While attempting to supervise the installation of a security system at one of my most frequent haunts I was approached by Worth a local. Intrigued by the fact that a friend of mine mentioned the fact that I had seen a crocodile a couple of nights ago he came over to talk to me about it. Turns out he is quite a herper himself and a former snake breeder. I joined him and Erwin,who much to my delight revealed that he is also a herper. Erwin has introduced three new species of frogs to science. We agreed we all had to go on a snake hunting expedition in the near future. A couple of the expats have expressed doubts that I actually saw a croc, but some locals have seen them on rare occasions. I can tell the difference between a croc, an alligator (there are none here) and a caiman (there are plenty) but after a few minutes Worth was telling me that he knew where lots of crocs around here and stated that he once saw one near Saigon, a neighborhood just north of town on Isla Colon.

We spent a while discussing the large number of reptiles each of us has owned and made non-committal but enthusiastic plans to conduct some deep jungle snake hunting. Erwin expressed a far greater eagerness to capture a couple of bushmasters. I’ve seen but one of these snakes, in Bolivia, and I don’t might saying that a twelve foot viper is better viewed on the far side of piece of plate glass.

We shall see where this goes.

Around Solarte

With keys to my boat in hand I had to go somewhere, anywhere, just burn some gas and explore. I headed out from behind Tropical Paradise past Hospital Point on the west end of Isla Solarte, so named as it was the site of the hospital for United Fruit Company when it had its headquarters on Isla Colon. A mile to the north lay Old Town on the western tip of Isla Bastimentos, known locally as Jurassic Park densely inhabited on the west end, the end nearest Bocas Town. Old Town is almost exclusively populated by Caribbeanos, blacks that came to this region before the turn of the last century, when this was part of Colombia. I continued down past a vacant stretch of the island, unoccupied by anything but birds, frogs, capybara, snakes and lizards. Across from Red Frog beach, I neared the shore to look at the house I was to close on the next day. On the east end of the island I meandered in crystal clear waters rich with fish through mangroves. Now and again a wooden shack, built over the water served as the residence of a Ngobe Indian. The Ngobe took up residence in the archipelago in the 1950’s, formerly dwelling on the mainland, usually in the mountains, rich with game and currently one king, the sole remaining king in the western hemisphere.

The run south was short but slow, I was just sucking in the view. I proceeded back south southeast on the south side of the mangrove islands, rising from the sea bed and hosting crabs, snapper and all manner of young aquatic life. Deciding it was time to head back I picked up speed. The water colors continually changed from deep blue to dare I say light aquamarine to near clear the color influenced by the depth and the composition of the sea bed. I soon found myself rapidly upon a patch of water that was but a couple of feet deep as indicated by the depth finder my eyes had not deceived me. I throttled back completely and made it past apparently unscathed. Hmmm, the depth finder no longer works, I’ll have to check on the transponder later. Back to town I was joined by a couple of women and we headed out again to the house, sat on the deck and returned to town.

Lomo Partida

I took three passengers to Lomo Partida a remote island on the south end of the archipelago. Seven years ago there was nothing there but Indians, snakes, crocs, monkeys, various small wild cats and jaguars. Now it is gringoville. The round trip was about 40 miles, not a bad days boating. I’ll cover that more in another entry.

Off to Town

Needing supplies, I boarded the boat on the morning following my first night at my new house. Hayu joined me and then hopped off at the last minute. The tide was out, being but 18″ it is not significant, neither was the two foot chop. Frequently, I dare say usually the water is as flat as a pond, disturbed by little more than ripples. About a hundred yards off the justly famous snorkeling spot in front of hospital point I saw a fully exposed coral head directly ahead of me. Six feet long and directly ahead but 10 feet, I throttled back again and braced for the impact that would surely rip a hole in the bottom of the boat and deprive me of a good deal of dentition. Riding high on two swells I again thought I had escaped disaster, but now the engine revved another thousand RPM than it was capable of previously. Ok, a chunk of prop must have been torn off. After docking I raised the motor, the skeg on the outboard was undamaged but a couple of inches of the tip of one blade was now decorating the coral. Ah well, the prop was overpitched anyway, I had planned to replace it with the 14″ x 13 prop that came with the boat.

