Hiking

Ok, let's try it again.  After an aborted attempt to cross Bastimentos on Friday with Mel and Sina (a Schweizer), terminated by a trip to the hospital to get a bunch of stitches on a gashed finger we set out again.  Some woman was reclining in a hammock.  "Are you going to go with us or just lie in a hammock all day?"  "I've already booked a snorkeling trip."  Mel looked at me and we just shared a silent laugh.  Ohh, the tourist route, hanging with the throngs.  "Where are you going?"  "First a jungle trek, then some swimming then who knows what."

We got on the boat.  The phone rang.  "Hi, Ricky."  "Dos chicas están buscando."  "Oh, hi, Cuba.  Bonita?" "Mucho." "Donde?"  "Mar y Iguana."  Then the conversation went downhill, I talked with one girl, then the other but the connection was really bad.  I texted that I would meet them at Over the Water Rentals and we headed out.   Ten minutes later Mel finally noticed that we were going the wrong direction, but she is well accustomed to my impromptu changes.

I docked, Marlin came over, I threw him a line, and Mel tied off the bow.  "Hi Claudia!"  Marlin, did two girls come here looking for me?  French."  "No."  "Hmm."  So we walked to Mar y Iguana.  They had left, looking for me.  We exited and turned the other way to loop back around the other path.

No girls.  Back to the boat.  They called and gave me the name of a restaurant they were standing in front of.  "Stay there."  Off I went again.  A couple of hundred yards down the road I spotted them and gave a big two handed wave and they responded in kind.  A guy pulled up to me on a bike.  "Two girls are looking for you."  "I see them thanks."  Repeat after 30 yards.

These cuties were obviously going to be fun.  Hell, they were all smiles just to have found me.  Back to the boat.  Introductions.  Head 'em up, move 'em out.  "Hi, Mauricio."  We walked up to talk with an elderly Argentinian who lives in a camper.  I couldn't make introductions as I didn't know the girl's names.  "This is Mauricio, also know as Santa Claus."

We amused the guys at the gas dock.  Well, the girls did anyway.

They introduced themselves, Candice and some Moroccan name. We stopped by a friends boat and I dropped off their backpacks and suggested that they put some swimsuits on.  Mel and I went to the upper deck while they changed.   How does it take twenty minutes to change?  Who knows?

"Where are we going?"  "Trekking in the jungle to a beach."   A few minutes later we pulled up to a small dock, found an untended pair of rubber boots.  Three girls, three sets of boots. I went barefoot.  A trail had been cut through a large swath of land across the island, from Bahia Honda to Wizard Beach on the Caribbean.  Up and down.  Up and down.  "Somewhere around here is a chunk of Jim's finger."  Mel and I have had so many adventures that she is now the tour guide and boat crew.

The path narrowed.  We crossed many a recently built bridge over streams.  Over logs, under barbed wire.  Many red frogs, a yellow frog.  Down yet another slope.  "WHOA!"  Wow, one fat iguana laid there, basking in the sun.  Lucky girls, the usually frequent the treetops.  "Is it dead."  "No."  Mel, posed for a picture and I managed to get one.  Then the other two girls tried but the iguana shot off like it was fired from a gun.  I am more accustomed to them dropping out of the trees from branches overhanging the water and swimming away.

Up a hill. Down a hill. "Look, a snake!"  Moving more slowly as we were walking on rocks and I was barefoot, I yelled, "Stay back."  I don't know what it was.  A black and white thin, long snake.  Up the hill to a pasture.  Goats roaming around.  

Down a hill.  The caretaker's house.  I called him over.  He did not look amused.  I handed him his machete.  He was still not amused. Get over it, this is going to become a resort soon.   Down to the base of the hill across a boardwalk through the mangroves.  I yelled out to some guy walking along the beach.  He approached. "Is this Red Frog Beach?"  "No, that's about a kilometer that we."  He quickly checked out each of my fellow adventurers and headed on his way.

Pictures, pictures, we want pictures.  I have given up taking pictures.  Same places, same activities.  Sailing, snorkeling, boating, trekking, fishing.  One day flows into the next.

Yoga poses. Three girls in nothing but shorts and rubber boots, holding machetes.  More yoga poses.   I was frigging hungry.   Off to Red Frog beach, the next one over.  Down the beach, over rocks, up deep muddy trails.  Knee deep in mud.  People with machetes on horseback.  More mud. More people with machetes on horseback.  

A split in the trail.  I decided to take the short cut down a very steep slippery slope.  I was filthy anyway and it was better than walking barefoot on sharp rocks and coral.   Into the water.  Shit, sea urchins everywhere, black balls of fragile sharp spines that break off in your foot.  The girls walked without concern in their bikinis and rubber boots.  Yup, I offer a different take on Bocas.

Presently we arrived at Palmar, a lovely resort on the beach owned by the same guy who owns the land we just crossed.   The girls put down their boots, we washed our feet and had lunch, and walked back to the entrance dock.  A water taxi was about to leave.  I offered him $8 to take us to my boat, describing its location.  He knew the spot exactly.   

Back at the boat.  Mel returned the borrowed boots, we snorkeled and we headed back to town grabbed some grub and I took the two girls home for dinner.

https://plus.google.com/photos/111275040267764796607/albums/5895635789172135857

A trip around Solarte - Take 22

The morning was spent reviewing my stocks, ensuring trailing stop % limit sell orders were in place.  Thank god I have computer that works.  Then I started buying some of the stocks that had automatically triggered sales after having precipitously declined after the Fed announcement of the planned cessation of quantitative easing.

Issus sent me a message.  Sure, let's do something.  So we toured around.

I picked her up in Bastimentos Town.  Having just made her way down a hill in the jungle, coming from the permaculture farm she is working at she was wearing a black miniskirt and rubber boots.  What a sight.

"Where are we going?"  I just laughed.  I didn't even know.   I was killing a little time before I was to check out a boat I might buy.  Lunch at the Pickled Parrot on Carenero seems in order.  George is an experience every local needs to have.  Closed.  Next door to Bibi's.  Closed.

 Over to the south anchorage.  Nobody home. Where to? I had a twelve pack of beer aboard.  I was to have traded it for a couple of dead computers.  My intent was to salvage the hard drives.   Eight bucks for two drives is a pretty good deal.  The guy never came for the swap.

The Rip Tide should be open.  Back around town, between the populated water front and a huge barely submerged sandbar that developed years ago during an earthquake.  I docked next to the Rip Tide an old Key West wooden shrimping boat that now serves as a restaurant and a drinking hole for the local drunks.  There are plenty of people who start drinking red beer at nine in the morning in Bocas.  I ran into a friend who immediately made his way over to chat with us.  Within two minutes he found that she was volunteering on a farm and offered to let her live on his boat for free if she would only provide her own food and clean it.  Nice try Joe.  She had offered to stay at my house, cook and start a garden.  Maybe.

We headed east and I worked my way through the mangroves.  We pulled up at a dock and made our way along a wooden walkway through a large expanse of mangroves.  "Este hermoso." Or something to that effect.

Presently we arrived at a little shack, situated on a speck of clay.  Retaining walls, secured by PVC encapsulated concrete pilings held the soil from washing into the bay.  The windows were shuttered, the door was closed, but Kirk's boat had been at the dock.  A tiny generator was charging a car battery.  Not much of a power system but there is not much to power.  A couple of lights and a small TV.  The shack is a tool shed with a bed.  A padlock hung on an unsecured hasp.  I handed the six pack to Issis, asked her to inquire, "You asked for beer delivery?"  and stepped around the corner.

The door opened and a grizzled seventy seven year old man appeared.  The man is a legend and is more fit than most twenty year olds.  I met his extended hand and placed mine in to the rough bear trap.   He offered us some cold beers.  After a brief visit we headed out. I meandered through the many mangrove islands easily spotting my next stop by observing the types of trees and the contours of the tree tops.

Next stop, Clyde's.  We pulled up to the dock and were greeted by Ohos, the dog.  Up the ramp we came to a two room house. The front half of the house had no walls, just gnarly thin trunks that served as posts and rails.  Tarps served to close the place off from the elements on particularly windy, rainy days.

Love the view?  Let's go see the host.  We descended the steps to be greeted by Clyde.  From his belt hung a jungle knife he always wears, a leatherman and this time, a 10 mm semiautomatic pistol with a spare clip.  Issis asked about the gun.  "I didn't recognize the outboard sound.  But I knew everything was OK when Ohos stopped barking."  I am a frequent visitor, coming by two or three times a week with whatever companion I managed to secure on any given day.  Tourists stream through town.  Some stay for just a few days, others are "leaving tomorrow" for months on end.   Clyde extended the offer to slather Issis in coconut oil to protect her from the chitras that had not yet begun their daily visit.   I told Clyde I would return with her someday and we could cook up a dinner.  This suggestion was well received by both of them.

Just one more island and I had to take this Cinderella home before she had to try to navigate her way through the jungle in the darkness.  A crazy boat, a bizarre, whimsical structure adorned the bay.  I pulled around the point and a lanky blonde English guy waved at me from atop the hill.  "Hey, Jack!" We pulled up to the dock.  What's this, my third visit this week?  Well, it's part of one of my quick tours.  Our visit was brief, we shall return.  Ok, girl, let me take you back to your jungle lodgings.

Prattling

Maybe I should go back to just reporting interesting things.

Monday

Ah Shit.  The stock market is still going down.  I thought that the response to the Fed announcement on quantitative easing was irrational. The news was a bright economic outlook.  Friday is always a cashout day anyway.

I got on my computer and made sure that I had trailing stop percentage sell orders in place until I lost internet connectivity.  Off to town to continue.

I had promised myself that I would not subject my new computer to rain, salt water and endless hours of pounding, but this called for action, the cost of the computer was trivial in compared to the losses in the making.  

No electricity in town.   One of the three diesel generators that power this town was being replaced.   Why is there not sufficient capacity to run on two while maintenance is done on one of them?  These things are beyond comprehension.  I bought a replacement battery for my backup phone.

I stopped by Chris's boat.  "Got any food?" "No." "Coffee?" "No." Of course not.  Why did I ask?

He was charging his batteries so I plugged in my computer.  One of my two phones that was dead was hooked up to my computer the computer powered up.   Wow!  Minutes later it was fully charged.  So I have eight chargers that won't charge this phone.  Cheap, Chinese pieces of shit, Nokia knockoffs too, apparently.

Where to for lunch?  I'll go check on Grumpy.  Nope, the Pickled Parrot was closed.

Back to Casa Verde.  It started to rain.  I undid the bowline, leaving the stern line until I got the motor started.  One quick pull and I lurched forward and slammed to a stop with the stern rope taut.  WTF?  It's not supposed to pull while in gear.  I hurried to town.   Yes! Electricity.  Of course, their internet was not working.   I have no idea how they manage to make the thing so unreliable.  Where is that girl that is coming?  No way to check my email.   Oh well, when it stops raining, I'll scrounge one up somewhere.

I wish they would hurry up with that burger.  I have to get online.  Trying not to each junk food, but when it's raining and after one and I haven't eaten yet, well, one won't hurt, much.

Bought a thumb drive.  Walking down the street, a cute young woman with a couple of guys.  "That's Jim, the coolest guy ever."  "Thanks, Melissa, but recruit me a cute girl." "Haha, like you need help."  Pepper Spary?  Sure, why not.  If I think about it and don't buy it, I'll regret.  Not that I will ever have it in reach.  If I carry it in my pocket, I will lose it in ten minutes.  "Hi Jim!" "Hola Nadia." "Hey!" (Jesus, fucking Sombra."  "Que paso, Mr. Jim?"  "Todo bien, Carlos."  And so it went.  The locals up and down third avenue.

Jesus I need to epoxy that exposed wood on the boat.

Windows 8 blows.

A start panel with a bunch of apps that are only full screen.  This is not a tablet, this is a frigging computer.  Want to run a program?  Hit Windows C, Search and try to guess the name of the program.  Nice, you frigging clowns.  Want a program to start up automatically just open the file explorer if you can type it and type shell:start that will bring you to the folder into which you should create your shortcut.   Now, good luck trying to find out where the program is located.  What the hell is wrong with these idiots?

Got to visit Kirk and drill a hole for that through hull fitting for the bilge pump. Of course the battery is about to die.  I lent my battery charger, brand new $240 to somebody.  It was stolen while he was using it.  He claims I was storing it there and is not responsible for thef

Still raining.

Can I create a live boot thumb drive and recover the stuff I have at home?  Oh, it's not at home, it's across town.  Damn, I need a 3.0 USB external disk drive case.  "Tiena una disco caja?"  Of course not.  What was I thinking?

Writing at 2MB/sec.  Jesus.  I finally got a computer that supports USB 3 and I don't have any peripherals other than 2.0.

I got my hamburger.  "Did I piss you off?" "Como?"  "Did you run out of meat?" "Como?" "No mas molida?  Este muy poco."  WTF?  That's a hamburger?

I need a break.  Cuba?  Thailand?

Shit, I have to send off money to the guy in Panama City to get my camera repaired.

Trouble in Paradise.  Here comes crazy.  Sorry you ran out of meds, you should do something about it.  But please don't come and bitch to me about everything in your pathetic life that annoys you.  Three more weeks and you are on to Colomb?ia. Why don't you go now and study your Spanish there?

Hola Cuba!  

Why the hell won't my computer connect to my phone?  This bluetooth configuration screen blows.

Cuba wanted to charge his phone on my computer.  His charger won't work on his phone.  Huh, I plugged it in and had to wiggle it then it worked on mine. Same thing as with the USB cable from my computer.  This frigging phone was $60 and I only plugged in the USB once before.

Well done. All phone batteries charged.

More Same Shit, Different Day

Tuesday

Rain.  More rain. The sun finally broke through around.  "I'm heading out.  Wanna go? Ella was content with the tranquility of the deck and her iPad.  I was restless.  Off to town.

I really need to do something about this skiff before it sinks. The battery gets jostled around.  They really need to be kept level to keep the plates covered in electrolyte.   I walked a couple of miles trying to catch a cab to no avail.  I walked back and finally one stopped for me and I headed eout to a wood shop out of town.

Stefan, our resident master cabinet maker was ripping boards on a table saw. "Hey, you got five minutes to build something for me?"  "No, I am way behind.  Feel free to use the shop."  "Alright, I just need two five foot one by fours and two one foot one by fours for my boat." He grabbed a piece of tobacco wood planed it and ripped it.  That took about a minute.  So much for not helping.  I cut the pieces to length. "How much for the wood?" "Buy me a beer sometime."

Off to the hardware store.  I need 8 stainless steel screws.  I placed the wood around the battery case on the counter.  After stepping outside for a cigarette I returned to find an employee in the back room with a drill, drilling holes and assembling my contrivance.  A short while later I asked the owner what I owed him for the screws.  He just laughed.  I headed out and placed the thing on my boat.

After killing a little time in town I headed home.  There was Ella on the dock.  She finally got bored of  Facebooking and decided to catch fish.  "Hop aboard."  "Where are we going?" "To see a friend." "But I am not wearing a bra!"  "Let me see.  Perfect. Hop aboard."

Off we went.  One hectare of landscape island.  A house with no walls, no working toilet (shit in the mangroves) and an outdoor shower.  Interesting eh?

Ella picked a few pineapples and we headed home.

Thursday

Bored.  Off to town.  A tall blonde girl was talking into her iPad in some Nordic language. When she was done, Mel asked her in Norwegian what city she was from.  I thought this was pretty funny after Mel told me that the girl had been saying that she could say anything she wanted and no one would know what she was saying.   I turned around and said to my Belgian friend, "Chris, you speak Swedish, do you understand Norwegian?"  "Ja."  A crimson tide.

OK.  Teasing was over.

"I am going to make a run to my house.  C'mon girls."  Mel got on the boat.  I asked the Norwegian girl.  She looked at me and then and got on the boat. "Why not, I got on a bus with some people I didn't know and ended up in Panama.  I didn't even know where we were going."  A few miles later introductions were made.  

Two tanks of propane, thirty pounds of dog food.  One hundred steps.  No that was Friday.  They all run together. 

Speaking of Friday, I got a new computer.  Windows 8 sucks the ass of Satan.

Mel and Cecila

Then twelve of us sailed on a big boat to Starfish Beach, had a bonfire and cooked chicken, fish, steaks and made s'mores.  A German, a Thai, a Norwegian, a Belgian, a Spaniard, two from England, some Canadians, strangely no Argentinians.

Visit to the Resort

I don't know.  My computer was out for a while.  Same shit different day.

But you asked for it, so here I recall Monday's activity.

Issis and I had a coffee while Ella slumbered.  Then another one.  We just stood on the deck admiring the view.  So tranquil and quiet a breaking dawn.   An hour later Ella appeared.   Issis fixed a quick breakfast and we headed down to the boat.

With plenty of gas there was no need to go to town, so we headed east to the cut and south.  "Where are we going?"  "Wherever my spirit moves me." Hell, I didn't know.

Oh yeah, Issis wanted to see Haciena del Toro.  Off to Dolphin Bay.  Before we got there we ran into five.  Actually we didn't hit any, but five surfaced right near the skiff.  I slowed down to idle, primarily to avoid injury to the dolphins with a side benefit of extending our viewing time.  The dolphins headed off, we proceeded on course.

It amazes me how few people notice the wandering course I take. You have to know the waters. Rocks and sand bars and coral can be in places where they are disclosed by water color and in still water the telltale disturbances don't exist.  Around a shoal into an opening, left, right, past a house.  Looks like I am heading into the mangroves.  A narrow, shallow cut through the mangroves, barely wider than the boat never fails to satisfy.  Right, left, an arc, right, swing left, between some sticks that marked the opening to a channel.  Down a canal to a lagoon. We docked.  "All right, you are now crew,  at least learn use a cleat."

We explored the property which is giving me so much grief. It's beautiful, but a pain in the ass.  Up to the bar to take in the view.  Over to the house.  I took a hanging chair, Issis another and we just hung out at soaked in the breeze and view.  Issis was overwhelmed by the potential of the place.

I was annoyed that the person that was to have started on Monday to work and guard the place obviously never showed.  We boated around trying to find his house, but I had but the vaguest idea where it was, just general descriptions.  We never found the place but the exploring was  fun.

Issis wanted to go back to where she was staying. She had no personal effects and another day in the same clothes was a bit much for her.   So, we headed out to Bastimentos and I dropped off at the last dock in Old Bank where she would trek for a while through the jungle to the organic farm she was working at.  Gotta love a woman who knows all sorts of exotic food plants, knows how to grow them and cook them.  Sure doesn't hurt if she looks stunning in a bikini.

Ella went off and procured the ingredients for a typical Chinese meal and cooked up five or six dishes.  It was nothing like anything I have ever had in a  Chinese restaurant. Not surprising.

Issis and Ella

"Jim, a girl is looking for you."  "Who?"  "She didn't say."

Who knows. Be diligent.  I am not that difficult to find. It's a small town and I am hardly a wallflower.

An hour later a redhead approached me. "Jim?"  "Yup."

Issis was from Brazil. She just oozed the famous sexuality of the country.  

"I'm bored, let's go have an adventure!"  "Where are we going?"  "Part of the adventure is the unknown.  Put your trust in me and you won't be disappointed."

First, a stretch of open water.  Her ass was pounding on the seat.  "Do you want a seat cushion?"  "No, I have a 'boom-boom butt.'" Indeed, she does.

I helped her aboard the skiff.  We headed out to Bahia Honda and pulled up to a dock.  Two manic dogs ran down a flight of stairs and started licking me furiously.   "Is that your house?"  "Yup." I scratched my puppies and we headed out to the end of the bay and beyond.

If one knows where one is going a small brackish river is readily located.  As it makes a quick bend after entry it is near invisible from any distance to the unknowing.  Ahh, it's a wonderous place.  Presently a Ngobe Indian paddled up behind us while we putted up the river. We reached the dock for a small community that lives in the jungle, chatted briefly with the Indian and headed back into the sunset.

"Jim, a girl is looking for you."  "She's right here." "No, another one."

Ella. From China.  The three of us sat down.  Mel joined us.  Then Jen.  I saw a friend, "Hey, Joe, we are about to stuff our faces with fresh yellowfin sashimi." Six of us troughed out.

Ella had just arrived in town and had her backpack.  Issis was living here. It was time to go home.  "Anybody want to stay at my place?"  Ella asked, "How far is it to your house?"  "Six miles."  "Wow, do you have a car?" "Nope.  Doesn't matter, I live on another island." "Can we walk there?" "???????? WTF?"

 Off to the store to get something for breakfast.  Issis and I walked some past some local ne'erdowells.  "Jim, you shure gotta fine one tonight!'"  She's from Brazil and took it in strut.

Issis and Ella and I said our goodbyes and headed out.  "You're in luck girl, I have a new toothbrush." Issis went in and brushed her teeth then Ella went into the shower and somehow managed to unscrew the valve stem completely and didn't notify me until she was done taking a shower with water pouring into and out of the wall. The floor in the guest bedroom had a pool of water.   I shut off the pump and threaded the stem back in.  Damn it.

Weekend with Mel

It's been what? More than a week?  I haven't been accomplishing much.  Too frustrated to continue without a break, I took a break.

Starfish Beach

Chris, Alejandra, Melissa, Jennifer and I took a panga to Starfish Beach and had a campfire under the stars and grilled chicken.  Jen managed to step on a hot coal and get a third degree burn on her foot.  Things went downhill from there.  By the end of the night I was worn out.   

"Hey, Mel, are you ready to spend the weekend with me?"

When we returned, she went to her room and grabbed her stuff.  We headed home.  Sweet peace.

Weekend

View Tooling Around in a larger map

Whatever we did on Saturday is lost.  I have no idea.  I think it rained and we just hung out at the house.  At five I laid down for a nap and awoke 13 hours later, at dawn.

Sunday, the weather was clear.  Off for adventure. We had plenty of gas, so we just headed east, down through 

the cut between my island and Bastimentos, headed South to the of end the island and visited Coral Key or Crawl Cay.  Northeast to the Southeastern point of the island, up a river to Salt Creek, a Ngobe Indian community, over to a beach, back on the boat  to one of the Zapatillas, pristine little islands surrounded by beach.

I beached the skiff, but the water kept washing over the stern.  Back into the water, I tied off to a mooring buoy on the leeward side and we swam in the clear blue water for a couple of hours.

We continued past the last island in the archipeligo and arrived at Playa Verde.  This Ngobe community in the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca is the real deal.  We were greeted at the beach by a throng.  Mel was quite impressed.  "Donde este Eta?" Eta is the Ngobe name for the Peace Corp worker that resides there, his real name is Evan, maybe Ian.

The seas were calm. The boat was lightly loaded.  Alright, let's check out Kusapin.  What girl doesn't like cool photos of herself?   I pulled up to a rock, asked her to give me her camera, and instructed her to get out of the boat.  I pulled away a bit and took a picture.  The only copy I have has been photoshopped.  The water is brilliant blue in reality

Around the point, unprotected from a hundred miles of fetch the waves no longer insignificant, five feet or so, but gentle rollers.  I spotted the entry to Kusapin but couldn't figure out  how to get to shore through all the coral.  A water taxi was taking a severely serpentine path.  I tilted the outboard a couple of of notches, most of the the thrust was vertical, the orientation of the prop and the skeg, in conjunction with idling speed and I hoped to get to shore without incident.  We tied off to a pier and went in search of a restaurant. We ordered pollo guisado (chicken in gravy) and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  One of the women that worked in the restaurant left and returned with an ice cream.  Mel went out and fetched a couple, which had been dispensed in tiny plastic cups.  Friggin' awesome.  am sure it was made with condensed milk.

We waited some more.  An hour and a half had elapsed.  Forget it.  I paid the bill.  I was charged for the chicken we never received.  A couple of waters and a piece of banana bread came to about $7.

Time to go.  There was supposed to be some kind of channel.  Hmmm.  I followed the shoreline towards a house and gingerly made my way out there.  As advised by all ashore it was "Totalmente coral".  Watching the water I made my way through the deepest water I could find.  Then I turned left.  To my left was coral, ahead rocks, to the right a five foot breaking wave threatened the boat.  I had no choice but to try to outrun it. With just enough gas I positioned myself just ahead of the break, more happenstance than planning the wave approached my beam on quarter and we surfed out between the rocks on the leading edge of the wave.  It was butthole puckering.

The rest of the long return trip was made without stops, a long boat ride.

Marita

I woke up, to a gentle rocking. Oh yeah,  I slept on Marita last night.  Not enough gas for the skiff to make a round trip.   Plenty of food and water for the dogs at home.

C'mon Chris, you have a charter, let's clean this dump up.

We moved shit off the back deck, out of the salon, from the cabins, from the pilot house.   Hoses, clamps, pumps, electrical fittings, tools, miscellany.  I emptied a dozen overflowing ash trays.   We took a boatload of shit to the battlestar, a retired naval vessel Chris had acquired for $1.  Another trip, more shit.   I emptied drawer after drawer, folded wrinkled bits of paper, crayons, colored pencils, water colors and stuffed this collection of little Noah's doodlings into a plastic bag.   Hundreds of keys that would never enter a lock again, candles, ancient medications, drawer after drawer of crap.

The pilot house upper deck as covered in solid black hardened mold.   Some muriatic acid turned it red.   Straight 3.5% bleach and scrubbing got it clean.  Now to get another 30 gallons of bleach.  We took five gallons of diesel off the battlestar.   Then we couldn't start the generator because the batteries are dead.   I took my charger ashore and intended to bring a cable so I could run two in series and rehabilitate a couple of batteries that I have to run in series for my charger.   Shit, left the cable on Alejandra's panga.

C'mon Jessica

Sure, you want to go girl?   Come aboard.   Off to town.   I walked my pooch around, socializing her with people and trying to socialize her with other dogs and teach her to heel.

About two Jen and Mel were ready to go snorkeling.  About time.   Definitely working on Panama time.  Off to Old Bank, we walked most of the way to Wizard Beach, then back to the marina to get my snorkel gear out of my boat.  Out to Hospital Point.  

Ahh, the masks are brand new.   Well, I have some toothpaste.  I never know when I am going to spend the night somewhere other than my house.   I scrubbed the silicone off the inside of the lenses, spit on the lenses, rinsed them in water and sent them out.   Bobbing in the waves, I took the boat for a quick spin to pull the plug and drain the water that had accumulated over the stern in the short time I was idling.  This little skiff is definitely going to see bottom some day.

I returned.  Where the hell is Mel?  I picked up Jen and went back to a tour boat that was moored at a buoy.  There she is aboard the tour boat.  Not quite the andventurer that Jen is.  Well, the water should be calmer at my house.   Mel saw a jellyfish and immediately wanted out of the water.  Jen couldn't give a rat's ass.  

Off to the end of the bay and up a small river toward the bat cave.  Only got stuck a couple of times.  Sunken logs everywhere.  Back to town.   Back to the house.  Jessica crawled between my legs, scared of all of the pounding that was compressing my vertebrae.

This skiff barely burns gas but it is not much of a boat.  Gotta go, it's probably sinking right now.

Another One of Those Days Begins

Last night I knew I was cutting things close.  Not much gas in the skiff.  Maybe I can make it home and back to town, not likely.

This morning I grabbed a few things and stuffed them in my backpack.  The dogs knew that meant I was heading out.   No working computer at home, that's another story.  The phones won't take a charge either.  Two phones, five batteries, five battery chargers.  What kind of Bermuda Triangle of electronics have I entered?

New moon low tide.  I pulled the lightweight skiff out of muck.  I had pulled her close to shore to prevent her from sinking in case in rained.   Although Saturday I had improvised a bilge pump arrangement it was really sketch.  Purchasing a bilge pump, a float switch, battery connectors, a section of hose, a through hull fitting, a wire nut, some screws. a stainless steel push plate for a door,  some hose clamps and some liquid dialectric.   I bolted the switch and the pump to the plate, wired up the switch, put on the terminals and returned to hook it up to my boat.   It was rainining hard.  Mel was bailing the skiff, good thing else it would have found bottom.

In any event, it was time to secure this bilge pump, clean up the wiring, put in the through hull fitting in place, secure the wiring in a tube, effect a better installation of the battery wires, hook up the motor to charge the battery while underway and then tend to my scheduled activities, of foremost priority was getting a new foot for the outboard on my panga.

Off to town then.  |Well, partway.   Halfway between Carenero and Colon I exhausted the gas.  Soon a water taxi towed me the mile to the gas dock.   I filled up the tank and pulled repeatedly.   Soon the knot pulled right through the rubber pull handle.   I had no washer aboard.  I pumped the primer bulb repeatedly, wrapped the cord around the pull handle and pulled and pulled and pulled.  I popped the cowling and grabbed a loose cable that functioned as the choke control while trying to steady the motor with a second hand and pull with a third.   As I was doing this Victor, the attendant walked over.   During my thrashing the discharge hose was knocked into the boat and the drain plug was pulled loose by a security chain.  I was sinking.   I put the plug back in, better be sure to get another today and a spare, despite having no place to store any tools, spare hoses, hose clamps, lubricant, wrenches, screwdrivers, cable ties, wire, duct tape and other items I always carry on my panga.

|It finally started and I made it to town.  "Jim, can I talk with you for a minute?"  What now?  Need money?  Mom in the hospital?   Oh, you want me to repair your computer.   Shit, it's not like I don't have a huge backlog of my own stuff to take care of.

I am getting worn out.  I need a break.

"Sailing"

"C'mon, Jim, we are going to Starfish Beach, you wanna come along?"  

"Sure, which boat?"

"Carlos's".

"Meetcha there."

"Hey girls, let's go to the beach."  

"OK"

We met on Isla Carenero.   The boat owner, far cry from any sort of Captain, a 55 year old Uraguan, Mauricio a white haired, white bearded Argentinian Santa Claus who spent 16 years hitchhiking and sleeping under bridges, 45 year old Belgian Chris, 30 something year old Alejandra, hailing from Spain, 30 something Nadia from Argentina, 24 year old Melissa (Mel) from Thailand and 24 year old Jennifer from Belgium and I boarded the boat.  I tied my skiff behind her.

We motored slowly in the thrice sunk hull.  It never fully sank, but water rose over the tops of the counters in the galley.   Through hull fittings, bud, you have to watch this stuff.

At Starfish Beach Nadia wanted me to take her to bird Island.   Mel and Jen wanted to go.  Mauricio wanted to come. I don't know whether he was more strongly motivated by never having seen these rocks that jut up out of the open water with near vertical cliffs and opening straight though that have been eroded by the pounding waves or the fact that I was taking every single woman with me.

Five aboard a 15 foot skiff powered by a 15 HP outboard.   Maybe a foot of freeboard.  Not a life jacket, fire extinguisher, flare, whistle, or anchor.   Bocas perfect.   Around the point and into the swells.   Boats flip over out there all the time.   It's June, just exercise caution and don't let the engine fail me.

Struggling uphill, speeding downhill, pointing into the swells.  Forty minutes later we made it.  Everyone aboard was enraptured.   I idled in the calmer waters leeward, they took pictures then we headed back.   Nadia, admitted that she had been scared shitless.  

We motored back.  Carlos has never put this boat under sail.  Nor can he dock it, nor tie a knot, he doesn't even know how to wrap a cleat.  I showed the girls how to tie an overhand knot, a square knot, a bowline, a clovehitch, a sheet bend, a figure eight knot and an overhand knot, just the simplest most often useful knots.

Chris took the helm and docked the boats while Alejandra and I handled the lines.   I headed home, suspicious of the amount of gas I had.  Certainly enough to get home, questionable on making the return.

Rainy Day

Too much rain to convince anybody to go anywhere. Shit, this little skiff is going to sink soon. A stainless steel push plate for a door, some liquid water tight seal, a bilge pump, a hose, a couple of hose clamps, a through hull fitting, some battery terminals. The haphazard collection was placed in the back of the little skiff afixed beneath a battery sure to get jostled. This thing needs to get glassed in.

Still waiting on a lower unit for the panga. Checking on getting the floor ripped out and replace with slats of treated pine. I am falling behind on everything.

Cruising

I entered the muck behind my skiff and pushed it into water deep enough that it would float.  It doesn't take much.  I bailed for twenty minutes and got on the boat, dripping muck everywhere.

Off to Casa Verde, what else do we need?   Ten bags of ice, a couple of blocks, some superglue, gas.

We hooked up the stereo on the trimaran and I headed back for the girls.  We waited a while, nobody is ever on time in Panama.   This time, it was us.  By the time we got to the trimaran all the tourists were aboard.  This was some group from Alberta.   I was later to find out that they pay $100 a day for the tour.  For this they get $25 accommodations, sleeping four to a room and bus transport.  They provide their own meals and tours are extra.   $75 per person per day for god knows what.   A bus ride from Panama City is $33.  That was four days ago.  They stayed on Carenero, a haven for sand flies and these people were pretty well eaten up.

I grabbed a drill, a funnel, a bottle of rum and a box of straws and the girls offered to help.  Here, drill two holes.  Put a straw in one, have the person drink some of the coconut water and then put the funnel in the other hole and pour in some rum.   This was my creation, although, there being nothing new under the sun I have no doubt this was independently invented many times.

We sailed out to the first stop by which time people had consumed immoderate amounts of alchohol.  They were Canadians, lest you forget.   I took the girls off to see a friend in the jungle.   They thought it was awesome and didn't want to leave.  We can come back anytime, you will be here another five weeks.  Off to my place for a few minutes and back to the boat.

They started pulling each others swim suits off and dancing in the buff.  Jen looked at me, raised a blonde eyebrow and said, "Really?"  Hey, it's Bocas.

A few more stops and then there was a request for some crazy punch made of ginger ale, vodka, pineapple and energy drinks.  It tasted like gasoline.   On the way back, we passed three generations paddling a panga.  I don't know what was wrong with the engine.  Surely one of them must have a phone and a friend to call.  I tied them off and pulled them around the point, stopped at the trimaran, dropped off the girls and supplies and pulled them home.   Lots of people on the deck.  Lots of boats.  What the hell?   Who knows?  The guy thanked me and asked how much he owed me.  "Just help out some other stranded boater.  You spend a lot of time on the water, you'll be stranded eventually."

Back to the boat.  With all of the seriously inebriated people aboard only one was an asshole.   "More ice bitch, dig deep."  Charming.   Back to town, I dropped the girls off.  We exchanged phone numbers, "friended" each other on Facebook.  "Thanks, Jim, you are really cool.  That was an awesome day."  Hugs and kisses.  "Later girls."  "Absolutely."

Not Exactly Productive

I need a second boat.   It's not an option when leaving your house requires a boat.  My 23' panga needs a lower unit on the outboard.   It also needs to lose a lot of weight.   The wood flooring substrate has been thoroughly soaked four times.  That's 3/4" of heavy plywood, water soaked and covered with a thick layer of fiberglass.   

On Tuesday we towed the boat over to a guy who started working on it last December.   Just cut the whole floor out and replace it with slats of treated lumber.   This makes it easier to inspect hull integrity and wiring.  It should also result in the loss of about 600 pounds.   It's been there two days, nothing has been done to her.

I had taken the outboard off the bathtub I was driving around and recruited I guy I had met to help me carry it to a mechanic's house.   Couldn't expect the mechanic to lift anything.   I placed it into a water filled plastic barrel, cleaned off the engine.  He pulled the flywheel cover and tried to start it.  He got the pull rope caught under the flywheel.  Using a screwdriver and needle nose pliers I worked the rope out and wrapped it and started her up.  He ran it for an hour.  No sign of oil leakage.   

I stopped for lunch at a fast and cheap restaurant and ran into a woman I know.  She wants to film wildlife, including snakes.   Well, the guy who is supposed to be working on my boat is one crazy bastard who will happily catch large highly venomous snakes.  You want him to milk venom out of one?  I am sure he will.  Ok, let's go get the outboard.  I asked the mechanic to help me carry down the street and onto the dock. He assured me that it was easier for one person to carry than it was for two.  Fine, then I'll carry the gas tank.  He would have none of it.   So I recruited Matt, who was about to go out with me and we carried the motor while I reinstalled it.   I am telling you, this guy is the laziest mechanic ever.

I took the woman and her friend over to meet the crazy guy and just one look at him at she thought he was perfect.   After that I took to Old Bank where we tried to get with Bruce, who runs an organic farm.  No answer.  I called a girl who is staying there. She was off to town.   All right, I took them for a "meet the neighbors" tour around Bahia Honda, Indians, gringos, and a black Panamanian who lives in a really cool house hidden in the jungle.   Back to town, dinner and home.  Shit, I forgot my backpack. Back to town, retrieved it from the restaurant.  Back home.  I pulled the up to the dock, swung it around and pulled it back on a rope very close to shore.

In the morning the tide was low and she was sitting high, dry on the bottom and filled with water from the morning's rain.   I bailed her out, got into the muck and lifted the stern and pushed her into the deeper water.   Back up to the house, shower, change clothes and off to town.   Next to no oil had been used in 36 miles.   I guess I had gotten the boat almost out of oil.  The guy I got her from is pretty meticulous, I was certain that he would have had his workers check.  Never assume anything.

Now if only one of my phones would charge up.  One seems to be taking a charge.  I shall see.  I don't know how long it will take until I can power it up.  I am supposed to be smoking some chicken for a group of 28 tomorrow.  Where is the guy with my smoker?

Cruise Prepping

I was upgrading the computer at Casa Verde, applying some patches when up walked a cute blonde.   She wanted to know when I was going to be done, she was planning a trip to Puerto Viejo with her friend.   I told her all the options, time schedules, prices, advantages and disadvantages, and sneaky ways to get away around the extortionary practices of the border agents. She was in Bocas for six weeks with a friend, learning Spanish.

Chris and I went to Odin and hooked up the stereo and cleaned her in preparation for a cruise today with 28 Panamanians, paying $50 apiece to motor to Starfish Beach, eat some smoked chicken and baked potatoes and swim in the calm water.

After returning to town I purchased groceries for dinner.  "Where are you going, Jim?"   "Home, to make some dinner."  "We have some chicken on the boat, three people cancelled."  "I just bought fish taco fixings."

Three people cancelled.   I looked at Jen, sitting at a table with her friend.   "Jim, why don't you invite them along for tomorrow?"  Good plan.

I sat down with these two pretty young things.  "Today is your lucky day, some people cancelled on a sailing tour tomorrow and you two can come along for a free day on the water."   Jen introduced me to her friend Melissa.  "Melissa, this is Jim, the guy I was telling you about."

Jen declined, saying that they had Spanish class.  I looked at Mel, "First rule of travel, accept the unexpected and don't turn down any adventures thrown in your face."   Three minutes later I was sure that I had convinced Mel, but Jen was a bit of a harder sell.  "Jen aren't you going sailing with Mel and me?"   "OK, but you convinced me, not Melissa."  "Fine, if you enjoy yourself, credit Mel, if not, blame me."

We chatted for an hour.  These girls were pretty cool.  Mel is working on her PhD in economics, Jen has four bachelors degrees, Economics, International Business, Business Management and French.  She also paid her full way through school, working 60 hours a week.   She lives in New Mexico and has never owned a car.  She walks forty five minutes to get her groceries and carries them back.   Her lithe hard body reflects her daily activities.   Flexible?  She did splits, bent over and put her palms flat on the dock with legs straight.  She had a six pack.   Twenty two countries in the last six years.  One got her shit together 24 year old.  Born in Belgium with and American mother she has two passports.

Mel, 22 has completed her masters in Economics and is going to get her PhD after this years travels and is half Thai.

Chris yelled out, "C'mon, Jim, we have some chicken on the boat."  Twenty eight pieces had been smoked for the tour.  "I just bought a pound of linguado and the fixings."  "Girls, let's get in this tiny boat and head out to the anchorage and make some linguado tacos."  "What's that?" "A white fish."

Good thing, Mel is a pescadorian.   Five extremely well built, tall, good looking guys watched the two young women board my tiny boat, no doubt wondering why they hadn't asked ask for the company of these two.  Maybe they had.

We pulled up and boarded the 60 foot trawler.  Dirty dishes everywhere, the usual state of affairs.    Sure.  Chris put the smoked chicken in the oven and we headed to the foredeck, cracked the windows and escaped the humid, hot, smoky salon.  "Jen, time to cook, you want to help?"

I dipped the fish in eggs, breaded them and sauteed them while Jen sliced up some veggies.   Chris and Mel headed to the upper deck.   A short while later we joined them, with eight hot fish tacos.   We just sat under the stars as I pointed out the constellations.  Mel exclaimed, "I want to live on a boat."   After a couple of hours I took them back and told them to meet me on the dock at 10:30.  "We'll be there, thanks, that was fun."

