Homeless By Choice

It’s been an endless cycle of boating, sailing, snorkeling, swimming and beaches.

Now I have to get my boat in the shop to lose 700 pounds of water laden “closed cell” foam which lies beneath the deck and the aft storage cabinet for another 800 pounds.   This should take a few weeks.

What to do without a boat?  Every time I leave the house I’d have to call a water taxi.

Fortune knocked.

A friend told me that she would like to come back for a visit, starting in 5 days for a month.  Great! My boat is in the shop, let’s go to the mountains while I get my boat rebuilt and then we can come to Bocas.

So I laid out a few things to do. She said it sounded awesome and asked if she could bring a couple of friends.

She is a set designer for movies. She is black, most of her friends are gay black males.   I didn’t ask who is coming.

Ok, to the most remote parts of Panama, where there are nothing but Indians, no electricity, no telephones, no restaurants and no lodging.   I’ll stay with an Indian I met after a seven hour trek over the continental divide.

This should be different.

I showed up a Casa Verde at the appointed hour and my day began with

She: “Here are your sandals.”
He: “Thanks. Where were they?”
She: “In the trash.”
He: “Thanks, I didn’t know where I put them.”
Me:  “Why did you put them in the trash?”
He:  “It’s my birthday.  I am drunk.”

The Water Taxi 25 boat, a behemoth that seats 80 and is powered by twin 350 HP V8 outboards crowded into a sleep, bore down on me, and tied off, unleashing a torrent of Panamanians from Panama City intent on celebrating Panamananian independence from Colombia.  The crowd and their luggage reduced the dock to mayhem for half an hour.

I left to provision for our sailing trip.  A friend had agreed to take three people to Starfish Beach on a boat stocked with rum and pretty young things.   Upon my return there were a dozen people sitting in my boat.  I rushed over and confronted them “What the fuck are you doing?”  My friend Carlos came over and advised me that these people were his son and friends and that they were going on the boat.  Oh, ok, I’ll shuttle them over.  The stoned kids looked very relieved that I didn’t rip their heads off.

My boat was to function as the tender as the dinghy’s were not operational.  I tied her off and she was towed behind the sixty five foot trawler.  I set up camp and dozed for a bit.  When I awoke I saw Carlos standing by the back of the boat with lines in hand.  The man is far from a sailor.  I popped up to observe his activities.  He was keeping the lines clear of the  “What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled.  Damn, my boat smacked into a swimming deck support that was missing the deck.  “It’s ok, everything is ok.”  “No, Carlos, see that fiberglass on the support and one over there.  Yup, two holes punched right through the hull. Jesus, Christ!”

Chris came down.  “I asked him to watch the lines so the wouldn’t get caught in the prop.”   Wrong guy or wrong task.  Oh well, it’s but a couple of hours of fiberglass work.

We spent the day on the beach flirting with the girls picked up a few extra and returned to town.

On the way the three guests of honor were severely inebriated.   One of them poured out the last of two rum bottles into glasses and through the bottles into the ocean with a triumphant double fist in the air.  “What the fuck are you doing?”  I sternly rebuked him, “Malo, malo, el mar  no este para la basura.”  He sulked.  I was castigated, “Do you know who that is?” “Yeah, I know, that doesn’t give him the right to use the ocean as a trash can.”

I took the first load of passengers to the dock and returned for the profoundly inebriated.  Helping the girls was one thing but these three guys were completely hammered.  I had to catch one by the armpits.  His sandals fell into the ocean.  Another stumbled on, tripped and I had to catch him and make him sit down.  The third fell on the other two.

I made my way to the dock one of the guys stepped off, missed the dock, almost smashed his face and tried to climb out of the water by hanging onto a hammock.  It’s pretty damn easy to just pop up on the dock.  If one is really out of shape a ladder is available.

The soaking guy tripped over a chair, a second walked into the bathroom and fell down, his legs sticking out of the door and the third asked if I was his friend and would I buy each of them a beer.  “No, vamoose. Necessito dormile.  Muy barracho.”

Cops.  I guess they are the same world over.

I pulled up to a random house on the bay and called out.  A couple of watchmen came down and spotting the girls agreed that we could come ashore and they would gladly show us around.  There was not much to see.  Next stop?  Some wonderful snorkeling near Isla Christobal which terminated abruptly on account of impending bad weather.