Prop Replacement

The following day, I took the preferred prop into town and with the help of a friend, who has a satisfactory collection of tools replaced the prop. The new prop certainly allowed the motor to operate in the power zone, 5k-6k RPM and with a load of four people pushed through the water at an improved rate of near 17 knots. I dropped off three at Red Frog and headed home. At 6000 RPM I proceeded by myself at a slower rate than I formerly managed at 4,200 RPM. Damn. I guess I’m going to have to pop for a new prop. The next day I put the damaged prop back on. At least this way I could cruise at 17.8 knots at 4,800 RPM.

Rain

Lying in bed, I heard the rain, starting without notice. I walked down the stairs to check on the boat. A bumper lay in the stern, atop the float lever for the bilge pump. I moved the bumper to the shelf attached to the stern and the bilge pump kicked to life. Good thing I checked.

Gas Repair and Wildlife

Two days with no propane I popped into town to pick up a propane specialist to tell me why nothing was working after I replaced my propane tank. As I got the boat on plane, water flowed from the bilge into the uncovered stern. Ensuring that no one was around, I reduced speed to about 12 knots and walked to the back to pull the plug to the passive drain, nothing much more than a hole in the boat with a simple plug, not much more than one would use to reseal a wine bottle that had not been emptied, a concept which eludes people on islands. Holding the plug so that it wouldn’t get lost and just as importantly so I wouldn’t forget to replace it I cruised for a while while hundreds of gallons of sea water met its intended destination. The boat having been drained, I pulled into Casa Verde, located the technician, a friend and was ready to set sail. A pair of sisters, one of whom runs a resort on Bastimentos tagged along for a free ride. Hugging the shore of Bastimentos to avoid the shallows in the middle of the channel. What was that? “An iguana” to much laughter. Strong swimmers it was but a quarter mile off shore, apparently coming to visit me on my island. After the repairs were effected I returned to town to drop off my friend and the technician. The night was moonless and the sun sets rapidly in the tropics, it was not going to get any darker. My flashlight, strobing at 200 lumens made me the most visible object on the water. The boat died, sounding like it was out of gas. I had just filled up earlier in the day. What the hell? Turns out the rubber tube that comes from the tank had rubbed against the bumper which I had relocated the prior evening and had a small hole that was treated with pressure from Walter’s thumb until we made it to dock at which time the damaged portion was cut off and the end reattached. With the lights of old town in view I kept a respectful distance from Hospital Point. I hung around for a bit and headed back out using my flashlight to check the GPS, the water, the gas line. Navigating by lights on shore is a really bad idea. Yup, the house on the point had its light out. Had I the first house with a light on as a reference point I would have beached the boat.

I received a phone call. “Are you back home yet?” “No, man, I’m going slowly.” I returned to my vigilance. Shortly I saw a large log floating in the water. No, it wasn’t a log, it was a large crocodile. Not a five or six foot caiman but a full blown croc. Holy Shit! I made my way home without further incident. The stars were radiant in the cloudless sky, a view I could not appreciate with all other concerns at hand. Fish of some species I know not jumped

Conclusions

I need a bigger motor. The bulb on GPS needs to be replaced. A spare plug, a spare bilge pump. A boat is not a luxury, it’s five miles to the nearest store, by water, there are none on the Isla Solarte and walking through the jungle would not be possible if there were.

Where does all the time go? Lot’s of things to catch up on, from my new little puppy, close encounter with a coral head on my boat, nearly hit a crocodile in an inky black night, landscaping with machetes, computer repairs, how the utilities work. I’ve only been in this house ten days, but they’ve been busy, by island standards. Another perfect day in paradise, I’ll see what I can catch up on this evening.

A couple of weeks ago a new group appeared on Facebook, “Bocas Buy and Sell”.

