We met at the dock, I met Becky and we went off to secure some provisions and I to get some locking pliers with which I might effect a repair to the plug until such time as replacement and spare. The handle serves as a cam and is mounted through a hole in a rod and affixed by a pin which was missing. As stated in a couple of former entries, hangers and duct tape have been used employed in many a make shift repair here. We headed off to the house and soon thereafter, Becky, worn out from the trip and some sleeping aids, took a nap while Brandy and I took a short walk in the jungle, returning after finding and catching one of the famous tiny red frogs that inhabit this island. Feeling she had rested enough and that this warranted a view we woke her and showed her the frog which was a small fraction of the size of my little fingernail. She declared it the cutest thing she'd ever seen.
With all parties up, we headed out, with flyers in hand to look for Ngobe indians hoping to get a lead on my missing dog. Rounding the west of my island we encountered my groundskeeper, sitting in a dugout canoe with but half a foot of freeboard paddling the still waters, clad in long pants, a shirt and a jacket, quite a contrast from the small bikinis worn by my passengers. He denied knowing anything about the dog and inquired as to when I wanted him back, I told him I'd let him know. Passing through a cut that separates Isla Solarte from Isla Bastimentos a woman called out to me and waved from a porch. From that distance I couldn't see who it was, but her gestures were so animated that a visit seemed in order. I pulled up and docked and Michelle descended and was most pleased to see that Jessica, the puppy I had purchased from her was with us. A short while later two large men with shaved heads, one with a small pony tail, wearing a thong, joined her. The look on the woman's faces as we ascended the stairs was sufficiently comedic as to distract from that which is most likely to draw a guy's eyes while ascending stairs behind attractive women. We chatted for a while and finally I said something to the effect that we had to go or they had to invite us up on the dock so we could get out of the sun. They invited us up to the "main house" a two hundred square foot wall-less structure furnished with a table, several chairs, a bed, a stove and a refrigerator. Clyde and Verne were the only inhabitants of this 28 acre plot of land and seldom went to town.
Vern started the tour showing us the ornamentals in the immediate area of his house, of more types than I can recall, pointed out the pineapple plants and said that they produced pineapples with white flesh that have no acid. Normal pineapples have a fair amount of acid, but are so laden with sugar its not noticable. I surmised we reached the bounds of Verns domain as he passed me off to Clyde at which point we split up, the woman off to join Michelle. My pup Jessica took of with Ahos, the resident German Shepard, happy to have an outlet for one of her two energy levels, full bore, redlining tear it up, the other being deep sleep. We walked past a large Bobcat escavator which Clyde had brought down from the states and used for scraping black soil topsoil to supplement the red clay in cultivated areas. Clyde was in the process of rebuilding the engine and hydraulics and had constructed frame materials from plate aluminum. A bit further we passed a disassembled Cessna 182 which Clyde had used in a former life as a skydiving instructor; he has over 6,000 jumps under his belt and has a long, varied and interesting background ranging from professional underwater photography, para-sail design, parachute design, aerospace design, manufacturing, and much more. It's quite a long list. A tarp covered section of ground served as a prototype construction area, with sewing machines that can punch through half an inch of nylon straps. Clyde is quite mechanically inclined and is prepared to take on major repairs to equipment as a former machine shop owner with a good amount of tools on the property including what may be the largest welder in the province. He had constructed an 80 foot communication tower and gave some workers instructions for installation with the result that it sits inclined at thirty degree angle stuck in a tree. Looks like it will be a while before they have internet. "Clyde, why do you have a barrel a barrel tied to your dock?" "Shark bobber." "Becky do you want to go for a swim?"
I finally got around to asking him about his knee brace. Turns out he was snorkeling and was run over by a tour operator who "couldn't see past the first first pair of tits on the boat." Both bones in one leg were broken clean and the prop tore up his thigh. He spent four days in a hospital in Changuinola, had pins put in his bones and his muscles sewn back together. Total bill? $300.
Michelle and Clyde gave me some tips on what to do with my malfunctioning propane refrigerator, how to take off the flue, remove the baffles and clean it out. Later I was told that the refrigerants can stratify and that the I might have to stand the refrigerator on its head and all sides for a period of time ranging from several hours to days depending on whose version one wished to believe. We met another neighbor I'd been told about, Furniture Dave and admired a sink he had made carved out of a solid piece of mahagony on the wall of Verne's bathroom, not the ladies bathroom, which has a door. The sink was wonderful, providing a contrast to a house that otherwise looked like a temporary shelter for housing supplies during a construction project. Clyde's house is a tent made of six mill plastic strung over poles. A tent with leather furniture, and a television, but a tent never-the-less. Constructed as a temporary shelter 5 years ago all that has been completed of the permanent house is a series of poles placed in the ground. Doors don't provide security, being on your property does. There is no need for heating or air conditioning and an adequate roof keeps off the rain. We met "Dave the Furniture Guy" another local, a neighbor hails from England who is a cabinet maker now busy restoring yachts.It was time to go, but Jessica was nowhere to be found. Becky asked Ahos where Jessica was and Ahos walked away. Becky followed for 50 yards and the German Shepard put his nose under the Bobcat and out popped Jessica, obviously disturbed from her nap. "Good dog, Ahos, you're so smart."
As we wished to get some snorkeling in before the sun went down and headed off to find Discovery Bay. We returned home, looked it up on the internet but couldn't find its location and returned to Clyde and Vern's. On the dock in his underwear, Vern asked "I was wondering how long it was going to take you to come back." Hmmmm? We said we'd get some plants soon, but it seemed a bit odd to ask after only an hour had elapsed. Turns out somebody had left a pack a cigarettes there and he thought they were ours.
Apparently Clyde went through the mechanical aptitude line twice and got Vern's share. Vern doesn't know which end of a screwdriver to hold. rVern was listening to a VHF radio on channel 72 a local chatter channel called BEN (Bocas Emergency Network) in which people give updates on events in town, gossip and send invites to parties. A man in town sells the radios at cost, $200 away the radios to the locals that participate in an emergency response network, that provide emergency medical care or transportation. The group was started after a woman on one of these islands was bitten by a fer-de-lance and needed transport to the mainland for anti-venom as those that had it at the time were unavailable.
On our way there, we ran out of gas, but I had a five gallon spare. The women snorkled for a while, but we really didn't find the reef, then we headed into town hoping had a gorgonzola, jalapeno and ham pizza and headed home to chat on the deck. Becky, this was not a strange day, you ain't seen nothing yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment