Captain's License

Had to go back to town to finish off the requirements for my Captain's license.

It had rained heavily for hours. Twice in the night I walked down the stairs to check on the boat.

The bilge pump had been on for an unknown time, so the boat was not filled with water but the battery had taken a hit. The float switch mounting screw had rusted through a stainless steel plate in a couple of months. Salt water exacts it's toll.

Off to town. Sputter. I just put 12 gallons in yesterday and only went three miles. Drain the water separator, repeat. Surge, choke, die. I couldn't raise anybody on the radio. Ayahh, a severed antenna lead. My replacement phone hadn't come in yet. Nothing to do but throw in anchor and try to keep the bow to the wind and wait for somebody to come by. The sky turned ominous.

Looking in the console I saw water on the top of the battery. What the hell? The battery case was filled with water. Ok, I drained it. Need one with a top or get ride of the case. What next?

I took off my boots and my shirt and jumped in and pulled the boat for a mile against the tide and the wind. Would I ever get her home? Rain. Lightning. Ahh shit, in salt water during a thunderstorm.

Finally when I was near tuckered and a half mile from home I hailed a boat. I needed assistance getting over the rail in what should have been an effortless kick and push. He pulled me to my house.

I summoned the water taxi from next door as it was returning to town. I walked down in the rain. How much for a tow to town? How much do you want to pay? $20 You are going back empty.

Last time you paid $30. Last time I overpaid. Last week I paid somebody else $25 and they came from town to get me. My phone was out, my internet was out. He was here.

Dropped off boat with Frank. Ran into Clay, the guy who built my house. He told me that there was a cleanout in the bottom of the downspout drain. What? I'd never seen one. I'll look more closely.

Back to get captains license. Where do I get my medical certificate? Upstairs. If you don't have one, you just pay $5 and they issue you one. I waited in line for an hour. A woman was hand filling a form that was passed to the next guy who typed it. Computers anybody? It took 6 to 10 minutes per person. I finally got to the front of the line and the woman told me I needed two copies of my passport. I had but one.

Off to pharmacy to get another copy of my passport.

Back to office. Wait in line for an hour. Tales of a boat in possession of the police confiscated from “Wild Bill”, a serial killer, sinking this morning in the rain. Dave's bookstore is flooding. Toro Loco, which serves some of the best meals in town, the only home style restaurant in town is shutting down for good, tired of government corruption. I finally get to the front of the line. The same woman who told me I needed two copies of my passport indicated that she needed only one.

Pay, downstairs. $168. Back up. Get License.

Back to Frank. We agreed that the appropriate action would be to install external tanks. This would be the fastest, cheapest option. It would also allow me to more closely monitor my gas usage on various trips and different cruising speeds. Between fueling it and repairs the boat is by far the biggest expense I have.

I walked back to Ruckel's, the Yamaha dealer in town that doesn't ever seem to have anything in stock that can't be found at a local hardware store. Nope, no tanks in stock. Ahh shit. Walk back to Frank's. Can I borrow a tank? He went of to Zaigon to get one.

Battery cover, gas tanks.

Sombra Robinson a local “deal maker” always has something to sell. From whence it comes may be suspect. He is trying to sell me a new outboard, a new prop. He said he could get me a tank. He returned a couple of minutes later with one, missing a vent screw. What good is this? He went off to get a vent screw. The guy had encountered me 10 times in the last two hours. Now I gave him $40 and expected him to get me the $10 change and catch up with me. I was walking barefoot down the street and he was on a bike. He never did seem to find me again even though I was off to the same stated destination.

About three Frank finally returned with a tank. I had paid him $30 to fill it. I hooked it up and was ready to go off when he insisted that it be installed in my aft locker. I have to meet a plumber at Red Frog. It will only take a few minutes? I know, it's not that difficult. He removed the hose from the tank, ran it through a drain hole in the locker and tried to reattach to tank. He couldn't get it on. He beat on it with a hammer to soften it. Worked it with pliers, stretched it with needle nose pliers and then with a big phillips screwdriver. I was getting disgusted. Don't you have another hose? He went into the supply cabinet and retrieved a newer more pliable hose. The concept of wanting to be on time escaped him. I was finally free to go, ten minutes before I was to meet a guy I had never met and a twenty minute ride to my destination.