I have three puppies looking for a good home ~ $25 each. All have been wormed and seen by the vets, are in great health ~ the only consideration is that they are going to be a bit on the HUGE side. Mother is a US bred Lab mixed with brindle Boxer (Laboxers!) weighing in around 90lbs, Father is a Rottweiler. Let me know ~ they are officially weaned, gentle, and accustomed to playing with monkeys. 6482-XXXX

A few days later a local ex-pat posted that she had puppies for sale. A few minutes later we were exchanging messages then phone calls. Hayu needed a playmate. The owner, Michelle, offered to bring one to town of the three remaining available from a litter of seven or eight. I preferred to check out all the puppies and make my choice. A few days later Michelle was coming to town, to have a tooth pulled from one of her workers. A couple of friends and I decided that it was a good day for a long boat ride so we headed out behind Bocas Paradise, a hotel and restaurant and met Michelle on the dock. Her boat was loaded down with five 35 pounds of dog food and a great deal of other supplies. The worker was anxious to get home and get on with not working so he was left in her faster boat and Michelle came with us.

The four of us proceeded to her farm in Lomo Partida. Lomo Partida is out there on the edges, an appropriate place for a woman whose interests vary from permaculture to string theory, who has traveled through Tanzania and decided it was her destiny to create a permaculture farm on the outskirts of an already exotic location and is as likely to have a monkey on her head as not. Michelle came to Panama seven years ago and created an organic farm on the other end of this archipelago the only gringo in a land rich with wildlife and inhabited nearly exclusively by mestizos, a mixture of Spanish and Indian. Our first way point was a dip between two hills referred to as “Split Hill”. About ten miles into the trip we wandered around mangroves. Michelle indicated that all routes lead safely through the mangroves in easily navigable waters. Ngobe Indians fished from their little dugouts or were were on their way to parts unknown. From a whole lot of nothing but sea, mangroves and jungle a gringo village appeared. Large yachts were moored, a big Hatteras, “There’s Scott’s boat. It’s for sale only $200,000.” Strange, I thought Scott had poured a great deal more into restoring the vessel. Something more akin to a small ship than a yacht enormous, “That’s Mike’s boat”. Michelle adamantly corrected that it was not Mike’s but his wife’s.

View Trip to Puppy Land in a larger map

We moored at the end of a dock upon which sat a lovely that roofed guest room constructed of Cana Fistula wood, walls that rose above the eves but far short of the roof to allow the cool breeze into the the room. The space between the top of the walls and the roof was strung with fishing line to keep out bats, an appropriate precaution in an area inhabited by vampire bats. “This is wonderful! Who built it?” “I did.” Whoa, my hats off to you. Next the hat was off to a monkey, not as a gesture of respect, but because the monkey wished it so. A capuchin monkey rules the place. On to see the puppies. An ascending boardwalk provided a serpentine path up the hill punctuated by kodak moment spots with benches. Each bench was employed by our hostess as an invitation to rest from climbing and have a cigarette. We arrived at a series of small cabins used as guest quarters and rental units and met momma and the puppies. Seven bundles of fluffiness and a monkey. Monkey on my head, on the roof, up a tree, on my head, mounting a puppy, swinging off a branch, on my head, wrestling a puppy, a non stop simian sideshow.

I invited myself to see Michelle’s “shack” in the jungle. We entered through an open dining room with half walls and a ceiling and a table adequate for many guests. The rooms flowed into one another with little ceremony, devoid of ceilings, better for the open-ness and breeze. The house was simply a masterpiece of unconventional, open living that reflected Michelle’s spirit, constructed of wood from a wild tobacco tree. At the rear of the house was a small bedroom, with a curtain for a door, overlooking the slope to the edge of the sea, the sea stretching to the mainland and rising to the mountains.

We returned to the puppies, coming and going, under the boardwalk, Now three, now four, six, four, three and, of course a monkey in the middle of it all. It was getting time to go. One puppy was a bit weary of the monkey and the little dog named Jezebel came out from beneath the board walk and sent the monkey on his way. Michelle had chosen wisely. I paid my $25 and taking the puppy in my arms started the descent toward the dock while the monkey climbed my back, swung from my free hand and climbed on my head while Nikelda took pictures of my abuse and Stephen laughed at the whole process. Down at the dock the monkey boarded the boat, gave everything an inspection and decided that it was in ship shape and hopped off the boat. We sailed off and encountered more Ngobe in cayucos. I wanted to buy a couple of the small boats for putzing around near my house so Nikelda asked two women in a cayuco if it was for sale. They looked at us as though we were from another dimension. They looked at each other. They looked at us again. The looked at each other. Now it appeared as though they were thinking about it. How often does some guy come by in a boat and offer one money for a little dugout canoe? Probably a once in a lifetime event down here. Nikelda asked again. There was a long pause and they indicated that the boat was not for sale.

