Into Panama, A Journal
February 27, 2007Into Panama, A Journal
April 24, 2006
Monday, 24th. Clinton Baermann drove me and Coquina from Port A to Houston International Airport. After a little searching we found the cargo operation where I had to put Coquina into a kennel and leave her in the care of the Continental Airlines people. That was almost as bad as saying goodbye to Billy and Gary on Sunday. That turned out to be a lot more emotional than I had expected. But anyway when we landed in Panama City, Panama, my preparations paid off and the man I had hired to help us through Customs did the job and got us out of there in an hour or so. Not that Coquina was not stressed near the limits. For that whole hour we all had to listen to her howling and crying.
My Pet Expediter drove us to a pet friendly Bed & Breakfast and we settled in for the night. It was a great place, an old mansion that just been converted into this use on April first. The dogs have a fenced in yard of about an acre right in the middle of Panama City.I had an appointment at ten that morning with an attorney to begin my Pensianado application and that went smoothly. Got my HIV blood test and a physical that afternoon and the next morning was taken to immigration and whisked through there in 30 minutes. I had been warned to be prepared to spend a few hours there.
Three nights in the B & B and then on to Bocas Del Toro, early on Thursday the 26th. Another stressful trip for Coquina, but we got out of the Airport and hired a water taxi to take us to our
new home, the sailing vessel, Sea Feather. We were joined on the dock by the previous owners who have been aboard for a week or more cleaning and getting the boat ready. They had done a great job and had all the sails on and everything ship shape. Coquina was not in such good shape, the stress has taken its toll. I lifted her onto the boat and she is OK on board, but I had to have help getting her off later in the evening. She did eat more than she had in the last couple of days and when I got her off the boat up into the grass she had three pees and a poop. She needed to get off.Friday, April 28, 2006
Coquina seems a little livelier today but I still have not been able to get her off the boat this morning. Charley and Babe came aboard and we started getting ready for my first sea trial and Charley helped me get Coquina off the boat and was she happy once on the dock. She took off for the grass and took care of business. We motored out and got the feel of the boat and put up the jib. The boat runs like a new boat. Charley has really taken care of her. We are going to take her out again tomorrow and get all the sails up.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
We had a good nights sleep and I got Coquina off the boat by myself, a first. I need to rig a gangway for her. It is too far for her to jump given her age and her hip problems. This time she didn’t exactly want to come back to the boat but I can’t let her run loose as there are yard chickens not too far away and I know she would go for them if she got close. Well our sail today got washed away by a squall. We put the awnings back up and sat out the rain.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
It has been an uneventful week, just getting familiar with the boat, the marina and town. Not near as much rain as I was expecting, only one day when it rained most of the day. Coquina has gotten used to it all, she will now jump off the boat, but I have started lifting her down, as she started yelping when I was picking her up to come back aboard and I’m afraid she might have been hurting herself when she landed on the dock. Now when we get back to the boat she walks up to the end of the finger pier and waits to be lifted aboard.
Friday, May 12, 2000
I was able to buy an anchor for my dinghy this week so I have been able to start snorkeling. I went twice yesterday and once today. I hope to go most days for the exercise if nothing else. The waters are beautiful but the most plentiful of the larger fish that I have seen is the spotted eagle ray. The only fish I have seen around the coral are small tropicals and small parrot fish.
At the Bocas Yacht Club Bar & Restaurant. It opens at five and by five there was quite a crowd. Some new boats have come in and others just coming over for the social, restaurant time. It was nice. I met Bob & Ray when they sailed in yesterday on a thirty foot sloop form Key West. Ray is staying here for a while anyway but Bob is flying back tomorrow. Both neat people, Bob is a geologist and a great person to talk to. Ray I am not so sure of as to a category, boat person, writer, busker, much more to find out.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Well haven’t been keeping up my journal very well. Ray has become a friend, his book “Tales of a Sea Gypsy” is a good read. He used to perform at Mallory Square in Key West as a juggler of bowling balls and machetes. Yesterday Ray and I caught a high speed water taxi up to
Changuinola. What a fine trip. The boat takes off from the Bocas waterfront and runs up along the whole length of Colon, the island Bocas Del Toro is on, past Bocas Del Drago and over to the mainland. The boat really fly’s. As we approach the mainland there is no slowing down and it looks like this crazed driver is going to run us up into the mangroves. At the last possible moment he cranks it hard over to the right and we are brushing the mangroves on the port side and just missing a couple of PVC markers on the starboard side which mark the small channel that gets us over the bar. Then almost immediately it is a hard left and we are in the river. The river is actually a 100 year old canal that was dug parallel to the coast to bring bananas down to Bocas for shipment. There is no sign that it is man made now. It is beautiful, a few primitive Indian homes and some grazing cattle the only sign of habitation. Ten or fifteen miles in recent floods have washed out the land between the ocean and the river, so for a couple of miles we are surfing. It is fairly exciting. The 45 minute high speed boat ride costs $5.
May, 29, 2006
I was up at the marina restaurant last night and overheard a new face say he had just sailed in on a Dufor. I mentioned that I used to sail on a friends Dufor in Key West. He said is that him over there. I looked over my shoulder and said is that Norman!! It sure was. Norman was my landlord for 6 or 7 years in Key West. He like many others took his boat out of hurricane country and he is looking to relocate here also. It was really neat seeing him again after 20 years. I have also been in e-mail contact with his wife Elaine.
June 1, 2006
I bought some really small fish hooks yesterday to catch some live bait with. This morning I dropped a hand line over next to the boat. Had a hard hit and had a good sized snapper on. Just as I was lifting it out of the water a 3’ barracuda shot out from under the dock and took him away.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Well a boat from Galveston came in today and one of the guys is flying back home. He gave me an ice chest and a 12 pack of Shiner Bock!!!! I will take some of it to tomorrow’s cruisers pot-luck along with a pot of pinto beans. I will not pouring any into the beans, as I sometimes do!
Sunday, June 04, 2006
One of the other residents here Billy Aljoe, is a diver from South Padre Island. He has been here nine years, is one of the marina owners and built most of it. He has made over 20,000 dives, has done salvage jobs where he wrapped det cord around the shaft of larges ships and blown the props off, or used explosives on the end of giant ten foot wrenches just to turn them. He is also the man that found the 1554 treasure ship Espiritu Santo off the Texas coast, whose cargo is now in the Museum of Natural History in Corpus Christ. He knows where some more Spanish wrecks are down this way although he won’t even say what country they are in. He is going to work them later this year. His boat is a large old motor-sailer that holds 1000 gallons of fuel.
Monday, June 05, 2006
I received word from my attorney that my Pensianado has been approved so I am an official permanent resident of Panama now. Or I will be after I fly back over to Panama City and get my card. I was hoping I could have Chip pick it up the next time he went but it has to be done in person.
One of the largest cayuca I have ever seen came in today with a load of lumber. The dugout canoe was about 45 to 50’ long and very deep. It was carrying 10,000 board feet of hardwood. The guy in charge said it was for Chip and there are 30,000 more feet still to be delivered. (for some of you Texan’s, Chip started the Leon Springs Café back in the eighties and turned it over to his brother Jud when he came down here to Bocas in 92. He has been selling land and done really well. He owns the marina land and 42 acres around it and a lot more. We have many mutual friends including Baermann and the late John Witherspoon and Howard Huntzinger. "http://www.islandreality.com/" http://www.bocasdeltoro.net/ )
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Boy, it has been awhile since I put anything down here. Life is good. I went over to Panama City and picked up my Pensianado card so now I am officially a permanent resident of Panama. It also comes with many discounts on restaurants, medical, entertainment; you name it including 25% off on all domestic and international airfare.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Well once again somewhat remiss in keeping the journal up. Siempre manana in paradise. Coquina seemed to be more affected by the heat lately so I dug my air conditioner out and hooked it up for use on the hottest days and she seems happy with that. We hiked back up to the old German cemetery behind the marina and took some photos but could not read the tombstone inscriptions (1886, 1901) in the photos. Took another river ride to Changuinola for lunch and bought a good blender. (not like my old one, someone will have to carry my two and a half horse power Vita-Mix in their suitcase when they come to visit!!) I am getting low on Chernobyl and need to get some pepper sauce going. Lilli who owns Lilli’s Caribbean Café and produces the “Killin Me Man” pepper sauce is going to give me her source for bottles and habanero’s. I guess it will be “Bocas Chernobyl” instead of “Texas Chernobyl.”
Anyway on this trip through the banana plantation we had a new experience. Every so often along the road there are some spindly steel structures that I had given little thought to. Peeling yellow paint and rust they looked like some long abandoned mechanisms. Wrong, on this last trip two of these structures had been swung out to meet each other over the road and they connected the overhead banana skyway cables. Our taxi was the first in line as traffic bac
ked up and we watched these stocks of banana’s slowly move along on their stately ride from field to processing. We got out took some photos and I made the comment that like the Caribou in Alaska it seems that in Changuinola, banana’s have the right of way. With horns blowing behind us our driver jumped out unhooked the train and pushed the banana’s back out of the way and we speed past. I looked back and only 3 cars got through before banana people ran out of the grove and reconnected the cable.We had a hell of a storm a couple of nights ago, I had about fifty gallons of water in my dinghy and there were two lightning strikes that everyone the next day said they thought someone in the marina must have been hit, but no one seems to have got it unless it was an unoccupied boat? The marina is just about full up. The first time ever, last year’s hurricane season sent a lot of boats down this way. And I have been the recipient of a lot of good from that. Some big boats cleaning out their freezers before the owners fly home have been great. Our Sunday pot-lucks (they were changed to Sunday soon after I arrived) have benefited. The week before last I grilled 8 or 9 swordfish steaks and last week I pan seared southwestern style 5# of jumbo shrimp tails. This week I will be doing something with pork chops. Coquina and I did in the rib-eyes ourselves.