A few hours on the dock, the weather cleared and we went fishing.  Two other girls asked if they could come.  We got some bait and headed to the south side of Solarte and fished without luck.  Well, my house is a sure thing.  Immediately they started hauling in fish.  I insisted that they throw them all back.  You don’t eat your dock fish.

Off to Los Secretos to pay a tab.  Nick was behind the bar.  “So you’re boating alone today!”  No bud, I’ve got five cuties down on the dock waiting for me.   “Are you going back to town?”  “Sure, I’ll take you.”   To no great surprise Nick was smitten by the Philipino.

We spend the next few hours chatting on the dock at Casa Verde.  The skinny train wreck from Spain told me there was a guy on my boat.  What?  That’s thirty feet away from the eleven of us.  Sure enough, an Indian made his way off the boat and swam to the dock.  Another five gallon tank filled with gas was missing.  He didn’t have it with him so he was obviously on his second trip.  Ballsy bastard.  The guard was lying in a hammock but two feet from the boat.

I went out front and down the street in the company of Joe, a great guy who knows a whole lot of shit.  Down the street to the worst part of town.  Two malientes said that the Indian had run behind a fish market.  Hmmm,  only one way in and no water on the sidewalk.   I walked back anyway.  Joe stood on the street and called out my name in a very non calm manner.  Two guys had been following me, one with a club and one with a hammer.  I turned around and yelled loudly, “Joe, what’s up?”  The two fled.  Whoa.

We returned to Casa Verde where one of the waitress indicated that she spotted the culprit swimming out from under the dock. Another guy and I went after him.  Not a good plan.  He could have probably beaten one of us to death with the other.

A long day on the water with many stops.  Finally I took them to Red Frog.  I figured once they got there they wouldn’t want to leave and I was right.  The girls went swimming and laid out on the beach.  I passed a couple of hours in a hammock.

I coffeed up and read my email.  Gary Moore posted that he would contribute $50 in gas.  I drove across the bay to Gary’s boat.  I also picked up a petition on a request for improved police action to respond to a serious increase in the amount and violent nature of crime in Bocas to be delivered to Loma Partida.

Next stop?  The fire station to pick up some cops.  Jesus, the corregidor of Bastimentos was accompanied by a cop with an M16 and a Beretta 9 millimeter side arm an interogator.  I stopped off at a hardware store to pick up another gas tank as I had one stolen off my boat a couple of days earlier.  I also picked up ten feet of chain and a padlock.  These thieves are opportunistic, they don’t travel with bolt cutters.

Off to the gas dock, waiting behind a string of water taxis, preparing for a busy weekend day.   One gets some interesting looks from the locals while traveling with a cop with an M16.  The water was calm, the skies were clear and the boat was laden.  Southwest to shark hole, southeast to Isla Popa.  Back to the cut, through the channel, east along the south shore of Loma Partida.

We finally arrived.  An Indian gave a statement that he had heard a guy at the Cantina the night the boat was stolen asking about Michelle, where she slept and if she had a security guard.   The Indian boarded the boat with us and directed me.   He told me to east.  Whoa! There is much coral out there.  He directed me with hand signals, following a map that exists only in his mind through narrow channels.  North, east, south, west.  We arrived at a dock and ascended a flight of concrete steps that were reminiscent of Mayan temples.  The rise was minimally eighteen inches.   Jesus scribbled on a receipt and we returned to De la Luna where the news was conveyed that Jesus had a name and knew where the guy worked and lived and he made a quick phone call to the chief of police.

We waited for a promised lunch that evidently was not forthcoming while we were harassed by a Capuchin monkey.  We were all hungry and made a hasty departure.  I stopped off at a local store.  No candy bars.  I bought several cans of sardines and we ate them on crackers and headed back to town.

We enjoyed cheeseburgers and some brews.  I invited lovely Natalie to join us.  The guy was to be off work at four and would be arrested upon his return.  I received a text message from him shortly after four and he told me the man was in custody.  Within hours he confessed, named his two cohorts and said that the boat was on the way to Santa Catalina on the Caribbean coast of Veraguas and that it would be transferred to Colon.

Natalie left to return to the US with tears in her eyes.  “Take care girl, come back soon.”  “I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

I was chatting with Kamron as a panga sped by in the dark.  A short while later the sound of something not good happening.  A woman swam to shore.  “Jim, there has been a boat accident, boater in the water!”  It took me but a few minutes to arrive at the scene.  A few minutes later I helped a big guy on the boat.  The panga, unlit had run right over the back of an inflatable dinghy.

The police were on the shore, lights flashing, but, still they have no boat.  Kamron held onto the panga, the panga operator held onto the dinghy and I dragged it all to the landing near the ferry dock.   Carlos, the cop who had been on my boat earlier in the day.  I told him I wasn’t involved and knew nothing, if he needed to talk with me I would be back at Casa Verde.

The outboard wouldn’t go into reverse without a horrible grinding noise.  I took the boat to Bocas Marine Tours (BMT) on Friday and chased down Chito, the mechanic that services all of their boats.

He had told me that he would call me at 11:00 but failed to do so.  I  can’t go everywhere by water taxi.

Carlos at BMT decided that I needed his help in effecting the repair.  I guess I did as Chito would answer when Carlos called but wouldn’t take my calls.  On the first trip Chito had concluded that the problem lay in the foot and was trying to pry out the plastic plug through which the drive shaft and the transmission shaft enter the foot.   He told me to come back at three.

At three I called and again got no answer.  Carlos called Chito and Chito answered.  He wanted me to come  down and see the problem.  Ahh, shit.  It takes a long time to get parts to Panama.

Another taxi ride to Saigon.   The foot was back on the boat.  Chito showed me a bushing that had found its way into the foot.  As the bushing was part of an electrical  assembly in the head, I could only conclude that Frank had somehow managed to get this part into the foot while conducting an unauthorized operation on the foot that I caught him doing.  He said he had been cleaning it.  Hmmm.

$150 later I was free to go.  I needed to get some gas.  Carlos insisted that I go to Isla Carenero to gas up.  No way.  I didn’t know if I could make it on the gas I had and even if I could it was so near five that they would  likely be closed.   I headed off to the gas station with a five gallon tank in hand. It was but a half mile away.  Carlos was adamant that I wait for a taxi.  Why?  I’ll be at the station before a taxi shows up.  I filled up the tank and walked back.

Carlos asked me to buy him a beer.  Seems reasonable.  We walked to a cantina and he ordered 10.  “Why didn’t we just go to a chino and buy them?  This is an expensive way to buy beer.” Not his money, he didn’t care.   Back to town in the boat.  Carlos finished his beer and threw it overboard.  “What the hell is that, asshole?”  He proudly showed me the cap.  “I didn’t throw this in.”  What a dickhead.  I retrieved the bottle. As I dropped him off at BMT he asked for a tip.  “That’s $10 in beer for an hour’s work.  That’s more than enough.”

Back to Casa Verde.  A burger.  Chatted with Natalie for a couple of hours and invited her to go boating with me on Sunday.  She had been out of Bocas Town but once, on the sailing  trip the prior weekend.  “Sure, can Anna come?”  Why not?  Then Garrett and Scott wanted to know if they could come.  Man that’s five people on the boat.  Ok, we’ll go slowly.

Off to Lillies for some live music.  Lots of friends.  I  ran into a prominent citizen who is always very hammered every time I see her.  “Jim, where do you live?”  “I’m not answering any more questions.  You ask the same question ten times an hour, you can’t remember shit.”  Five minutes later she asked the same four questions she parrots.

“I’m not going to Aqua Lounge.”  That was pretty random.  Nobody had said they were.

“I think my girls are at Iguana.”  Unlikely, it’s closed.  “Let’s go to Barco Hundido.”  I hate that place.  But I took her anyway.  She fell flat on her face while trying to walk down the street.  Yup, she definitely needs an escort.  Doubt I will be able to pawn her off on somebody.   The girls weren’t at Barco Hundido.  She ordered a double rum and coke.  Jesus, woman, you can’t even walk.

“Let’s try Aqua Lounge.”  Another place I hate.  I took her anyway.  Docking is always a problem.  One ties off and then has to walk on the edge of  2 X 6 nailed to wobbly posts for 30 feet.  I spied her passed out on a chaise lounge and made my exit.