I returned to town, dropped off my passengers and took the puppy to her new house.

As I went to bed last night the power status indicated that the charge level of the batteries had dropped to 65%. They really shouldn’t drop below 80% to maintain a long life. I had a load of laundry to do and it was a cloudy day so I went down to the boat, got my spare gas can and filled the generator. It took about three hours to restore full charge. The indicator stated that I had a net influx of 48.7 amps while I was running my propane powered dryer. The generator three outlets, a 30 amp 120 volt, a 20 amp 120 volt and a 20 amp 240 volt, why that’s not 25 amps eludes me. The system charges off the 30 amp outlet. The generator should only be run at full speed. Could I charge faster running off both the 20 and 30 in parallel? Are the two in phase? Surely they must be. Am I wasting gas and putting unnecessary wear and tear on the generator? I don’t know. That reminds me. I should probably change the oil, the house sitter was as irresponsible as could be.

What was I running that consumed 25% of my electrical capacity? One ceiling fan and a portable fan. The night was cool and with the breeze I needed a comforter. With the big windows open air moves through the house readily. I have no air conditioning but have never been hot in the house.

Back to the math, 48.7 amps at what voltage? AC or DC? Time to break out the manuals to compute system efficiency. Next time I’ll meter the gas for full system computation, but of course I won’t know the efficiency ratio of the engine or the generator.

I put on some coffee and watched the parrots flying through a light drizzle. A swarm of hummingbirds visited the flowers near the deck, the sea was flat. Life was good. Some unknown insect, mandibles with wings. startled me but continued on its way. I cleared another swath of jungle but my poor hands were not up to the task having been cut and blister during a flurry of activity yesterday. Hayu ran up and down the hills manically. “This beat’s the hell out of being in the apartment old man.”

The kitchen needed a little sorting out, there was far more cookware than necessary. The house was stocked with pots and pans and I brought a complete set. I really don’t need two to four of every type of pot and pan. I struggled with the pressure cooker. How could the primary release be inoperative, it is little more than a conical weight. Something else to look into, I don’t need a high pressure explosion with aluminum shrapnel.

Some programming, a trip to town, down to the bank, pay for all the crap I’ve been having shipped to me that I don’t yet feel comfortable storing in the house. I was reproached by several people for “abandoning them.” Sorry, not my job to entertain the town, I have plenty of ways to wile away the days. A very slow return on a ripple free sea met its conclusion in the form of my dog wagging his body from the neck down on the dock.

Woke, batteries down to 80%. Hmm. Sunny day, let the sun do its thing.

I sharpened my machete and thrashed swaths of jungle, vines, ferns, saplings, low hanging branches. I never advanced until I could see clear ground lest I encounter the scurge of the tropics, the fer-de-lance, the most feared reptile in the western hemisphere. Bushmasters are much larger, but are more retiring. The fer-de-lance packs attitude and a very nasty bite. I nicked myself a couple of times with the machete, bleeding profusely on the handle and tended to it in my usual manner, a look of disdain mixed with disgust and a pinch of nonchalance “It’s only a flesh wound.” One one particularly vicious slash the blood soaked handle slipped and the machete flew 20 feet behind me and wedged itself beneath a fallen log. Using a stick, I pried it loose. I sure as hell wasn’t putting my hand somewhere that I couldn’t see, even a single bullet ant will put one out of commission, in agony for 24 hours. (Do you want to visit yet?)

Ok, I’m done, I can’t even hold a damn machete. I walked down to the dock, stripped and started descending the dock ladder. The steps were covered in slime and barnacles. Great, slip and slash. So I dove in and tried to coax Hayu to join me without luck. Back up on the dock I provided all the persuasion he needed by throwing him into the water. He swam back to the ladder and I showed him how to climb out. That having been accomplished, I swam most of the way to the Garden of Eden, an upscale resort on a tiny island near my house. The salt water strung my cuts, but cleaned off the sweat and blood. Returning to the dock I grabbed the machete and walking to the house found Hayu frolicking in the muck at the base of some mangroves. A vital part of the environment, it is illegal to cut down mangroves. Permits may be obtained to cut the minimal amount to create a dock, but wholesale clearing is expressly forbidden and the prohibition is actively enforced. Never the less, they seem to have a habit of fading subtly out of existence by some mysterious process where they obstruct the view.