The marina has a couple of Indian grounds keepers / handy men. (the grounds look like a park with flowers of many descriptions in profusion) One paddles over and back from Isla San Cristobal, about three of four miles each way, everyday in a small cayuca with about 3” of freeboard, in any weather. This morning we had about as hard a rain as I have ever seen, here comes Louie, just a dark shadow moving out of the down pour, no rain gear either. And there are many water taxi’s screaming up and down that same stretch of water. He comes up to the restaurant and is just all smiles and grins, he is 56 years old. I had been watching Wimbledon on TV but the rain took the satellite signal away completely.
A few days ago a new boat arrived with an attractive lady sailing single-handed. We visited up at the restaurant and decided we each wanted to visit the Smithsonian lab here in Bocas, so yesterday we did. An interesting field trip, they only let the public in on Friday’s from 3 to 5. Not exactly a tourist attraction. My companion, Pam, I also found out is a dentist. I mentioned that I had broken what I think is a porcelain crown and she said come by the boat, she had her mirror. After the Smithsonian we had a couple of beers at Boca Bills and then went to El Refugio for dinner. Sesame crusted Tuna and a nice bottle of Chardonnay really topped off the day. Pam needs a small air-conditioner to leave in the boat to guard against humidity while she is in the states for a couple of months so we may take that river ride to Changuinola once again.
Monday, July 03, 2006 Sunday’s pot-luck went well, I did a big pot of pasta and it came out just fine. There was not a noodle left. Our river ride got rained out. On the rain days they run the water taxis with canvas storm curtains and that is not the view we go for. So I cleaned the boat, Pam is coming over tonight as my first ever dinner guest.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Dinner was a great success, I did some more pasta to go with the sauce left over from Sunday and pork chops. I did it all on my little outside gas grill so as not to heat up the boat. Even with my little air conditioner blowing into the galley it cannot handle the extra load of cooking. After dinner I showed Pam some of the DVD I have of the next governor of Texas, Kinky Friedman, whom she had never heard of and she got a big kick out of that. There is a 4th of July party scheduled today over at Playa Mango, but it is looking pretty rainy. I hope it does clear later, my buddy Ray Jason is on tap to do his juggling act with bowling balls, torches and machetes.
Anyway the van came, we got in, and the fireworks started. We soon realized the driver was watching the fire works, so most of us had the sense to get back out and watch also. A couple of the rockets went off it seemed at ground level, but whoever was out there doing it continued doing so. Not a big show, but those near ground explosions gave it some excitement that more sophisticated shows don’t have. The van we were in was much smaller than any I have seen in the states, but there were sixteen people squeezed into it. And the rains came along with some real fireworks, much thunder and lightning. I was glad we took the colectivo as I am sure the water taxi ride back was more exciting and wetter than need be. I will find out from some of the other marina residents how that went. The van got a flat tire just as we were coming into town and the driver swung in under a handy covered parking area. He stacked up pieces of wood and drove up on it, and then just used the jack to hold up the van to change the tire. We stopped at Boca Bill’s for a nightcap and then hired a water taxi to get back to the marina.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Just a nice easy fair weather day. Took the dinghy into town had a couple of beers at Boca Bills and walked down to the Reef for a late lunch. The Reef has just reopened after a major renovation and it is sure nice. It is a waterfront place and they took out a wall and really opened it up to the water. It also sets out on a little point and catches all the breezes. A platter of fish fingers and a green salad for $3.50 and a beer for 75 cents. My house wine on the boat is Concha Y Toro Merlot at $2.50 a liter.
I was talking to a lady off a Cal 39 over on the next dock and she said that Coquina had been really unhappy with me earlier. What happened was we had been up at the restaurant and
Coquina must have lost track of me when I went into the marina office. Anca the lady in the office started showing me a bunch of aerial photos her husband Jeff and just taken of the marina and Bocas. I completely forgot that Coquina was off the boat. Anyway the gal from the other dock said that Coquina was back at my boat and when she didn’t find me she started howling and raising hell. I didn’t hear any of it but when I came walking back down the dock and she saw me she came running and jumping and acting like a happy puppy once again, instead of the twelve and half year old lady that she is.(86 in people years) It was nice.One thing I have been remiss in mentioning is my wonderful population of Geckos. I have a healthy breeding population of all sizes. I have to watch when I move most anything as there is likely a Gecko close by. They seem to be our only guests, no ants or cockroaches so far. The Geckos seem to be doing a great job.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
The other night during my writing time something happened and poof three or four nights of writing just went away. It has taken me a while to even sit back down at the keyboard. I am still trying to figure out what happened but it is nowhere to be found. (Save)
With my current short term memory it is somewhat of a problem to recall!
Thanksgiving, I haven’t taken care of my journal in a few months. It has been a good few months, have seen some nice places, Green Acres, the cacao farm where the ocelot lived that I sent photos out to some of you was a neat trip. Dave and Linda bought 25 waterfront acres on the mainland, on Dolphin Bay 12 years ago for $12,000 that are just wonderful, lots of elevation and a running stream. They have built a great two story stone house from stone on site. Dave’s chocolate production is not massive but really something to see. All hand made equipment and solar powered. The finished product looks professionally made but it is cast in half sections of two inch PVC pipe.
Back in July, about the 25th when I quit writing in my journal I also quit drinking alcohol and started a walking regimen. I also watched what I ate. By October 25th I had lost 80 pounds!!! I get up and start my walk about 0430, and walk for 2 hours, about 8 miles around the marina docks. I sure feel a lot better!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had given myself until the first of the year to loose the 80 pounds but did it with 2 months to spare. So I have put a little vino back on the menu. I also want to take off another 10 pounds. That would be my weight in the Navy over 40 years ago.Have been getting the boat out for day sail’s, I have found some young guys off nearby boats that are up for a sail and my friend Pam the gal that sails single handed has just got back from the States and has offered to give me some help also. I still do not have anyone that will go out for a week or two and I just do not have the knowledge yet to go by myself. I have lots o
f sea time just not much sail time. Not many sail boaters can say they have been through 5 hurricanes at sea and the many 100 MPH plus storms in Alaska that do not even rate names.Thanksgiving was great here at the marina, the restaurant did 3 turkeys and a ham, the rest was pot-luck. I did Mom’s turkey dressing and giblet gravy. We had about 50 people show up, had plenty of food and most of it got taken care of. I figured I would have gained 5 pounds, but the next morning there was no change? I have added sit-ups and push-ups to my morning program, if I can have my wine and still not gain weight it w
ill be paradise. Still the old hippy.My friend Chip was back in Texas last month and I got him together with my son Billy and got him to bring me a suitcase full of clothing and goodies I have been buying on line. New Croc shoes and clothes that fit. I had ordered some handmade Hawaiian shirts to my new size back when I was still wearing 2XL as an added incentive. They fit great!
November 29, 2006
A cruise ship here in the anchorage this morning, is it the death Nell of Bocas? Maybe not, Billy says one comes in every six months or so. It still worries me, I can see all those T-shirt shops on every corner and down the block in Key West and it is scary. The big bad development here is Red Frog Beach over on Bastimentos Island, where the have reportedly sold 200 mil worth of property. Last week we had a norther blow through and last for a week. The marina owners who have been here 14 years do not remember a norther ever having made it down here before. Anyway, some neighbors that were over to Red Frog this weekend said the million dollar beach is no more. The storm carved it away right up to the bar where the coco palms were falling into the surf. Didn’t need no F------ golf course here anyhow although I doubt a little storm will stop
it.I anchored a little farther out this time as I had some no-see-um problems last time. Anyway we had a little weather and my anchor seemed to be dragging some. I fired up the engine and started picking up the anchor and moving back out into better water. I had to reset the anchor twice, I am out there stark naked except for my ball cap and it is really raining. It was a down pour, with clothes on you would soon be chilled to the bone, but these warm rains are nice. Anyway it was a good adventure, running back and forth from the anchor windless to the cockpit letting out chain, backing the engine, I was having a really good time. It has been a while since my actions were really important to life and limb, I mean it wasn‘t like a hurricane or anything but I really loved it. Well midnight now and the anchor seems to be holding just fine, I guess I will get an hour or two sleep before I check it again.
February 1, 2007
Still at Starfish, no wind today so why leave, I may stay through the weekend. Having this beach to walk and take Coquina on is a real plus. This is a really fine anchorage. I can’t believe it is not used more although it is said that there are likely a 1000 great anchorages in the archipelago and none of us will see them all. Full Moon, no clouds, no wind, not a light on the horizon, not a sound to be heard that doesn’t come from the jungle and it is quiet again tonight.
I pan seared a 2” thick tuna steak tonight, sorry to say I did notcatch it, but it came out great, I had wasabi and pickled ginger in the fridge. I did run over to the restaurant at Drago tonight (I went over for lunch also) to see if there might be an early social scene, but it was not happening on my time schedule.( before 7.) So coming home and seeing Sea Feather ridding on the hook in this magnificent setting it just came out of me, “Fu--, Osborne you did it.” And so I have, I never thought I would ever be able to retire, I discovered Panama and just did it, and my lifelong dream, a sailboat!!! And this week I am a single handed sailor! Yahoo!!!
Well I started having trouble charging the batteries so I came back to Bocas Marina, I really wanted to stay out for a week or so. The electrician is here on the boat now and it looks like I will be needing a voltage regulator and an alternator. It may take a few days to get parts from out of town. I will be ready to go out as soon as I am running again. I hope to have a GPS receiver for my lap-top brought down from the States this week also and then there won’t be anywhere that is off the chart. I have most of the world charts on here and just need the GPS to show my position on them.
