Homeless By Choice

As my faithful readers know, I have signed a contract to buy a house on Isla Solarte, about a 15 minute boat ride from Bocas Town. It’s a beautiful two bedroom, two bath structure with a kitchen, dinette, a small living room and a large wrap around deck. The house is made entirely of Nispero a beautiful dense, very hard wood resistant to fungus and many types of termites. It lies 100 steps up a hill over looking the bay across which lies Red Frog Marina.

I have opted to supplement my income by providing housing over the clear, calm waters.

There are many world famous resorts in Bocas del Toro including Punta Caracol offering huts over the water for rates upwards of $500 a night, Tranquillo Bay at $2,655 a week in the high season for a cabina in the jungle. Au Natural provides huts and three meals a day for $175 per person.

I want to create first class accommodations over the water that anybody could come and enjoy no matter how finicky his or her spouse is. Luxurious accommodations with all the comforts of home in a tropical paradise. But building in Bocas is a proposition that will tax the most enduring of souls. There are over a dozen regulatory agencies that must be dealt with and builders are notoriously difficult to deal with. Work is parceled out for piers and docks, laying concrete, framing, electrical, plumbing, water catchment and solar panels.

My friend Stephen has been working on his house for two years and has nothing to show but a dock, some piers and some I beams that lay atop the piers. He has been trying for over a month to find someone to weld the I beams for him. I have neither the inclination or the patience to see such a project through.

Last night Stephen mentioned that there was somebody new in town that was building floating houses. I had to check this out. It wasn’t difficult to locate the company with a quick google search as they have no competition.

I sent off a couple of emails last night and quickly recieved a response. I called this morning and spoke with the owner of the company, Skip. We agreed to meet at Casa Verde at 2:30. I called the little cutie who runs the place, met her there at 1:30, bought her lunch and we chatted until Skip and his partner showed up.

My first question was readily answered. “How do your dwellings bypass all of the construction and impact rules and regulations?” “They are legally classified as boats.” Awesome! That makes them subject to a $150/year mooring fee and all of the other red tape no longer applies.

Skip has been building floating condominiums and restaurants for over 15 years in Mexico and Hawaii. We looked through his drawings and I told him that none of them were exactly what I was looking for and described the functionality I wanted for the penultimate over the water vacation home rental property in the province of Bocas del Toro without telling him an exact design. I’d rather he use his imagination to come up with some interesting alternatives that fulfill my requirements. We spoke for about an hour. We talked about a 60 by 20 foot deck with three stories. That’s a whole lot of room for a family of four or six. Lot’s of deck space, granite counter tops, french doors onto the ocean, air conditioning in the bedrooms. He said it could be ready in 120 days after we agree on the plans.

We walked down to Starfleet Scuba where a big floating restaurant, bar, scuba boat is under construction, rated for 150 passengers. With two sixty horse power motors the beast moves along at 10 mph in the calm waters of the the bay. I’d hate to dock the thing in the wind as it has a lot of sail area. I’d show you pictures, but my replacement cameras have not yet arrived. I’ll update this with pictures when I can get some.

The pontoons were corrugated, which on first look would seem to create a lot of drag, but even with what little I know of laminar flow, turbulence actually reduces friction.

Construction

• Welded heavy gauge hot dipped galvanized steel studs and joists

Features

Stay tuned for developments.

I couldn’t wire the earnest money as I have to talk to the bank to get online wires set up and adding my Panamanian phone number takes several days to process.

One thing I want to do is put some cabinas on the water. I was discussing that with a friend and he pointed out that somebody in Bocas is the only developer of floating homes.

I think this is pretty cool.

I signed a contract on a house today.

The property owner of the above property is in Scotland, about five hours ahead of the time here. I talked with my real estate agent and emailed an offer. He replied, “They have more money in the house alone than this offer. It’s all nispero. That’s very expensive wood.” “Not my problem.”

He sent them an email, they countered, I countered, they countered, I countered. They rejected. Apparently the house has been getting a lot of viewings lately. I replied, “Ok, I’ll lower my offer, if lots of people are viewing and nobody is putting in an offer then they know the place is overpriced. This is my final offer. Cash buy, closing in thirty days.”

They took the offer. House comes with all furnishings and a boat.

Now I have to have somebody go over and inspect the $4,000 worth of batteries that are charged by the solar panel system.

The only operating cost for this house is the groundskeeper/guard about $400 a month. For that he also cleans the house every damn day, will do varnishing, planting, anything I want.

When I want to travel I should be able to rent it out for a week at a time. In the high season it is very difficult to find accommodations here.

Next up, get another boat, a gun safe, an alarm system, some security cameras and build some cabinas over the water and plant a bunch of fruit trees.

Life is good.

I went to look at a boat today and ended up putting in an offer on a house.

http://www.beyondbocas.com/featured-new-properties/so220.shtml

If they accept my offer, I will be closing in 45 days.

Last night I saw one of my neighbors in the street and told her about my theft over dinner and offered a reward for the return of my stuff no questions asked

Missing

Sony Viao Computer
Asus Netbook Computer
Amazon Kindle
Canon DX10 Camera
Fenix LD20 Flashlight

I had a knock on my door at 12:30. My neighbor Grant is caretaker to this place and has a key to the gate. With him was his neighbor, the woman with whom I had spoken. She said she had found out where my computers were and would have them delivered in the morning. She also said that it had been stolen by two kids.

This morning Carlos took me to the office of investigations and while I was filing a report my landlord Bernd called and said that Jeana, my neighbor had my computers.

Bernd, Carlos and my friend Stephen all said I should report her to the police. But I had given my word and a man is only as good as his word. While filing the report I was advised I had to present my passport. When I returned to my apartment my landlord was changing the lock on the front door and said that nobody had a key to the back door. I went to Jeana’s and collected my computers.

Carlos as my translator advised the police about Jeana’s role in this matter but asked them to leave it out of the report. Jeana came in while I was filing, scared as hell. When I was done, I went over to Jeana’s showed her the report and the fact that her name was not in it. I also told her she had to get the rest of my stuff back.

Hell, the other stuff is only an expense. Now I have more than a couple people seriously disappointed the police won’t be hunting down the thieves and incarcerating them, but once again, I gave my word. I’m just very glad to have my computers back.

Returning to the apartment I rekeyed the back door. Now it’s time to rekey the lower locks.

It was a beautiful day, cool and overcast. I sat on the back deck and finished off three months of coding.

At 1:00 I called my landlord and asked him to bring me over a key so I could rekey the locks to my apartment as they hadn’t been changed since my very disturbed visitor left.

At 6:50 I called my friend Stephen and we agreed to meet for dinner at Kun Ja’s the best Chinese restaurant in town. We ate and shot the shit until about 8:30 when I headed back home. It was time to back up all of my work.

I unlocked the door and shit! The computer I bought last week and my development computer were missing. No sign of forced entry. I called my landlord, he told me that there were only three sets of keys, mine, the set Becca had, and his set, he had changed the locks just before I moved in. When my neighbor cleaned the place during my medical treatments my landlord came over, unlocked the place and locked it up when he was done.

I grabbed my friend Carlos and headed off to the police station, who referred me to the office of investigation. They came over to the apartment and agreed there had been no forced entry. The doors had not been kicked in and there are bars over all the windows.

God Damn it. That’s about three months worth of coding down the drain, all the backups were to another partition on the same computer.

Now I have to buy another computer and spend a month configuring it and another three months reproducing my code. It was bad enough doing it the first time, it will be very frustrating repeating my work.

Despite the beautiful weather I spent the day indoors programming. As soon as I can get a router I can code on the back deck.

I went online and started purchasing things to replace those stolen by my visitor.

My landlord came by, greeted me back and extended a dinner invitation. My friend Carlos stopped me on the street and told me that his steak house was now open. At seven Stephen I went over to check it out. A wonderful 16 oz ribeye, half and ear of corn boiled in milk, half a baked potato, some bread with seasoned olive oil and tomato toppings and two bottles of water came to $19. It was wonderful.

Off to Casa Verde to chat with my friends, apologize for my visitor and an early return home.

Dentist

On my initial visit to the dentist this week he observed my teeth and told me I was grinding them in my sleep. Then he asked if I snored. He recommended that I get a sleep apnea test and suggested that he could fit me with a dental appliance that would force my jaw forward at night almost certainly eliminating snoring and sleep apnea if present.

The cost of the evaluation is $1,200, seems a bit high for somebody to monitor your breathing and oxygen levels for four hours. The price of the dental appliance is $1,420. Well hell, if I have sleep apnea, I’m out $2,640. If I don’t I’m out $1,200.

I went home and looked up the symptoms of sleep apnea, decided I was a good candidate. Anybody whose neck is over 17″ is an excellent candidate regardless of body fat levels. I snore. What the hell, why not just get the appliance and see?

The doc promptly attended to me at my 10:00 appointment which I had made the day before. An impression was made of my upper teeth, my lower teeth and then my bite when I thrust my jaw as far forward as possible.

Now to wait six weeks for the device to be made in the U.S.

Flying Home

Aeroperlas started a new service from Tocumen airport to Bocas on July 6. Formerly they only flew to the Albrook Airport and International Regional Airport handling prop planes that fly within the country and to Costa Rica. Yesterday I booked a flight online from Tocumen as it is a bit closer to where I am staying. This proved to be a big mistake.

I went back to the place at which I was staying and got very frustrated at the number of things my operating system upgrade broke and killed time until it was time to go the airport. My gracious hostess arranged for a taxi pickup at 1:30. This should get me to the airport by 2:00. I returned my keys and went out front. At 1:30 a taxi pulled up. I asked if he had been called to go to the airport and he replied in the affirmative.

I got in the cab and said “Yo necessito Tocumen Aeropuerto Internacional.” He looked at me blankly “Aeropuerto Albrook.” “No, Tocumen Aeropuerto Internactional.” He got his dispatcher on the radio they talked for two minutes and he looked back at me gave me the thumbs up and said “bien” (good). Off we went. I pulled out my netbook and played a game for a while. Finally the driver said “Aeropuerto” and pointed. WTF? This is Albrook airport. “No, yo necessito Tocumen Aeropuerto Internacional.” Off we went I looked, what the hell? Now he was taking me to the bus terminal. I told him a third time and we headed off in the correct direction.
Now where the hell is the Aeroplas check in counter. I couldn’t find it and everybody who worked at the airport told me that I had to go to Albrook. Just frigging great. Finally somebody told me that Taca operated Aeroplas. Hundreds of people were in queue to fly to San Jose, Costa Rica. I’m never gonna get on this flight. Once I got past the guy who checks passports I somehow managed to find an attendant who wasn’t checking in people to San Jose. I informed her of my destination and she told me I was in the wrong terminal. How can this be? There is only one terminal. A tall slender black woman who smelled like lavender came over to help me. I told her she was a beautiful person and asked her just to walk me over, either so I don’t get lost or just so I could enjoy the view. She gave a hearty laugh and led me over to a 2,000 square foot building that was still covered in aluminum covered insulation.

There was but one man in the building, he met me at the door and said “Senoir Schmidt?” “Si” “We’ve been waiting for you.” How nice they were holding up the plane. Then he informed me that the plane was at Albrook. WTF? I have a reservation out of Tocumen. “Yes but the plane is at Albrook.” Apparently flights to Tocumen fly through Albrook. These airports can’t be more than 20 kilometers apart. As I was the only passenger on the flight they decided not to stop at Tocumen. We walked back to the international terminal and he gave me a taxi voucher. Then we went out front and a large van was hailed. Now don’t come under the impression this van was built for comfort. The seats were so close together it should be used exclusively by amputees and midgets.

Arriving at Albrook I got a very confused look on the woman’s face at the check in desk. Did I want to buy a ticket? No I bought one. May I see it? No, I made it online. You are not in here. I was supposed to be flying out of Tocumen. Then why are you here? They sent me here.
Fifteen minutes later it was all sorted out and I got an Aeroplas boarding card, a 1/4″ thick piece of white plastic with a number on it. My carry on consisted of my backpack and three sixteen ounce bottles, shampoo, conditioner and aloe vera. Nobody suspected I was going to blow up the plane with them and I was allowed to carry them on. I did have to surrender my lighter, but not a box of matches.

Life is strange.

Back in Bocas

At 6:00 we flew across a sea of bananas extending to the horizon in all directions, country, we were landing in Changinoula the westernmost city on the Pananamian Caribbean.

Bocas Rumors

Spirit may be flying direct from Fort Lauderdale to Bocas. Negotiations underway to increase length and thickness of runway.

3 New fire trucks on the way

Golf Course on Boca Drago next month breaking ground.

The diesel power plant will be shut down, electricity will be brought over from the mainland and run the length of this island.

Dinner

Had dinner at Shellys (best Mexican food around) with Stephen. Chatted up two lovely Slovakian women. They wanted an escort to the beach to watch the sea turtles come in but I was too tired for even their company. Went to Stephens house and picked up my replacement Tilley and a complicated device that requires a twenty page instruction manual ordered by my former visitor.

On my walk home I was warmly welcomed back on near every block. Good to be home, but to many I felt the need to apologize for inflicting my visitor on them.

Home

Two minutes after I walked in the door the electricity went out for two hours. This doesn’t happen often here. After the power came on I checked my email. Amazing, no delusional rants in my inbox.

Some Panamanian recommended by my gracious host just return to talk about my notebook. The cost of a new keyboard? $85 A new DVD drive $85. Blow out the unit and replace the parts. Labor $90.

I told him the keyboard costs $30 in the US. The drive costs $35 and it’s 20 minutes of work and described exactly how to take the machine apart. No thanks, I’ll buy the parts online and fix it myself.

When I was in Santiago last August with pneumonia that I contracted in the Bolivian Alps the doctor examined my X-Ray and told me that I had Cardiomegaly, an enlarged heart and that I should see a cardiologist.

This week I was advised that I have high blood pressure and that I needed to see a cardiologist. Ok, I’m on the Costco medical services binge, so I tried to schedule an appointment with a cardiologist that was recommended to me by my dentist, but they don’t take appointments on the first visit. Just show up between 4 and 7. WTF?

I grabbed a cab and bopped over to Centro Médico Paitilla. Entering the suite, I filled out a form with about 12 questions on it. Two minutes later I was getting an EKG. Five minutes after that I was escorted into the cardiologist’s office. He was sitting behind a 30″ apple screen running faceline or some such thing as he was talking on the phone. He ended his phone call in a couple of minutes and consulted with me.

Regarding the enlarged heart, yeah trekking at 6,000 meters can cause a temporary enlargement of the heart. Was I having any difficulty with strenuous exercise now? No.

I had been advised that I have high blood pressure. He took my blood pressure three times and told me I had normal blood pressure. What was going on? Well, crazy has left the country, albeit with my MacBook pro. I presume I’ll never see the loans repaid either, but, whatever. Worth it, just to be rid of the aggravation.

He asked if I had been under any stress. I told him a tale that took 20 minutes. He was laughing his ass off. Finally he took out a pad, wrote something on it and handed it to me. “This is my prescription for you” Guess Who. American Woman
Now it was my time to laugh my ass off. I paid my $100 tab, $40 for the EKG $60 for the consultation.

I walked the streets for 45 minutes trying to catch a taxi. Finally I returned to the mall behind the clinic found a taxi. He wanted $25 for a $5 fare. Yeah, right.
I took in a little tool porn at the Doit Center, Panama’s equivalent of Home Depot. Then I walked the mall.

Hmmm… maybe I should get some contact lenses. I entered the contact lens store, put my netbook on the counter and asked the receptionist to remember to tell me to take it as I would forget. I got an eye exam and what the hell? My prescription was now -.5 diopters per eye. Hardly worth the trouble. So I left, when down to the taxi stand and realized I had left the computer. What a dope. I searched around for a bit, found the store, grabbed my netbook, headed back to the taxi stand and headed home.