Boat Batteries

Into town, pulled the boat batteries, topped off the electrolyte, charged them. Managed to fritter away the day accomplishing little and without adventure. A few hours later I reconnected the batteries and headed out to dinner. “You know, I should have tested my wiring before it got dark. How hard can it be?”

Back to Casa Verde. Do I want to buy tickets for a raffle? No thanks. Oh it's for Spay Panama? Ok. Give me.... pull out wad of bills, seven dollars worth. No I am not going to stick around for the drawing. An exceptionally hot woman in a dress that accentuated and revealed an amazing sight grabbed a bunch of tickets. “Your name?” “Jim.” “Your last name?” “Schmidt” “GET OUT! You're Jim Schmidt! Hi, I'm XXXXXX”. Huh. I've been talking with this woman online for many months answering questions, helping out her cause. How could I possibly have not seen her in town before?

The place was filling up but surveying the crowd I realized that there was to be nothing but incoherence soon and my desire to socialize was over-weighed by a lack of desire to talk with people who wouldn't be able to recall the conversation. Off to the boat. Ahh Shit! Where are the damn boat keys? I knew this would happen one day. I can't get my key duplicated in Bocas. I asked around. Nobody had seen my key. I borrowed a screwdriver and probe. Someone came over. “You can't pick those locks.” Two seconds later I had it picked, four tumbler wafer lock in die cast zinc? I could pick this on my deathbed. Not a hint of a start. Yup, bonehead messed up the wiring. I didn't feel like working on it with a flashlight while docked next to the band.

I got a hotel room, immediately found my key and laid down to read. The sound of a bathroom fan was actually the town generator a couple of blocks away. Not annoyingly loud but not like being at my house. My poor dogs had no food, I was going to bring some back. The internet didn't work in my room despite assurances that it would.

No towels in the room, a suicide shower, no toothbrush or toothpaste. This was supposed to be one of the nicer hotels. The breakfast I was promised turned out to be a muffin. The next day a score of people asked if I had found my boat key. “Yeah, it was just where I put it, in my backpack.” Brandy said, “Jim-pan, I knew I should have checked in your backpack.” I checked my console and shook my head. What an idiot. Who the hell wired this? Oh, that would be me. Fifteen minutes later I was good to go. I hung around for a bit headed out to a pig roast and found the usual collection of drunks and no women but my former room-mate. “Jim-pan are you leaving so soon?” “Yeah, between the chitras, the lack of chicas and the impending rain, I am going to go home and feed the dogs.”