I hope to get out of here next week, the electrician is going to try and get back with my parts on Sunday. My boat slip is the last inside slip at the end of the dock with only the end outside dock beyond me. I have a great view and good breezes. Next Tuesday a 165’ boat with a helicopter on board is scheduled to tie up at the outside dock. There goes my view and with a 30’ beam I would not want to try to get in and out with it there. If I can get running I will go out and stay for the two weeks the boat is scheduled to be here.
There is an Indian family camped on the beach, a young guy and it looks like wife and daughter, he walked up when Coquina and I were walking & swimming but with my lack of Spanish we did not exchange much info. He asked if I was alone, which I am sure he found to be amazing, they seem to have worked out the partnership thing better than a lot of us. I have also had a pair of what I would guess to be Purple Martins make my boat their hangout while I am here; they stayed with me the last time also. (The Martins turned out to be Mangrove Swollows.)
After 2 nights at Starfish and I sailed back through Bocas and went outside for my first single-handed experience outside the inland waters. It wasn’t a big deal, just a trip down to the Zapatilla Keys which only took a few hours but it really felt good to be back out in the ocean and feel the swells from the sea under me. The swells were about 10’ and spaced a good ways apart. It reminded me of the Pacific. I had all my sails up for a while but lost the wind and had to motor in. I am now anchored at Zapatilla Sur and what a beautiful spot. Nicer water than even Starfish, the island seems to be solid Coco Palms, a white sand beach all around.
The Zapatilla Sur anchorage was a little more active than I had hoped for. Not too bad but I did not get the lee from the island I had expected, just not a big enough island. So this morning I picked up the hook and motored off. Had not a clue of where I was going, but as I got out to deep water and looked at my chart, Bluefields beckoned. It looks a lot closer from Zapatilla to Bluefields than it does looking back to Zapatilla. It is the elevation; Bluefields has it and Zapatilla does not. So I got to Bluefields about noon, motored around a bit past a small village and found an anchorage. Bluefields is the lagoon of the remote Valiente Peninsula on the mainland and something special, a deep lagoon in more ways than one. It is 4 or 5 miles deep and has water depths of 50’ to 70’ most of its length. The peninsula is shaped like a crab claw with the lagoon between the pincers, much like Haiti. My first choice of anchorage turned out to be a little too exposed to the entrance and as I was pushed into water with only 2’ under my keel I decided to move further on inside. Even though I was then being entertained by 3 pretty young Indian girls in a cayuca, the one with mature breasts was asking me where my esposa was and how old I was. Dream on!
The new anchorage is a delight, deep water, no wind but nice breezes and the required jungle backdrop. I have to get a jungle person to spend a night out here and tell me what I am hearing. I have no idea, birds or mammals except for those Howler Monkeys; they were so named for a reason. I had an old Indian come by the new anchorage tonight. They have their own idea of time or maybe no idea of time. They will come by, stop and hold off your boat and just smile at you and look at the boat for a half hour or more. Tonight’s guy was late 70’s at least, spoke English, said some people on boats paid him to take trash to the dump. When I understood what he was saying I said that sounded good and gave him a small bag I had ready to go. He was also complaining about needing glasses so I gave him a pair of reading glasses I got up at Changuinola for $1.50. We should all buy an assortment and find out who can pass them out. Can you imagine not being able to see simply because you do not have glasses! They are selling them for $1.50 a pair retail! I will check on doing something about that when I get back to Bocas.
Then this evening a young Indian in a cayuca came by and just sat out there and after a while we finely talked a bit and he gave me info about stores, restaurants, hotels in Bluefields. I gave him a $. There are many more people living here than I expected. But from everything I have seen from the boat is spotless, the place seems to be well kept. I will get ashore and walk around some tomorrow. The young guy that came by today was proud of limpiar has far as I could understand. Limpiar means clean.) I guess maybe I will put the sail covers on and stay awhile, this place sure seems to be nice. NO INSECTS!! It is a nice change from marina life. I put together a nice paella tonight, calamari, mussels, 2 kinds of clams, all canned but still a tasty dish.
Friday, 9 February 2007I took the dinghy for a shoreline tour of the end of the lagoon this morning. It sure is beautiful but I did not spot anything that looked like a store or a hotel. I did stop by the one other sailboat anchored here. The couple on her knew my boat as they had cruised with the previous owners. I took Coquina ashore to do her thing and found a small island just a few hundred yards from the boat that had a nice landing spot for the dinghy and some flat land for Coquina. It is amazing to me after every place else I have been down here but we were in the mangroves, and no mosquitoes or no-see-ums or as at Zapatilla Sur, biting fly’s. Hell, it can’t all be perfect but Bluefields is coming close.
Billy the diver from the marina has been telling me of a phenomenal underwater show here at Bluefields. It did not happen last night so I will look for it again tonight. He says it starts out as a small light, and then just grows until it looks like a wave of light moving across the lagoon and you are supposed to be able to trigger it with a strong light shined into the water. Last night when I put the light on I did see some very unusual lighted fish? But no light show. Well I will get my 1,000,000 candle light out and give it another go. (Still no show?)
I finished my last beer today and my last wine. Well I only left port with a six pack and a couple of bottles of wine and this is day 5.
Saturday
After taking Coquina ashore I decided to start heading back towards Bocas. The electrician has parts on order for my cruising generator and although my engine alternator is charging the batteries, I am forced to run the engine a lot more to keep them up, as I am doing at this moment. I will need to run it again in about 5 hours if I charge for an hour or so. So I headed on back over to Zapatilla Keys. As I was leaving the entrance to Bluefields, Daniel from the marina was coming in with a charter. Tonight I am anchored near where I was a few nights ago
although I stayed out in deeper water. It is not a very protected spot so I am hoping the weather stays tranquil. Right now there is not a cloud in the sky and no lights for many miles. The heavens are magnificent. I will probably do a little snorkeling after I take Coquina ashore in the morning and then head for Bocas and plan on getting in sometime in the afternoon. I plan on a few days to repair, refuel, re-supply, email and then doing this again very soon.Sunday
It was a tranquil night and we got headed back to Bocas under clear skies. It was another nice passage; we had enough wind to keep the sails full but still had to use a little engine power to make any time on our required heading. I caught a Cero Mackerel, lost a Dorado, and saw a huge Leatherback turtle. Arriving on Sunday there was not many people around so I landed the boat without any line handlers. I set up my bow and stern lines and ran them back to amidships on each side of my boarding ladder. My plan was to come to a complete stop and let the wind carry me to the dock. It wasn’t perfect. The wind was a little stronger than I accounted for and took me to the dock before we had come to a complete stop. Anyway when we got to the dock I jumped off with a line in each hand, Jeff a neighbor saw what I was attempting and ran up and took the stern line. It all went pretty well but Sea Feather has some new scratches from sliding along the dock for about four feet. I will work on them with some wax in the morning and see what I can do. And so another landing we walked away from and that is it until next time.
I had been asking Jairo (pronounced Irow) a young local guy who works here at the marina and who’s father had been bring wonderful produce here once a week in his cayuca, where was His father? No fruit for a couple of weeks. He said he was working at something else and I said, “well where am I going to get those stocks of little bananas that I like so well. “Well he said "I guess you just have to take your boat over to his finca." I said OK, how about Sunday, and the following came about. (A stock of bananas is about $2, a trip over and back in my boat an all day affair.) It was more about the trip than the produce.
Sunday:
What a nice day!! Jairo arrived at the marina about 0830 with wife and 18 month old daughter in tow and we cast off. Dead calm, did not even get the sail covers off, so not the best start, but it was really a beautiful day. We motored over to his father’s finca on the mainland east of Shepard Island and anch
ored at the head of the bay. We then took the dinghy up a small river to Ricardo’s (his dad) place. What a beautiful spot, he has 200 acres of mountains and valleys. It was a short ride through a tunnel of mangroves to the head of the river and Ricardo’s lower pasture. We walked up along the creek a couple of hundred yards and then climbed up a hundred feet or so the the house. The yard is full of chickens, guinea hens, some turkeys, 3 dogs, a baby goat and five or six more of Ricardo’s 10 kids. Ricardo is a small trim guy in great shape in his early 50’s. He bought this place 18 years ago for $14,000 and in today’s market would likely fetch a million five. Jairo went with some of his siblings up to a spring and waterfall for a swim and I went back to the boat to get Coquina. I just brought her into the lower pasture and let her run around, I am afraid to bring her up to the house with all the animals, no telling what she might do. She is not the same dog she used to be (now 13 ) but she has killed a few possums and cats in her youth. There are also lots of cattle, horses, sheep and goats running around. 
root vegetables, it was all good. They do their cooking on a wood fire about 25’ from the house. Later the whole family piled into Ricardo’s big
cayuca (a dugout canoe that could hold 30 people) and went over to some property where he is helping a Gringo develop some home sites. 
d around looking for photo ops, took a swim and picked some limes.
become and wanted out of this prison of fat. That is what brought me to Panama. I got on the Internet looking for affordable tropical places to live where I could start snorkeling again. I came looking for property and stumbled on Sea Feather. It took me about 4 months in the marina to get settled in and make my plan. When I did on July 25th I quit drinking any alcohol, started walking and cut calories to 1500 a day. I gave myself 5 months to loose 80# and then did it by October 25th. Now I am living the dream among the wonderful islands, going where the wind blows, I really have no idea of where I will anchor tomorrow night. Tuesday: I awoke to a dreary rainy day and thought I would just stay where I was and then along comes a sucker hole of blue sky and sunshine and I got underway. Soon thereafter the sucker hole closed and the rain came back and visibility dropped to just a few yards. I motored on using my electronic eyes and decided to head back up to familiar waters and leave exploring these new frontiers down here for another day and set the auto-pilot for Starfish Beach. As we got near Starfish the weather broke and we anchored under clear skies. Coquina and I went ashore and had a good swim; this is the best swimming beach I have found, white sand bottom, no surf, no current. Yesterday Jairo put his arm next to mine and said “damn Gary you getting same color as me.”