Back up the stairs, I got a towel, laid it on my deck couch and proceeded to sharpen my machete. A timid Indian came near, wearing long pants, a long sleeve shirt and a jacket looking cold thought it was in the low seventies. I was wearing nothing but a machete. I advised him to go and he did so.

No longer able to walk 100 feet to the local grocery store I packed my notebook into my backpack, grabbed my camera and deciding there was no point in locking the flimsy doors and shutters and headed out for a boat ride back to town A woman in town advised me that I could go to a specific supermarket and get the discount provided to the hotel. I had no moral compunction; I wouldn’t have shopped at the store otherwise, so they got some additional business, the volume of the hotel increased making them a more valued customer. Strange things happened at the check out. A written receipt was provided with each of the items and their prices and the total tallied twice. Usually the chinos just bang a bunch of numbers on a calculator once and come up with the wrong answer, invariably high. Hey, I can multiply and add in my head. 3 * 1.40 = 4.20 1.69 * 4 = (1.70 * 4) – 4 = 6.76 plus the 4.20 is 10.96. How the hell did you come up with 12.65?

Provisioning done, I returned home to enjoy the tranquility of Isla Solarte.

I usually read a few chapters before I go to sleep. Where the hell is my netbook? Wasn’t I reading it last night? Search proved fruitless. Maybe I left it back at the apartment. Wait, here’s the charger, here’s’ the case. Did somebody come in and snatch it while I was gone?

Down to the realtors, ensured that the documents were in order, sent instructions for wire transfer and headed out the door. I was sure my realtor was going to start drinking damn near immediately. This was not the easiest commission he ever earned. On the way home I stopped at the corner store, nope, no cardboard boxes today. Ayahh. Down to the next chino. There was a large pile of cardboard boxes stacked in front of the meat counter. Sure, I could have one. No, I need a bunch. The clerk referred me to the meat cutter, who referred me back to the clerk. The butcher was Chinese, so he obviously outranked the Indian. The Chinese own every grocery store in this town except two seriously upscale store that no local would patronize. Back to the butcher who referred me to the ultimate authority, the chinese woman who controlled the money, who referred me back to the clerk. Come on guys, they are empty cardboard boxes, you must go through 50 a day. Nope, I could have just one.

I headed back home and started haphazardly bunging kitchen supplies in the box. I removed my mattress to access the storage under my bed, filled my backpack with more stuff, took out the microwave box and stuffed it with stuff. Miscellaneous item were tossed into a duffel bag. A suitcase was used inappropriately, I’ll get the worcestershire sauce out tomorrow. The closet contained a suit, dress shirt, tie, a pair of Allen Edmunds cap toe shoes, one of a couple score of pairs of dress shoes I have in storage in Dallas, never to be used again. Ahhhhhhhhhh, I wore that suit back from my mom’s funeral last May. I turned it over in my hands a few times and covered it with a plastic trash bag. Sundry supplies were jammed into a big rubber boat bag. What is this? Oh yeah, some strange sexual device ordered by a former room mate. Something so extraordinary that came with an instruction manual bigger than came with my compact camera. There! Done! Not everything was packed, but that was all the containers I had.

I staged all of the items on the front porch of the first apartment and headed to the corner, hoping to catch a taxi. Streams of yellow HiLux pickup trucks passed me in both directions, heading to or from the fair full of passengers. Nobody would stop. Life’s not fair, fair fares fared well but I was hapless. I called the logistics manager of a local hotel, the jack of all trades: carpenter, plumber, chauffeur, boat operator, mechanic. He said he would be there in five minutes. He never showed. Finally a neighbor stopped for lunch in his taxi truck and agreed to take me in twenty minutes. I bunged my bags in the back and we headed down to Casa Verde. Arriving the driver decided to help me and picked up the microwave, turning it bottom side up for no apparent reason, the glass platter crashing against the door and then the top. Did I say I packed haphazardly?

The bags were moved from out front to the dock, I entrusted my dog to someone and headed down to the real estate office to get the keys to the house, having received confirmation that the wire transfer had completed. My realtor offered to hold onto my documents for me. “But then they’ll go up in smoke in the fire!” “What fire?” “When I burn your damn office down!” He laughed, “Why do you think I offered to keep them?” We were both very glad this was over. I continued to a store to buy a standing fan for use on the deck, both for keeping cool and discouraging the chitras, and proceeded to the hotel behind which my boat was moored, returned and loaded it up. Fifteen minutes later I was at the dock of my house, with a stack of heavy goods and a 100 step flight of stairs to my house. I made trip after trip and unpacked. The only damage observed was, surprisingly, to a pressure cooker, the lock release on the top snapped off but it could still be used. Damn! All the spices, knives and utensils and nothing but spaghetti and potatoes to eat. Ah well, starch it up.

As the sun set the birds announced themselves, a few frogs chirped, but other than that, all was silent save for the fan, which served me well on the deck. I think I read a few chapters of “A Brief History of Nearly Everything.” I’m virtually certain of it. Did I?

While rushing to Casa Verde, to try out their new breakfast offering and bid some friends adios, I received a call from the seller of my boat. I was to meet him at 9:30 at the notary’s office to get a notarized bill of sale. Breakfast was quick, as I had none and I rushed down to the notary office and tied up my dog outside. Five minutes later I had a notarized bill of sale in hand. I went to collect my dog to be met by some administrative personnel from the office who tried to tell me I had to pay a fine for my dog fertilizing the lawn. Near his deposit was a styrofoam plate that I used to clean up his mess. They were adamant that I needed to pay a fine. I feigned complete lack of understanding and thanked them profusely for advising me and left without paying. I’m sure the money would never have hit any municipal coffers. I wish this had this been the only shit I had to deal with for the day.

The seller was telling me all about the fishing in Pedasi and didn’t want to let me go, but I had a former commitment. Finally my real estate agent paged me and I used that as an excuse to break off.

Now, I was supposed to close last week, but the paperwork never made it to Bocas. I entered the real estate office and started going over the documents. I wanted to go through the documents in the order in which they were enumerated in the purchase contract, my real estate agent insisted that I work on them in the order in which they were clipped. I grabbed the first document and asked him what it was. “That’s your certificate of occupancy from the ministry of health.” No, it’s not, it’s a receipt for dental treatment. WTF? I can read that much. examen odontológico does not mean certificate of occupancy. My real estate agent called his girlfriend to translate. I was hoping for someone with some familiarity with Real Estate transactions in Panama as there appeared to be none in the room.

I looked at the sales contract, which was written in English. WTF? Only Spanish documents are legal in Panama. He wanted me to wire a different amount than was on the contract. WTF? It says that upon full payment… and he wanted me to withhold some money and give it to other parties. No, I don’t think so.

I grabbed the next document and my agent told me “that covers item 11” and took it out of my hand. No, that covers half of 11 there should be another document, please stop helping me. We got to the survey. I said “There are supposed to be two government reference points on this document, there are none.” He looked at me blankly, called the surveyor, then the attorney, who I had just recently found was representing the seller too. Back to the surveyor. “You only need those if you are using the survey for titling. That costs $600 more.” “Well, then what the f**k good is this survey? It’s from the same guy and has the same information as the last survey.” “But you couldn’t find the markers.” “There was supposed to be a cleared out boundary.” “I didn’t know where the boundaries were.” He was happy to point to random spots on the land until I actually wanted to locate the markers. What a cluster f**k.

This land is right of possession, a far more nebulous means of owning rights to property than buying titled property. I had insisted that all of my neighbors sign off on the boundaries. I found one document, that hadn’t been notarized and another document was missing. He called the attorney. Yes, she had the missing document in Panama City. Great. I’m not closing today. I left in disgust.

My attorney called to tell me that the document was on the way. I’ve heard that one before. Fuming, I walked down the street. My attorney called again. “XXXX has gotten the document notarized.” WTF? Got to love it when the person who signed the document is 310 kilometers away and it gets notarized anyway.