Falling Behind

As the foot for the outboard on my boat is shot I decided to correct the situation of having but one boat.   A friend of mine collects boats and outboards, buying them when people are leaving town, anxious to get rid of them.   He buys them at excellent prices and holds on to them until somebody wants to pay market value.

On Saturday I hitched a ride with another friend to check out the boat.  It is a very lightweight fifteen footer.  A substantial 12 footer, much more heavily constructed and with substantially more freeboard, can be had for $1,600 new.   A new 15 horsepower four stroke can be purchased for about $1,400.  On Sunday my friend brought the boat to town and I took him back home and went back home with it.   On Monday, I ran into a guy from New Jersey that I met on the street a couple of weeks ago, asking about where to buy an inexpensive boat.   If you just want to tool around in the bay, a little boat with a little outboard is good for most months and being economical to operate and maintain affords maximum cruising for minimal dollars.

We headed out to the finca in Dolphin Bay, where I encountered a former worker, sleeping in the restaurant with his uncle, dead drunk as he has been every time I have seen him in the last week.   Last Friday a friend of mine found him floating in the bay, passed out in his boat.   Yup, sure enough, a gas generator had been taken from the property. A former worker, by all accounts hard working and honest had taken it and reported doing so to the corregidor.   He has been trying to collect $900 in wages for over a year from the property owner.  Can't say that I blame the guy.   The pool is leaking.  This is going to be a big issue.

We continued down to my property in Aguacate and dropped by to collect a long overdue debt in Loma Partida.   Not much success collecting there.  Back to town before running out of daylight.   I pulled into Casa Verde to find a red light flashing on the outboard.   WTF?  I checked the oil.   It was seriously low and filthy, with bits of metal in it.   Damn.   I pulled the cowling, there was oil all over the tiny block, thick black oil.

I crashed on a friend's boat, I didn't want to take this thing home.  

On Tuesday we went to Dolphin Bay to pick up my stereo so that my friend could use it on a big tri-miran on Friday for a cruise.   We stopped by another guy's house to look at a well used 60 HP that I might want to buy for the foot.  The parts to fix mine are $780.  The guy wants $1,200 for the motor, but the upper unit is shot.   I will offer $800 for the whole thing.  Not much demand for 60 HP four stroke parts hereabouts.

Back to my house we took my boat and towed it to a fiberglass guy.  He started working on the boat last December.  Nothing is easy in Bocas.   The damn boat almost sunk last month, 10 miles off shore with doctors and nurses and Red Cross people aboard.  It took three people bailing non stop just to keep up.  A shitty patch job had given way when the boat had been rolled up on logs onto the beach.   I will have to post the whole story some day.

Listen, just cut the whole floor out and put in a deck of treated pine.  This floor has been soaked four times.  It will never dry out.   This will shed another 600 pounds, I am guessing and allow for inspection of hull integrity, wiring and cabling.  Simple is better.  Less is more.   Don't go gringo in Bocas.  Today I will try to negotiate a reasonable price with an unreasonable person.

On Tuesday, I ran into the boat owner and told him my tale.  He asked his favorite mechanic to look at the motor.  The guy found nothing wrong.  Well, he did his usual not much.  I bought some engine cleaner and cleaned off the block and topped it off with oil and took it home.  

I got home to find an Indian sleeping on my couch.  Apparently he had spent two days there.  One of my neighbors decided I needed my house watched as I often don't go home.   This guy cleared maybe 500 square feet of grass in two days.  That is about an hour's work.   I didn't ask him to be there.   I retired to my room to read a book.  Everytime I walked through the living room he did nothing but lay back and watch me.  This is disturbing.  I woke up in the middle of the night parched, reached into my new refrigerator and took out a bottle of water and took a huge swig.   WTF?  I turned on the lights.  It was a bottle of Bulgarian moonshine left by some woman as a gift.   Jesus, I poured it down the drain.

OK dude, you have to go.  I drove the worker back to my neighbors.   I told him I would have to talk with his friend, that I hadn't asked for him to come sleep at my house.   He did little more than use a massive amount of toilet paper.  Thanks for leaving me none.   No, I have no intention of paying you.  Nothing was clear.  He speaks no English and my Spanish wasn't up to the task.

So, let's see, I have a generator to fix, a leaking pool, two boats out of commission, two phones that won't take a charge and a computer, camera and tablet that have been waiting in Panama City to be repaired for two weeks.  The taxi driver I sent them to went on vacation the day I air shipped them to him.  There are dozens of people I could have used.  Would have been nice to tell me that you were not going to get around to it for a couple of weeks.
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The computer I ordered to replace my dead one was never shipped by Amazon to the woman in the states who was coming down here.   My bank had denied payment due to fraud detection based on the new ship to address.  By the time I got back on the internet it was too late to have it shipped as she was leaving at three o'clock in the morning the next day.

One of these days, something is going to go right for me.  It just has to.   In the meantime I will just continue getting shit upon by the universe.

Outta Here

One of the most dysfunctional groups to have hit Bocas in recent memory has abandoned town, leaving  behind a mess.

The boat they were renting, a sixty foot trimaran, is desperately in need of some diligence.   A half constructed building has been abandoned, the rent for the location unpaid, the construction company left holding the bag for labor and materials.  Workers have been laid off, unpaid for months of work.

Today I will cut the locks off the trimaran and we shall start to assess the damage.  We are looking for the $180,000 42 foot Beneteau to seize.  Speaking of which, the owner decided that a competent captain cost too much so he had an idiot captain the boat on a charter.   The clown managed to reef it at Coral Key/Crawl Cay.

Boatless, my options for tending to things have been seriously reduced.   First order of business is to attempt to get the foot on my outboard repaired.  This is going to be costly.  I am looking for a 15 HP outboard and will borrow a friend's 12' little sailboat to get around in the meantime.

Do I really have to take a water taxi and ride on a bus for an hour to get a price on an outboard?   It ain't easy here.