside us who had a woman on it that talked to Damien and myself. She gave me a metallic lipstick which I still have to this day, though I don't use it anymore. She had sex discussions with us both, explaining some things … not that I can remember what it was anymore.

On the Pacific side, we stopped at a little anchorage in an island, and because we didn't know anything about that side of the continent, promptly jumped into the water. Once we'd done that a few times, we realised that we had the most horrific welts all over ourselves, and were baffled. It came to our attention before long that they were little very long jellyfish that was responsible, and that meant the end of our water forays.