When I arrived at the Red Frog workers dock, Gabriel was already on the workers, boat ready to go to Bocas. He saw me, hailed me, I pulled up to the boat and he boarded. Off to my house. I explained the situation to him. He had some long snakes but jamming them down through the cleanout was not possible. I mentioned the other cleanout got a shovel and within five minutes found it buried about a foot below the surface. A short trench was constructed, the plug removed and a filthy sludge of leaves and water gushed forth. A quick inspection and it appeared all the lines had been purged. This was the lowest point of the whole system. That was easy. Now, when is it going to rain again?

Now to run Gabriel to Bocas. Another trip to town. Another $15 in gas. The gas docks on Carenero were closed. No gas. Ok, I have an external tank, I'll go to the gas station on Colon. I was advised they had just run out of gas. No more gas in Bocas until Thursday.

I took him to Casa Verde, bought him a couple of beers. He looked at one girl and told me she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. I looked. She was one of the three Czechs that were to stay at my house. I walked over to the table and introduced him. He couldn't say a word. We discussed what they had done during the day and my day. The ring leader had finally arrived from Costa Rica, they went off to Taxi 25 to fetch her.

An hour later the goddess walked in. A spectacular 22 year old blonde Czech. Fantasy stuff wrapped in a simple, well fitted, flattering, but not sleazy dress. Eyes were bugging out every where. I approached, “Are you girls ready to go fishing tomorrow?” “No, we thought you were busy so we made plans to go to Red Frog, then we are heading back to Panama.” Ahhh shit, what lack of water will deprive a man of. We chatted for 15 minutes. They started speaking in Czech. I got the hint, then some groceries and went home.

Captain's Class

I went into town with Garrett. I had to take a boating safety course in order to get a now compulsory captains license.

The meeting was held in the XXXX building which is described as XXXX. Nobody in town had heard of it. The class was to start at nine. People were still registering at 9:40. When registration was compete a very corpulent man stood up and spoke extemporaneously and rapidly in Spanish, ocasionally discussing something that was related to the slide content.

It was a strange course. Nothing on rights of way, horn signals or buoys.

Compass navigation lessons were completed in less than a minute. Norte, Este, Sud,  Oeste and bearings. It couldn't have been more superficial or less informative. For some reason at least ten minutes was spent discussing how to remove fish hooks. Everything was covered in Spanish by a single man while five other staff members video taped the bored audience. This will have to rate as one of the most uninteresting videos ever.

About 11:30 it was completed and the crowd rushed over to a counter outside. Many people were renewing their licenses and seemed to have a clue. What next? I got some Panamanian, fluent in Spanish to tell me that I needed two passport photos, a medical certificate, a copy of my passport and had to take a boating competency test on a water taxi with a tiller outboard. I looked off the back deck and saw people from the class boarding a flat bench Panga. Nearly thirty people were going to take their test on this boat, playing musical chairs. What a cluster f**k. By the time I had told some gringos I was with where the dock was the boat was full. I figured at four minutes apiece this was going to take at least an hour and a half.

Back to the other end of town to meet the three Czech girls who were to stay with me for four nights.

Two were there, one was making here way from Tamarindo, Costa Rica. How long will that take? Well it's four or five hours from Tamarindo to San Jose, five hours from there to Puerto Viejo and from there another 3 or 4 hours. By then, she'll be too late for the water taxi. No way she can make it here today, regardless of what time she leaves.

Garrett decided to stay in town with the two.

I went home and contacted several local groups on Facebook looking for pipe augers. Within half an hour I had scheduled the only plumber in the area with augers to come to my house and do the work for whatever I thought it was worth.