Wednesday: Coquina woke me about 5AM with very loud barking. I went topside and there was some strange intermittent noises that I could not figure out. As it started to get a little lighter I could see the noise was the breathing of large dolphins surfacing near the boat. We got in an hour beach walk and our first swim of the day before coming back to the boat and cutting up some fresh fruit. Total blue sky and calm winds. Did some chores and then took the dinghy over to the restaurant at Bocas Del Drago. Had a whole Red Snapper, rice and beans, plantains and a small salad for $5. That is something I will be doing more of. After lunch I got a large trash bag off the boat and picked up all the trash on Starfish Beach. I did the whole beach in about a half hour. It feels great when one person can make a difference like that. The beach is about a mile long and unlike the trash on Texas beach’s, little of this looked alcohol related. One beer can, one bottle, no wine or liquor bottles, mostly plastic wrappers and Styrofoam cups. Yesterday was Fat Tuesday and there has been more people using the beach although by 5PM I have always had it totally to myself.Sunday: I stayed at Starfish until this morning, ate a snapper at Drago everyday and did a lot of swimming and walking then came back to the Bocas Marina. I just plan on getting supplies and the laundry done and getting back out in a few days.
Monday A nice calm night, with the Howler Monkey’s serenade. Another swimming and walking day, after all that is why I keep coming back here. The water is cooler than Texas in the middle of summer, just cool enough to feel refreshing but still warm enough to stay in as long as you care to. Swimming has done wonders for Coquina’s appetite; she is eating a lot more nowadays. Went back to Drago and had lunch with Tom & Susan off M/V Limerick another boat that came in yesterday. I had pataconies stuffed with shrimp so did not get my snapper fix, I may need to go back this evening for that. A 5th boat came in this morning. Sitting up on the bow at sunset, the beauty of this place is amazing. The parrots are coming over in droves but almost always in pairs and the Howler Monkey’s are off to an early start.
Tuesday A little change in the weather, nothing major some high clouds and some wind. In late afternoon the clouds let enough light through that the sky, the water; everything was either a bright gray or sparkling quicksilver. A striking sight, one that reminded me of photos I had taken from the top of Victoria Peak in Hong Kong many years ago, the same colors. The winds today have had me pointing at all points of the compass; I wonder how twisted my anchor chain is.
Saturday Yesterday I limped ashore first thing to change out the prop on the dinghy and as I pulled in I saw what I thought was a monkey in a low tree. It turned out to be a two toed sloth and it was only about 20’ away. He just hung there until I hit the prop with a hammer to dislodge it and when I looked around it was gone. I did arrange for the Changuinola water taxi to come by the boat and pick me up so made that trip again and got the sunglasses ordered, again. Had lunch did a little shopping and the taxi dropped me back at the boat, great service for a dollar extra. That one bank of batteries is getting worse about holding a charge so I will be going back into the marina today not just for propane but to order batteries and will be there until that is taken care of and I will need to go back and pick up my glasses Tuesday or Wednesday. So we will get in another walk and a swim then pull up the hook and head back to Bocas.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Been at the dock over a week now and I am itching to get out. The shipment from West Marine I was looking for came today so I will have the fun of installing a new toilet in the forward head tomorrow. It has been a productive week, I had a hole in my sail patched, I learned about equalizing the batteries and it really made a difference. I just went over 72 hours on battery power with only my solar panels doing any charging, a big change from when I was running the engine 3 or 4 times a day. So maybe no new batteries for a while after all.
Thursday
Success, when I came back into the marina I was up ten pounds from the first of the year and I got back on my no vino, restricted calories and kicked my morning walk back up to 8 miles. This morning the ten are all gone. It is funny, I am more structured here at the dock, than out at those wonderful anchorages, it is almost impossible for me not to pop a cork, and watch the sun go down out there. Or pull a tab as it were, we get a good merlot in a box and they take up a lot less room in the trash bags. I may stay in the marina until the first of the week and work on loosing another 5 pounds before heading out. I have been getting a lot of work done also. I installed the new toilet in the forward head yesterday and it looks like I may need to change out my potable fresh water pump, Ho-Hum.
Well the pump is fine but there is an intermittent connection somewhere that I am chasing.
Mango Season, unlike those of you that are in HEB or other supermarket territory down here Mango’s come only in season and it has just started! Some of them are the size of large grapefruit and sweet, one I had this morning was almost too sweet, I thought about putting some aside for later, but ah, shucks I forced it down. While they are here I will make another batch of chutney also. Most of the other fruit we get year around, but Mango’s just 2 to 3 months a year.
3 April, Tuesday, I know that because the restaurant at Bocas Del Drago is closed today. I have been here at Starfish for a week, doing the usual, no real adventures, a trip to Changuinola, swimming and walking Coquina everyday, she still does both but the swimming is much easier for her. She still looks great but she is sure slowing down. It is a sad time for me in that respect. I am sure there is a burial at sea in my not too distant future.
On the way up here the other day we had a really nice encounter with some big Bottle Nose Dolphin that was a real nice interlude with the crystal clear water. And then as we were anchoring this white dog that I believe lives with the Indian family between here and Drago notices that we are back? She sits there on the beach and starts barking and then howling and of course Coquina replies. I went about my chores of taking care of anchoring, the dinghy, etc. and there she is, the white doggie swimming around the boat trying to get in the dinghy and swimming over to the boarding ladder. I got Coquina into the dinghy and let her follow us ashore. I haven’t seen her do that to any other boats?
I ran out of water so I fired up my water-maker for the first time, just making a little over a gallon an hour. There may be some acid cleaning I need to take care of before I come out again but for now the rains have returned after a 2 month absence. I have captured rainwater for 3 days now and my tank is full up. (200 Gal.)
Friday, April 06
I came back to Bocas Marina yesterday. It had been a little rainy but didn’t look too bad and there was some nice wind, so thought I would go out and get the sails up. I did that and then the rains came with a vengeance, visibility went to almost nothing. I continued towards Bocas, got my sails down and anchored off the marina still in a driving rainstorm. It wasn’t really a very good travel day after all, but about 3 hours later it cleared off, the winds went away and I was able to bring her on in to our birth.
Wednesday, April 18
Mostly just doing the marina stuff, boat maintenance & picking up needed items from town. The big events have been Chip’s brother Jud flying down with my new Toshiba laptop with the 17” screen and a new prop for my dinghy, the 2nd Annual Bocas Chili Cook Off and of course Coquina’s 13th Birthday. That is 91 in people years.
The cook-off was great fun, Chip won the prize with “Jake’s One Eye Texas Chili.” Jake is Chip’s 14 year old one eyed dog. There was a good turnout, great weather and a nice location on a grassy area on the beach next to a creek a couple of miles out of town. I think I will have to enter next year. Chip is the only one that didn’t use ground meat. He is trying to educate the locals about what Texas Chili is all about so I guess I will try to help the cause next year. I will need to see about replacing the cast iron pots I left in Texas.
Sunday, April 22
I am anxious to get out again; Jud was telling me where they have been getting a lot of Tuna, Dorado and Snapper. It is a sea mount where the water goes from 260 meters to 24. I have located it on my charts and I have even been near it before without realizing it.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Still in the marina, I have been doing some work on the boat and keeping my walking up. I do at least 8 miles every morning and have been kicking it up to about 10 at times. I am planning on pulling out by the first of the month. I installed 2 more solar panels and then put a lightning diffuser on the top of my main mast. I have been waiting to get a heavy wire to hook up a ground to the system and I got it today and should have everything finished tomorrow.
Wed., May 30, 2007
http://www.itec-edu.org/map1.htm
The above link will take you to another map of the Bocas Archipielago.
Just about ready to pull out, tomorrow or Friday, I think I will top off my fuel, it will likely take 50 or 60 Gal.Saturday June 2nd, back at Starfish Beach, motored up here after taking fuel yesterday, only took 27 gallons that is good mileage for 48 hours run time.
Well the new adventure did not start out so well. I had a step on my ladder going down to the solon that had been poorly repaired when I bought the boat. Anyway I did not take any action and last night when I went back down in the boat with my arms full of some heavy books, the step came apart and my feet went out from under me. It took me a moment to figure out what had just happened. My head was in-side the bottom step with the electrical stuff I keep there so that centered me as to where I was. Then I thought maybe my legs were broken as my knees hurt so much. I figured out I had my cell phone in my pocket so I could get help if I needed it. It turns out I didn’t. I moved one leg and then the other, the knees felt like hell but I could make them work. It did bring home how fragile my lifestyle can be, and how I need to be very careful about everything I do. 
The next morning I am sitting in my cockpit when I see a dinghy heading towards me. It turns out to be Steve another boat owner from the marina. He said he was going out to Bird Island to do some snorkeling so I jumped in my dinghy and off we went. It is a beautiful place, a 
bird sanctuary where no one is permitted to go ashore.
BIRD ISLAND
Friday, 8 June 2007
At anchor off Bocas Marina and working on the inverter problem. I have been anchored out here for about 3 days and finely got Kayving our local electronics guy out to the boat. We found and fixed one problem but not the main one. I am beginning to think that it goes back to my old batteries and I may need to bite the bullet and replace them. I talked to a guy off another boat that just replaced his batteries with new top of the line stuff and it sounds like I can replace 7 batteries with 2. $450 each but I am thinking it is the way to go. We also had a weather day today, lots of rain and moderate winds, filled my water tank. I was ready for that, as I was looking to turn on the water-maker soon.
