Buque Escuela Esmeralda, de Chile

We had heard that a Chilean navy training vessel, B.E. Esmeralda, was in Panama City. So, a few of us boarded a bus and headed off to view her. We had seen it advertised in the newspaper, and had checked the visiting times but, when we got there, they said it was closed to the general public and only open for "special groups". After much haggling, Ralph and others managed to convince them we were special enough! We had to walk into the base in order to get to the ship. We had no idea how long a walk it was, nor how dirty (huge dump trucks full of dirt travelling on a dirt road kicking up dust everywhere), or we might have just gone home! However, she was a beautiful sight to behold, once we arrived! This was a special ship, for us, as when we had lived in Chile, friends of ours had given Ralph a large, beautiful model of this ship as a going away present.

After at least a couple of KM's, we were black and hot and arrived at the gangplank for the ship. The ship was chock-a-block full of good looking young Chilean men, all dressed in the whitest whites we cruisers had ever seen! (When you send your laundry off to some lady who probably uses chipped hand soap, true white becomes a distant memory!) The contrast between these clean-cut lads, and all of us with dust and dirt in our hair and our BLACK sandal-clad feet, was unbelievable!! I didn't even want to go aboard. And, I surprised they even allowed it!

What a beautiful ship she is!
More brass than you can imagine, and all sparkling and shiny.

























Chileans are a proud lot and their emblem says, "By Reason or Force". I have to say, though, the carved figures looked a bit amateurish to me.










This translates to "Conquer or die", pretty tough words.

Huge wooden blocks slathered in coats and coats of varnish. I guess it's possible to maintain all that varnish and brass with 50 or 60 crew members.

Here we are on our tour. It was strange that they originally had told us we couldn't see the ship because, in reality, there were very few other visitors aboard. As soon as we came up the gangplank, a young man was dispatched to us to give us a tour. His English was quite good, considering his ripe old age of 21.

The Chilean flag in the rigging.

This is the Bridge of the Americas, from the Esmeralda.

Here's our entire tour group from the bridge.

Here's Ralph, pretending to be capitan, and wishing he had a wheel like this one!

They're big on the "do or die" thing!

Here I am, with Stan and Lynn Homer of Homers' Odyssey. They too are BCA members and from Calgary. Stan is wearing his newly aquired Esmeralda hat. In fact, all the guys got hats, and all chose exactly the same one. I bought one for Ralph, as it was his birthday that day. Now, all the guys have chosed days they can wear the hats so they don't all wear them at the same time.

This was the young fellow who gave us the tour. All the women wanted to know (but didn't ask) what kind of skin cream he used as we all marvelled at his great complexion! I'm sure he's never shaved yet! Doesn't he look to be about 14?