Then I putzed around, cleaned up the boat and generally took care of some household tasks. While I was gone Jessica entered the house, shredded my foam mattess cover, chewed the fastener off my waterproof boat bag, and shredded a cardboard box.  Thanks, bitch.

Gone Fishing

We got in the boat and looked for Timon, my gardener. To what end I don't recall, my notes are sketchy.

We looked for the Jaguar, a local school teacher who lives on Bastimentos and runs a hostel. He's a cool guy. Bastimentos has no roads. One end of the island, Old Town has two sidewalks. One ends at the point, which heads out to open water and the other up the hill to trail that will get you over the top of the island to the open Caribbean. The sea is too rough to dock there so the only way you get there is dock on the bay side and walk over. In any event, we missed him as he wasn't out of school yet.

We hopped accross the bay and snorkeled at Hospital Point.

We returned and walked up the hill to the highest point on the island to a destination had nearly reached before without knowing it. It's a give shop called “Up the hill”. Up the hill we went, past the end of sidewalks, on muddy coconuts, through mud, down more trails to arrive at a store than must have had an inventory of less than $100. It was a few shelves in front of a house. Some coffee, earrings, chocolate, that's about it. I won't be back.

We returned to the hostel and met with jaguar for a scheduled fishing trip. He enjoys my company and takes me fishing for only the price of gas. It's a deal both ways.  He doesn't pay for gas at all, I pay for less than I would in my boat and we get to hang out and enjoy each others company.

First a casting need is used to retrieve a couple of gallons of sardines. These are tiny fish, we'd call them minnows back stateside.

 Bucket on board, the five of us, Jaguar and his neighbor boarded the boat. It's 22 footer with a tiller outboard and five bench seats. We were each handed a spool around which some monofilament line had been wound with a hook and sinker attached. This is the local style. No fancy casting reels. We tooled around from spot to spot catching pan sized snapper. For every keeper there were three throw backs but you could catch a fish a minute.

An afternoon with some friends at the Garden of Eden and a return home. A pleasing, quiet day.

Three Girls and Garrett

I was sitting at the Garden of Eden chatting with three friends, when the owner announced that there were people coming to my house. From his vantage point a water taxi could be observed.

I popped back to my house to greet them before they could even get out of the water taxi. Kehrin a sweetheart dancing girl from Cairo actually now a professional wedding planner in California. Stephanie was from Florida, and owned lots of rental units on both coasts, finding attractively priced quadplexes and renting them out providing her with a free place to live and some small money in her pocket. She also flew around conducting seminars. Some girl I can't remember from California. Garret from California and had been picked up by the girls on the way as they were smitten with him.

"Jim you know everybody!"  "What do you mean?"  Wait you just grabbed a random water taxi guy and told him you want to "Go to Jim's house? That was your plan?"  I know maybe a third of the people who live her, but I sure don't know every water taxi driver and most of them don't know where I live.  You were lucky.  No we just asked in town if somebody knew Jim and that we were trying to get to his house and a guy said that he knew you and called the water taxi.   Even stranger is running into somebody who knows what water taxi guy I use and his number.

We put down their bags, they had a few drinks at the Garden of Eden and we left with Lindsey, the chief administrator of the place. Garrett and one of the girls cooked a wonderful dinner, dancing while doing so. I took Lindsey back and we just kind of hung out, listening to music and chatting.

Not a very interesting store, but Garrett will play some interesting roles, so just consider this background.

Small World

Small world.  I come from a town of 10,000 people.  I've run into two in the mountains of Veraguas, Panama, one in a Ngobe Indian Village where there is nothing but Indians.  Another in Santa Fe, Veraguas, where there are but 13 gringos.  Next week?  A woman I don't know, from my home,  is coming down from San Jose, Costa Rica to spend a couple of days with me in the jungle, and on the beaches and on the water in Panama.

In the meantime, I have to get this Armenian born German somewhere else to preserve my sanity.