Cleaning up.

After breakfast of american fries, eggs and bread prepared by yours truly we set about putting the house in order. Brandy cleaned out the cupboards and took care of the floor, while Becky washed every pot, pan and utensil that been removed from the cupboard and we set about sorting and reducing the amount of cookware, plates and glasses. We really don't need 20 plates, glasses and sets of cutlery for three people and would rather dedicate the cupboard space to food. Becky found the jug used for bailing and emptied hundreds of gallons of water into the ocean. She was not aware that there was a tube that runs from beneath the deck. and that as she was emptying the water was being replaced by water under the deck. I inspected the bilge pump to find that it was clogged with dog hair and had burned out. My two spares were much smaller units and wouldn't fit the discharge hose.

I should have at least two battery powered units and one that runs off AC. It's easy to lose a boat in a single night of rain and a submerged engine is pretty much shot. We snorkled around the house, finding an octopus, a lot of snapper, some of them well into dinner sized, anemone, urchins, various coral, a parrot fish, some angel fish, starfish and sponges. Far from awesome, but hey, it's thirty feet from the dock. Having burned away most of the day, I took a gas tank off on boat and used it to fill the tank on the primary boat with the aid of a funnel and we made our way to town. By this time it was past five and the gas station I use was closed. It turns out that another one is near the marina on Carenero and we headed over there to see if we could find it. We heard loud drumming and rounding the corner saw a school yard through an opening between a couple of building and dozens of young students beating on bass drums. November is the month of parades in Bocas. There are about five holidays, all on weekdays, in November. Get your banking in while you can. Speaking of which, we heard last night that all of Banco Nacional is offline as a result of a lightning strike that took down its mainframe. Interesting, there is only one bank in town, Banco Nacional. This should make things fun at the ATM. Fortunately I topped off the day before.

We saw a shack near a sign reading "No Fumar". That must be the place. I pulled up and got out. A ray swam out from the under the dock. A tour boat operator pulled up, pulled out his tank and ran to beat me. I'm in no hurry, go ahead, cut in. The woman who ran the place put a 3/4" piece of clear plastic tubing into one of the many 15 gallon plastic cans, sucked on it and siphoned his five gallon tank full. Nope, there is no dockside service, I'd have to get 22 gallons five gallons at a time, measured out in a plastic five gallon water bottle. Brandy laughed when she saw me returning to the boat with a five gallon bottle of water, a Kodak moment in her mind and she is virtually a Bocaratorian. This is all so strange and unusual to Becky that she just took it in stride.

After the second bottle full and filling up my five gallon spare, my hands covered in gasoline, gas soaked cuts on my hands from some barnacles, I figured it would be fine to just top off the next day at my usual filling place. We checked out a couple of places, couldn't find a place to dock and went over to eat on a boat that serves as a restaurant, although it is actually capable of being operated as was demonstrated during a recent divorce of the couple that owned the place. I'll have to skip the details, I can no longer tell interesting tales on cities two hundred miles in my wake. I live here.