Monday, 11 June 2007
I got up this morning took the dinghy into the marina and walked me and Coquina for a spell and came back out to the boat and pulled anchor. I did not know just where I was headed but as I got underway I decided to go for the outside and head down to the seamount. Got there about 11 and tried bottom fishing until I hung up and broke my line then came on over to Cayo Agua and found Daniel’s place. Daniel has an office at the marina and can take orders for West Marine and Marine Warehouse. He also has a trimaran that he charters. 
DANIEL'S PALAPA
What a great spot, a couple of small beaches, huge rocks jutting up out of the water, lots of jungle, and a thatched palapa up on a high promontory overlooking the lagoon and across to Cayo Poppa a couple of miles away with views of the distant high mountains of the mainland.
I introduced myself to a couple of Daniel’s workers took Coquina for a swim then went for a nice snorkel. Maybe the nicest and most interesting coral and sea life I have seen down here, a green moray some nice snapper, and lots of tropical reef fish. Soon after I anchored a young Indian came by and looked the boat over, he was in a small cayuca and had snorkel gear and a pole spear. A few hours later he came back by with 2 or 3 dozen nice fish in the bottom of the boat some still flopping around. I had just finished eating so I passed on buying any
but it is nice to see that there are that many fish around.
VIEW FROM PALAPA
Later a young Indian family, (a couple, 12 year old boy) came by the boat in a big cayuca. Their total inventory of stuff to sell was 2 pina’s and a live baby pig, I got one of the pina’s and passed on the pig.
What a nice evening, no other boats in sight. Calm winds, the absolute only noise I can hear is the gentle lapping of the water against my dinghy. Sunset, “red sky at night, sailors delight.” Getting dark now and starting to hear some sounds out of the jungle, Howler Monkey
s and others I cannot identify.
CHECKING OUT CAYO AGUA
Tuesday
More snorkel time and Daniel came in and anchored with his charter, a young couple, the guy is a biologist down here studying the different poison dart frogs on the different islands. Many of the islands have frogs found nowhere else in the world. One here on Cayo Agua has 
a lime green back, a yellow belly and red hind legs.
CAYO AGUA SAIL
Wednesday
Planned on leavening today, but since Daniel is here and planning on going back towards Bocas tomorrow I will stick around and follow him. I have been trying to get someone to show me the route on the inside as it would be nice to be able to get down here and avoid the off-shore weather at times. Snorkel. Snorkel.
CORAL CAY
Thursday
Another wonderful day breaking. I did some (surprise/surprise ) snorkeling today and then this afternoon we took off for Dolphin Bay. Only it wasn’t that easy. I had problems getting my anchor in and believe that can also be related to another battery problem. Anyway I caught up with Dan and we made it to Coral Cay as his charter decided as it was getting late they would like to anchor for the night and feed the famous fish of Coral Cay. A great move, we got anchored and came into the restaurant. Coral Cay is a great spot where all the building is on pilings out over the water and miles from anything else. It is a destination that all the tour and snorkel boats bring their customers for lunch. Only the bar is open after that
.
Of course Dan knows everyone from bringing his charters in here and he was talking the owner into opening the kitchen for him to use. Dan was talking about a sea food soup and I mentioned Paella. I had some stuff and so did Dan and he got the use of the kitchen. They even gave him helper to chop veggies. He made a huge Paella, they even had a perfect Paella pan and I had a bunch of Saffron. We were joined by the restaurant owner and a couple of others for a great dinner. It was a wonderful evening; we even had a thunder and lightning show.
This is the place that has hundreds of big snapper living under the buildings, just by dropping some bread crumbs in the water they come out in a swarm reminiscent of the films I have seen of Piranha feeding. The next morning I took photos of Daniel’s charter couple in the water feeding the fish. We then took Daniel’s dinghy a couple of miles to some exceptional snorkel area and then we came back, pulled the anchors and got underway, Daniel to Dolphin Bay and me back to the marina to fix my anchor windless problem.
CLICK ON THE PHOTO AND SCAN TO BOTTOM TO SE
E THE SNAPPERS BETTER.
Monday 18th. I have been here in the marina for about 3 days, the anchor problem proved easy to fix and now I am going to run that battery equalization program again to see if I can extend their life some more.
Wednesday, 20th. Today was the opening of a photo contest for a non-profit group called BESO which raises money for Indian schools. Anyway of 53 entries my photo of the sunrise that I have at the top of my blog won 1st place and will be on the cover of the next issue of The Bocas Breeze a monthly newspaper, and will also be on the BESO calendar that will go on sale in September. http://www.thebocasbreeze.com/ Click on July issue.
The battery thing worked agai
n and it looks like I am good for a while longer! 
Bluefields, surf, beach, jungle trail.
Panama 6
September 07, Panama
September, 23
I haven’t sat down to write for a spell, mostly in the marina and some trips back to my usual anchorages. I have bought a new (old) dinghy and have redone the bottom with fiber glass and gel coat, at 11 feet it is 3 feet longer that the old one and sure rides better, much dryer also. Anyway I left the marina a few days ago and headed down to Escudo de Vaguras, an island about 45 miles east of Bocas. It was a nice trip, had enough wind to sail or at least motor sail almost the entire way, just had to give up on the sails about 6 miles out. A friend told me to expect Jurassic Park, and he was not far off. I came in along the west end and around to the south side where the best anchorages are. The west is a long white sand beach with Indian’s thatched houses interspaced along the shore, beyond that it looks to be impenetrable jungle. Around on the south side there are huge stone fingers protruding out to the water ending in shear cliffs of about 25’ divided by small sandy beaches. The only things washed up on the sand are driftwood and coconuts, one I recognized from opening it yesterday, and topping the cliffs more heavy jungle. It is the clearest water I have seen in Panama also. Around on the east side are many small heavily forested stone island which are great to explore with the dinghy. I need to find out what this island is made of, it doesn’t look to be volcanic to me?
Being only ten miles off the Panama mainland where it makes a big crescent, you can see many miles of it, (50 a 100?) yet at night there is not a light visible anywhere. No light pollution here, the stars are bright! Saturday night the winds picked up out of the west, which is the worst point as far as the anchorage is concerned and it got a little rolly, but I had dived my anchor and knew it was buried in good sand and I had a 9 to 1 scope out so was not too worried, but I ran the engine for a couple of hours just in case.
ut after some dinghy exploring the next morning I decided to head off and headed back towards Bluefields, but after figuring out the time and realizing that I was bucking a good current, and the wind, I also decided it would be a good time to see what Tobobe had to offer. It is the only good mainland anchorage between Bocas and Colon at the Canal. As you will hear later I wish I had stayed there an extra night. I got in there and worked my way back into a small bay and anchored in 40 feet of water, deeper than I like and more than you normally need to in this area. It is another beautiful spot, with a fairly large Indian population. Within 30 minutes of anchoring I had about 10 Cayuga’s around me, most with pre-teen boys but some with women and small kids, some with nubile young ladies which I still appreciate.
As the evening wore on and the novelties wore off I was left with an audience of one cayuca with a guy in his late teens and 3 with two boys each in the 5 to 10 year old range. The bay it turns out was full of schools of feeding Mackerel, and when I started trying to cast a lure to them and falling short the older kid took off paddling his cayuca and started trying to drive a school of them towards my boat. When the younger kids saw what he was doing the paddled over and got in line also. I had a line of sea going cowboys trying to head me mackerel, to no avail as it turns out but a neat experience. I got them all back to the boat and gave them tips for their efforts.
Unlike Escudo with its many unpopulated beaches Tobobe where I anchored is mostly mangrove shoreline and Indian homes on most of the solid ground. I found a spot with fifty yards or so between two homes and landed Coquina there so she could take care of her business. The next morning when I needed to get her over there again I showed a women that was watching us some bills and thumb tacked a couple of dollars to a palm tree.
After leaving Tobobe I was just passing Big Plantain Key which is one of a few small island just off of the mainland and I looked back to check on my trolling fishing line and saw the line up in the air rubber banding, and then saw a large dark fish dropping from about 6 feet back into the water. Whatever it was it threw the hook when it came out of the water.
Now the best and the worst, I think I will need to wait until tomorrow to continue this…….And so I did.
I motored on to the east and entered the Laguna de Chiriqui and headed across towards Cayo Agua and bypassing Bluefields where I had thought of spending a night. (should have, would have…) Anyway on my way across I again checked my trolling reel and noticed there sure was a bunch of line missing! Looking way farther astern I spotted the wake of a fish on! Cutting back on the throttle I ran back and started to reel him in. Getting him up to the boat I used the gaff to bring aboard a 50” Wahoo! Yahoo!
About that time I noticed that the sky from where I had just come from was really black and coming my way. I cranked up the RPM as I was only about a half hour from Daniel’s place on Cayo Agua where I was planning on spending a few days. Well I didn’t make it and the storm hit with a fury, 40 to 50 knot winds and driving rain, and in that I miss judged my course as I was being driven sideways with the wind on my starboard beam and setting me down to the reef on my port side. I went hard aground but by backing and filling, full astern and full ahead, I was finely able to back around into the wind and back off of the coral. As I came around and put my stern into the wind it caught the center portion of my plastic windshield which I had open and only attached with the snaps along the bottom and carried it away straight over my bow light a shot. There for a while I thought I had lost my boat. The port rail was in the water and water was being blown into the cockpit from the starboard side. Coquina was really scared, sitting up there in the cockpit whining. A little more excitement than I really needed. After getting off the coral I was able to get over in front of Daniel’s place and get a little bit of a lee and anchor, still in driving rain and just a little less wind. After making sure the anchor was holding I cleaned the Wahoo and bagged it for the freezer while lightning danced all around us, not my neatest job of cutting up a fish…..
One time I was being interviewed for a chief engineer position and was asked what I thought my strongest suit was that I bring to the job. I told him I keep it all together when it all goes to shit. The interviewer did not know what I was talking about and I said, “You have never been to sea have you?” I didn’t take that job, as I couldn’t see working for a company that had someone like that in that position. At most companies I would have been talking to a Port Engineer with a lot of sea time behind him. It held for this time also, it was exciting but I stayed calm throughout it all.
After I settled in and the wind let up a bit I fixed some Wahoo sashimi with soyu, wasabi and pickled ginger, opened a bottle of wine and hit the sack soon after dark. Today after taking Coquina ashore and waiting for the sun to get up I dove the boat and checked the damage. It could sure have been a whole lot worse; this is a strong old boat. All the damage is on the port side and I will need some gel coat and of course bottom paint, maybe a little fiberglass, but rudder and prop are just fine. I will get Daniel to look at it when he gets here also. Today I am taking it easy, I gave Daniel’s caretaker some Wahoo to smoke and I will cook up some for tonight’s repast. Let us hope my next entries in this journal are much more mundane.
This is my 3rd night here and last night and tonight, so far at least, has been very tranquil, full moon no less. Yesterday evening a lobster diver stopped by and I bought 4 medium sized bugs for $10. I didn’t really need them with all the Wahoo but what the heck, after the stress of the other night figured I would go for it. Daniel came in today and dove on my boat and came up with about the same thing I saw, abet a more experienced opinion. He said that all the damage he found except for a two inch scrape on the keel were only into the gel coat with no fiber glass exposed. He said a year or so without a haul-out should not be a problem. Very fortunate indeed!
September, 27, 2007(Birthday)
Two other boats that had been in Bocas came in and anchored nearby also, KaijaSong and Blow Me Away. I mentioned to Gary off KaijaSong that I was just taking it easy today as it was my birthday and later Lyla from BMA came by and said she had heard it was my birthday and invited me over for happy hour. We had cocktails and a nice visit, Gary and Kaija, Lyla and Aaron and then Lyla comes up into the cockpit with a brownie cake with candles on it, it was a nice touch.
September, 29, I came on back into the marina. I will finish work on the bottom of the new dinghy, clean up Sea Feather, top off my fuel and get ready to go out again. Well the last 2 months have been pretty tame. I discovered a leak in my fuel tank and pumped all my fuel into barrels on the dock. Locating the hole and determining that the tank needed replacing took a few weeks and then deciding on what to do about it a couple of more. Anyway I have had the top cut off and I am having a fiberglass tank made that will slip inside the old tank.
September 2008
I have not been keeping up my journal this year, here it is almost October and no up-dates at all this year, so looking back I will try to bring it up to date. Mostly I have just been working on Sea Feather and enjoying this amazing archipelago. I gave up my slip at the marina and spend most of my time at my favorite anchorages, Starfish, Cayo Agua, Bluefields and to a lesser extent the Bocas Marina anchorage. The Bocas anchorage I can pick up wireless Internet and get into town for supplies, but it is crowded with other boats and heavy water taxi traffic, I much prefer the quiet of Starfish and then the short run to Bocas to check email and re-supply every two or three weeks.
Boat-wise, over the summer I replaced my house bank of batteries which I also relocated to a much more accessible location, my engine control cables, had the motor on my anchor windless re-wound and kept busy keeping everything running. On a boat this old, (1976) it is even more of a never ending project than on boats of a newer vintage.
My old (7th grade) friend Tim Hays from California visited last December and Rick Pratt and Andrew Cleland came down from Port Aransas in March. Tim got here just as we were finishing up with the new fuel tank so we only got in a couple of days sailing before he had to get back home. We got up to Starfish and that was about it, Rick and Andrew were only here long enough to make quick trips to Cayo Agua and Starfish for a night each.
DRYWALL DAVEIn July Eva and Dave Schlabach came down to visit, Dave known as Drywall Dave on stage as a great harmonica and electric fiddle player was from Port Aransas and Kerrville Texas.
Dave had sent me an email saying they were coming to Bocas and it would be nice to reconnect. They found me on Wed. at the anchorage just as I was pulling away from Sea Feather to take Coquina in for her afternoon walk around the marina grounds. Dave was after surfing info so we stopped by “Lily”a surfing friend’s boat and had a nice visit with Bruce and Patty. Later I suggested we take Sea Feather down to Bluefields Lagoon as it is one of the most delightful anchorages I have ever seen, and "they have surfing too!" Thursday AM we did a little shopping for supplies and weighed anchor and later anchored at the back of the lagoon an hour or so before dark. Night comes fast here, total nightfall by 7:15. We all turned in by 9PM.
Breakfast of bananas and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and about 10AM we took the dinghy ashore and took the Indian trail through the jungle over to the beach, about a mile walk over a low ridge. Dave carried a 9' surfboard he had rented. The surf was not "up" but Dave went out and got a few rides, Eva explored the beach some and I walked up a couple of miles up towards an Indian village and to get a look at a reef. 
When I came back to where Eva was Dave came back in and mentioned how tired he had become out there, mentioned he needed to get a board to paddle on the Guadalupe River at home in Kerrville to get in better shape. He rested for just a short time and then he wanted to go out and see about spearing a fish. He got his snorkel gear and we walked back up the beach to where the reef starts just about 100' offshore. He only stayed out for 15 or 20 minutes and came in saying he really did not feel good. He complained of gas in his stomach. We walked back down to where Eva was lying on the beach and I went for a swim. It was not 10 min. before Eva called me to help. When I got to them Dave was totally comatose and never responded to anything we did. Eva ended up doing CPR for about 4 hours while I took off to try and get some help. It took me and hour and a half to get back through the jungle and take my dinghy out to the head of the lagoon where cell phone service is sometimes possible. I got the marina and they sent a fast boat down and took Dave and Eva back to Bocas. I believe Dave was gone in those first 20 seconds or so between Eva calling me and me making it to them. It turned out to be a blood clot. A fast way to go, in a beautiful place doing something you love in the arms of your wife, at fifty eight, much too young but a good way to go. Dave died on July 18. There was a memorial service at Angel Gurino’s ranch in Kerrville on August 30.
Dave Schlabach
1949-2008
August
I spent most of August either at the Bocas Marina anchorage or in the marina. I replaced my engine control cables and a few other boat up-keep jobs. And something I should have done long ago, I had Coquina trimmed so she looks like a short hair dog. I think she is happier and what a difference in keeping the boat clean, that long hair really gave the old v
acuum a workout. I also cut off my ponytail and started cutting my own hair this summer. I just sit on the fantail and run the clippers over my head.
Coquina with the Panama Trim
September 15, 2008
I had been at anchor at Starfish for about three weeks and started running low on supplies so decided to head back to Bocas. I went outside through the channel at Bocas Del Drago on the north end of Isla Colon. (the island Bocas is on) I decided to go outside as the tuna were running thick and a friend had caught 29 fish a couple of days before. It was the first time for me to transverse the Drago channel. Soon after I got offshore and was going past Sail and Wreck Rocks and their extensive reefs, I was motor sailing with just my jib up in light winds. I heard changes in my engine exhaust sounds and I lost power. I went below and opened the engine room door and all I could see was heavy black smoke. Of course the first thing that comes to mind is FIRE! The smell though was more like exhaust and I could detect no flames. I propped the door open and went back to the wheel. Power had come back and I put it at dead slow with just enough way on to keep me away from the reefs I had also lost what little wind there was. I still was not sure what had happened but I was running OK at 2.5 knots so I headed on down to the Bocas ship channel. It took about 4 hours but I made it back to the marina and they found a temporary slip for me. I tied up and shut down and waited until everything cooled down the next morning to inspect things. It turns out my 8 feet of 3” exhaust hose had come apart and collapsed on the inside and the back pressure blew holes in the muffler. Filling the engine room with exhaust robbed the engine of oxygen and that is why I lost power until I opened the door and got some circulation going.
September 24
I have replaced the hose and Worth, (who built my fuel tank) repaired my fiberglass muffler and I am now waiting on some fiberglass work on two elbows that go in the system. I hope to have the engine running by tonight?
No not quite, it was Saturday the 27th before I got the engine running, Happy Birthday to me. I think I will take it easy the rest of today and plan on changing the oil and scrubing the engine room Sunday and heading back towards Starfish on Monday on my shakedown cruise to see how everything holds together. I did not have enough of the T-bolt hose clamps I would like to have used on the exhaust hoses so I will be watching everything closely until I can get the better clamps from Panama City.
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Panama, Our New Home Port, Red Frog Marina
August 7, 2009: We have been here at Red Frog Marina for a couple of weeks now and like it better every day. First off, a little history about Red Frog. It is on the island of Bastimentos about five miles from Bocas. It was to be a huge mega development, homes, condos, golf courses, marina, Spa’s etc. They had labor problems (1200 employees) among other concerns and went into bankruptcy. It is coming back as a much smaller more ecologically friendly concern with plans to give some of the property to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, no golf, smaller homes, eco-tourism etc. The marina at present only has power hook-ups for a dozen boats and the price of $5 a foot makes for a very economical dockage.
The tie ups are new state of the art floating docks in a very beautiful and well protected lagoon and yet it is just a ten minute walk across the island to the ocean with miles of white sand beaches with great body surfing, coral reefs, snorkeling and beach combing. There are also miles of golf cart sized roads that were put in for the big development that make nice jungle walking paths. These are the only “roads” on the whole island, in the town of Bastimentos there are only concrete walkways. My plan with all this available is to use it and get the old waistline (Now 40”) going back the other way again. I took off 80 pounds when I first moved to Panama but have put about 25 back on in the last three years so Surf City here I come!
I haven’t written in my journal in a year or more, I had been just going to the same spots I had written about before, Starfish, Bluefield’s, Cayo Auga, Bocas, etc. and as much as I enjoy them all, not a lot new to write home about.
And then there was the murder of my youngest son Gary in April of this year in a home invasion, and I am still not ready to go into that very deep. His service was held on April 18th on what would have been his 39th birthday. Two hundred thirty people attended only four of which were family. Gary touched a lot of people in positive ways. Most of those that attended were the legions of fans and their parents of Gary’s “Tank” skate & bike park”. I am getting through it but no matter what I do or what else happens, 2009 will be the worst year of my life. But as they say “time heals all” and it does get a little easier.
We have been going through a cool wet period, as of 7am on the 6th we have had 7” of rain this month and high temps in the low to mid 80’s. Bocas got 15 & ½ foot of rain in 2008 and we can’t be far behind this year if not ahead? Green, you bet!
Even with these rainfall amounts, potable water is a problem in Bocas as the rapid expansion of the town has totally overwhelmed the infrastructure of water, sewer, & roads, even dock space for dinghy’s and panga’s is hard to come by. Anyway water here at Red Frog is not a problem; they have tapped into an underground river and the quality and quantity is tops. The water pressure at the docks must be around 100 PSI; it is like a fire hose although with all the rain I have yet to take any dock water for my boat’s tank.
Last week seven of us from the cruising community hired an Indian tour guide & his panga for a little sightseeing and to learn where to go on our own later. Our first stop was for lunch at a thatched waterfront building at the Bahia Honda Indigenous Community for some native fare then on to a small jungle creek where we were able to slowly motor for a half hour or so then the motor came up and we were paddled up stream for another half hour. Along the way we saw a dozen Sloths, both 2 toed and 3 toed varieties, a Caiman, a big Boa Constrictor, a Harpy Eagle, other birds, insects and the red poison dart frogs from which Red Frog took its name.
We tied up at a small wooden dock and walked up a nice landscaped trail lined with pineapple plants to the home of an Indian family where we paid a couple of dollars each to walk across their property to a Bat Cave. Along the way to the cave were more Sloths and Red Frogs. The cave itself called for wading in water up to chest deep and was home to hundreds of nectar bats and had some very nice and colorful stalactites and stalagmites. All of this is within 2 or 3 miles of the marina.
I do like it here, only a handful of people living at the marina and not a lot more at Red Frog itself. It is very quiet, at night in my hammock or in bed with the hatch open, (no rain) the sound of the surf is the background music to which the sounds of the jungle play to. The musical song of the Montezuma Oropendola is frequently heard as are many other interesting and at least to me, unknown calls. The ten minute walk from the boat to Red Frog Beach is through some beautiful jungle.
The beach is on most everyone’s Bocas tour itinerary and a lot of the tour operators have started using the same trail and docking their panga’s at the marina, so some more noise during the day but more bikinis’s also. A good trade off and they are all gone by 5PM. The beach is beautiful, jungle to the edge, then deep sand out to the clear blue water. Some reef at the north then sandy bottom to the south down to pretty much an impassable point of rock covered by an impenetrable jungle. By going back to a side road and taking a short trail you can bypass the point of rocks and come out on Turtle Beach. I have yet to see anyone else there, and from there, miles and miles of deserted beaches, little offshore islands, coral reefs, and lots of jungle. Here the beach is littered with driftwood, and many large toppled trees sprouting extraordinary bromeliads and orchids from their dead branches. Some of the bromeliads are 4 and 5 feet in diameter. The trees have been toppled by erosion from the sea although it does not look as though it is a real rapid process as many of the trees are long dead. They do impede beach walking as some must be waded around, climbed over or through their branches or short detours through the jungle taken. It is definitely not like walking on the beach in Port Aransas with its wide open beaches you can drive on. Going over, around, and through the branches and trunks of the fallen trees makes a mile take a lot of effort. The same can be said for the points of rocks except there is no going through them.
Damn it’s wonderful and all within walking distance of my new home port. There is one thing that should be said about the beach, the water is sometimes treacherous, there can be wicked Rip Tides and the unwary and inexperienced can get in trouble. That said I have been getting in some really good body surfing!
My first evening in the marina a small Cayuco with 3 Ngobe Indian boys 5 or 6 years old came by Sea Feather and one of the kids could say cookies in English. I gave them a package that had 6 chocolate chip cookies and off they went, to Serenity my friend Steve’s boat where he gave them each a 4 pack of Oreos. Six cookies each, they likely went home wired on sugar. They have not come back by the boat, I wonder if mom might have had something to do about that as I see them on the trail or at the beach most every day. The sugar probably kept them up late, junk food is not likely much a part of their diet.
August 8, 2009 Temps, low 74, high 85, Rain Total 1st. week August 7 ½”
Great Beach Day!!! Steve off S/V Serenity along with his visiting buddy Mike form Ohio, DeDe & Mike off S/V Joss, Justin from Red Frog, and I took a walk. We took the trail over to Turtle Beach and with a combination of beach walking and jungle trails walked south for a couple of hours. We had great weather, lots of sun and the surf had lain down considerably, so we took our snorkel gear along. Our first stop was about a ½ mile beyond where Steve, Amy and I had been previously. We all donned our snorkel gear and got wet. I was swimming about 200 feet from shore in only 2 to 3 feet of water when I came upon a series of deep crevices and some substantial schools of fish. The most fish I have seen in Panama. Blue Tangs, snappers, very big Queen & Gray Triggerfish, Parrot Fish, Squirrel Fish, octopus, and other reef dwellers. Justin got some great photos of an octopus. There were also schools of 50 to 100 fish about 2 foot long that I believe may be Bermuda Chubs, but I am not sure on that. I had my pole spear but did not get close enough to get one. Next time I will take my spear gun. The crevices were extensive and seemed to be pretty deep, a good dive spot on a day calm enough to bring a dinghy with dive gear out through the ship channel and down where we can get it inside the reef.
From that spot we took a jungle trail on south for a couple more miles through the magnificent Bastimentos Rain Forest of huge trees, vines, giant bamboo, and flowers, etc., very few of which I am able to identify. We came upon a small three toed sloth hanging on a low branch that I got some good shots of. They have no fear, just look back at us and barely move. This one was a light reddish blonde color I had become used to identifying with the two toed variety? Doesn’t take long to think you are an expert.
After crossing a little creek the trail brought us to a small protected lagoon and we decided to take another swim. Steve barrowed my pole spear and swam out around a point of rocks where it was not so protected and came back with a large gray triggerfish on the spear. He said that there were also 2 huge snapper and a nurse shark under the same ledge he got the triggerfish from. When he and Mike went back the currents had gotten much stronger and they could not get back in there. On the way back through the jungle I saw one of the large very beautiful bright “Blue Morpho” butterflies and got some nice photos of another of our small red frog friends. Our little adventure took 6 hours and later I joined Steve and Mike on Serenity for a very nice supper of triggerfish baked with a parmesan mayo topping and wild rice. Delightful!!!
Thursday, 13 August 2009
We have dropped below our one inch of rain a day average for the month, no rain for 2 days and just a short shower this evening, still hanging in there with 11”. Of course that still leaves 12 hours as my rain days run from 7 AM to 7AM. Courtney who lives at Bocas Del Drago (the other end of the island from Bocas Del Toro) keeps track and said yesterday we were at 140” for the year, where we had 187” for last year’s total. Yearly average is 120”. What’s with that?
Since our little adventure Saturday, I have just been working on the boat and walking over to the beach one or two times a day for some swimming and body surfing, and today I gave myself a haircut. Ho-Hum.
The surf has been laying down a little each day. September is historically the calmest month of the year with October a close 2nd. The surfing will go away and the snorkeling will improve. I have an underwater camera ordered; it should be here by the end of the month. Looking forward to that! Now when Red Frog gets the WIFI up I should be able to get some photos/videos on line. My current connection just can’t handle them.
I am starting to work more on paying attention to what I am eating to go along with my new more active lifestyle that Red Frog has helped provide. I have hung a pair of shorts up in the cockpit with my 40” August 1st waist measurement written on the waist band along with the target of wearing them by Thanksgiving. They are 36” waist. I am down 1” to 39” in 2 weeks, that first inch is always the easy one. Mostly all I have done so far is cut out the candy, cookies and soda that I used as a crutch to help me get off the alcohol. I just did not worry about my weight while I was kicking the booze habit. Now after being sober for a year this month I have cut out almost all the sweets also and shooting for as close to 0 sugar as I can get). I believe that sugar addiction is a big part of alcohol addiction. Sugar is a powerful drug and most of us are born addicted to it from our mothers. (See “Sugar Blues” the 1975 book by William Dufty. $6.99 at Amazon.com) (I do have booze on the boat, just to put future visitor’s minds at rest after my preaching.) Geeze, I just went on line and ordered 3 copies of Sugar Blues. Maybe that has something to do with the other crutch that I have been using?
16 August 2009 Sunday, sunshine all day
I took off this morning on another hike to the south with Lance the captain of a 100 foot power boat also docked here at Red frog and Brett one of the partners of the development and 3 of his guests. This time we were in the jungle more than on the beach and went about twice as far as I had been before. Walking these jungle trails take a little doing. Almost anytime that the trail leads up or down it is wet and the mud is like grease and can be treacherous. Anyway we hiked down to Playa Larga, (Long Beach) and it is long and beautiful and deserted. We got in a little body surfing and headed back. There were fresh monkey tracks on the beach but I still haven’t seen one. Previously Lance & Brett had seen 15 to 20 monkeys on the walk down. I had planned on doing some snorkeling on the way back but by then everyone was ready to get back and find an easy chair, or in my case my hammock.
There was a cayuca at the place where we saw all the fish last week and where I had planned on stopping to snorkel and they had a huge snapper they had speared. I just did not have the energy left and will save it for next time. Half of our group was about the same age as my grandson and I felt pretty good about keeping up the pace a month from my 68th birthday. I did fix a pain pill cocktail of an Aleve, 600 mg. of Advil and a couple of Aspirin before setting off. There will be more Advil tonight for the old knees; they really give me a hard time on the down hills.
I had really been enjoying my old favorite anchorage at Starfish Beach, but Red Frog and Bastimentos has it beat by a mile. I would sometimes read a book a day when anchored there or when I was at Bocas, here I have just finished my 2nd book in 3 weeks. There is just too much to do here.
Coquina is doing well but she cannot come with me on my hikes, at 107 in people years our walks are just up to the grass at the head of the dock and on the docks themselves. The main dock is about a 1000 ft. long. She likes the dock, but the short road to the grass is gravel as are all here, and she does not like walking on it. Tender old feet, in PA it was house, grass, beach, here in Panama it has been boat, docks, beach. She hardly knows what a rock is. The Vet has her on a couple of human meds, “Bonviva” used by old ladies for osteoporosis, one pill a month @ $78 a pill, and “Rimadyl” a daily arthritis pain med. They have worked wonders, her hips had all but collapsed 3 months ago, now she runs down the dock once she gets off the gravel. We have also both been on glucosamine for about ten years.
18 August 2009
Today I rode along as Brett gave Mike & Dede a tour of the Red Fog development. The neatest part of the tour was right at the start, not a quarter mile from the marina, a large female 3 toed sloth was crossing the road. I got some photos but I wish I had thought to use the video feature, it was sure slow motion. When I can up-load photos you will be able to see a place on her back where she must have been carrying a baby until just recently. When I first saw her on the side of the road and how she was moving I thought it had maybe been hit by a cart, but no that is just how they move, very, very, slowly….and she paid no attention to us.
After the tour Mike and I walked over to the beach for our surf fix. When we first went in, we were out to about our chest and a bull Dorado swam right in front of us. That is a first for me, seeing Mahi-mahi in the surf. There was just small surf, but every few minutes a set of waves of 5 or 6 foot would come along and I got 8 or 10 good rides in a half hour or so.
23 August, 2009, Sunday, only 2” rain last week, but steady rain this AM.
We had great weather yesterday, very small surf so I hiked down to the area where the deep crevices are with Mike and Dede to see if we might spear a fish or two. No luck on the spearing but the water was much clearer than before and there were many beautiful tropical’s out and about, just not the schools of large fish we saw last time.
The improved visibility gave us a better look into the crevices and they are spectacular. Deep overhangs and caves, it will take dive gear to really explore. They are volcanic in origin with coral overlaying. We did see a sea snake or a snake eel, I’m not sure which it was. If it was a sea snake it was the first one I had seen since Viet Nam. Over there when we were on shore bombardment the concussion of the 5” guns going off would cause a circle of sea snakes to surface all around the ship. It wasn’t someplace I was anxious to swim. They are venomous but have small mouths and no fangs so they have to get some small part to chew on to be harmful, but still???
September 1, 2009. Down from 212# August 1st, to 190# and 38” waist.
Red Frog Beach body surfing has a lot to do with my weight loss but I am also working on following the advice in “Sugar Blues.” That book changed my life over thirty years ago and it is still relevant, I just strayed from the path over the years.
September 27th. Happy Birthday to me! 185#, 37” waist, 15 pounds to go. Picked up the 13’ Boston Whaler that will be my new dinghy and took it over to Bocas Offshore Services where they will give it a bottom paint job and put on my new 40 HP Suzuki outboard, it should be ready on Thursday. That should get me scooting around the archipelago in style and rapidly also.I have been getting in some good time in the surf. The waves here are really breaking nice as far as catching long rides. In fact some of the waves I have come to realize might be a little too big for me. And this is the month with the historical record of having the least surf. I’m starting to wonder what it will be like in January. Three days ago I took the hint that I could not take every wave after being stuffed in the sand four times. I am trying to pick and choose a little more conservatively. (It’s a wonder I can even say that word)
Isn’t it great, that is all I have to worry about right now? A broken neck?
October 1
Or maybe not. I had a large one give me a good twist today that did not feel real good on my back. I am still a little sore. But it was pretty fine out there today. No wind and the surface of the water was very smooth, but there were some sizable swells rolling in from somewhere. It reminded me of the Pacific and I got some good rides in. I called it a day soon after doing “the twist.” Conservative, I really must remember that word.
2010
February 22, 2010 Weight 175#, waist 35 ½”, another 15# and it would make it 100 pounds down from my all time high of 4 years ago, and also about where I was when I joined the Navy at 17. I might not make that but maybe another 5 or 10? It is just that I am content enough now that I am not really putting a lot of effort into losing more although the last 5 came in the last month or so.
Once again I have let this journal slide. For Thanksgiving I put together a dinner event for Red Frog, and we fed 75-80 people. I smoked two 20# turkeys and farmed out 2 more to people with big ovens. The rest was pot-luck and we had a hell of a feed. I found that a store in David carried the “New Braunfels” type smoker and had one sent over here. It is the same as I had in Port A. Now to figure out the different type of cooking hard woods down here.
On Christmas Steve off of S/V Serenity and I smoked a couple more turkeys as there were no left-over’s after Thanksgiving and we both wanted some for our freezers, so we had a nice Xmas dinner on Serenity with Steve’s wife Amy and her mother.
Still getting in the body surfing most days, it has to be about the most fun you can have by yourself. And yes it does get too big for me on some days. In January we had a day of 14 foot waves that took away most all of the Red Frog beach. It is starting to come back but by moving all that sand off shore, the waves now break further out and it is harder to catch them without a board. It did this last year also and took a few months to build the beach back up.
On February 9th I lost Coquina, my companion for the last 16 years. She was much more than a dog to me, it has been as hard as losing a close family member. My friend Andrew was down visiting at the time and his support was much appreciated. We took her about 3 miles offshore in 1000 foot of water and laid her to rest with the old anchor windlass from Sea Feather.
Andrew’s Words for Coquina:
Mother Mother Ocean, we now consign to you the body of the beloved Coquina. She had a long and happy life with a man who was always kind to her, and she was fey, strong and willful just like him. Rest now in the arms of the deep. Amen.
I have been getting a lot done on the boat during this time also. We have pulled up and re-bedded all the deck stanchions and pulled out the ports in the aft cabin & reinstalled them with new teak frames. For now it looks like we have stopped all the leaks. Hooray!!! As mentioned above I installed a new windlass and ran new 1/0 cable to it. Just the cable ran near $1000. As they say, that is what “boat” stands for, “Bring On Another Thousand.” Also had new covers made for the v-birth cushions, and sanded and then oiled all the topside teak, cap rail, boarding ladder, etc. I went with teak oil as I’m just not up to tackling varnish work.
While Andrew was here we took the Whaler up the creek to the Bat Cave and also made a run down to the crevices at Polo Beach and took it in through the reef. My first time doing that but with good visibility and someone on the bow it was pretty straight forward getting across the reef. The GTO Memorial Dinghy has made getting around and exploring the area a real pleasure.
posted by bocasgary @ 6:01 AM
10 Comments
10 Comments:
How I enjoyed your stories...Keep them a comin'...
Emma, From Illinois
Hey Gary,
It is John and Marcia from Lazzarone. We both love your style of writing, and the new photos remind us of how beautiful it is around Bocas. Glad to see you immersed in the beauty and the lifestyle.
Gary,
Please keep your stuff coming as I really enjoy reading about your adventures. I am out of Port A. also. Sold the condo at a good time. Getting to expensive to own down there now. The taxes are really getting too much.
Joe Rittgers
I evny your retirement bro...for me I will be working til I die I'm sure!
Ola Gary, que bueno! Reminds me of my sailor career in the Navy, many decades ago. Write a book, you've got talent. Be good, take care.
Charlie Campbell, Canyon Lake, Tx
howdy! It has been good hearing from you. I am happy for your new found life. You are so good at doing and living your life on your terms. I am just glad to feed off your tales in your journal and hear from you on occasion. it has been flooding down here in tejas but not all the telephone lines are down especially the ones in space.
My plans are to check out bocas in late winter to early spring and, by the way, my daughter Christa(the architect/artist) is planning on making the voyage tambien! Looking forward to seeing you again and of course Coquina the wonder dog. you da man... keep up the journal and call when you get a chance. Life is mo betta when you call your own shots ...late
Hey Gary,
Iam a fat guy who is about to buy a Westsail 32 and head to the Caribbean and then to either the Mediterranian or Panama. Iam sixty-five and know juuuuuust enough to get in trouble, so I'll be out of Annapolis Md.training for awhile. Please keep those stories coming. Hope to see you one day soon! Steve
Your Blog is a great read, thanks for all the stories! I was in Bocas in November of '06 for a week and hope someday to do exactly as you are. Take Care.
Cole
finally caught up w/ur blog. great reading. bill stephens has a link to you on his literary blog... drummer floyd moore aka pocket rockets in mdandersen... i hit 65 on 9/11 (happy birthday?) still serving the folks their daily bread and wines... go obama. alan
Hi Gary,
I really enjoy reading your adventures and look forward to new postings.
With such long intervals between hearing from you, I often wonder if you've survived the frontier. Especially, I would like to hear that your faithful sidekick, Coquina, is still alive and kicking. I admire your spirit and wish you well. The very fact that you're in Panama and living the good life, at least for you, gains extra points.
Best of luck to you.
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