Darkest Day Yet

My Darkest Day so far:

This might be my darkest day so far here in Panama. Yes, it’s true you can pretty much get anything you want in Panama City…electronics, appliances, good bread, CHEESE. However, in a small village like Pedasi, not so much. The local shrimp man came by today and I bought 10 big, fat langostino’s. Our landlady has a huge basil plant that she said I could help myself too..OK! I’ve got garlic, olive oil and pasta. What’s missing? CHEESE. It almost hurts to type this…..I went to the ‘Chino’s’ (The Chinese own most of the little grocery stores in small towns, called ‘mini/supers’) and purchased a GREEN CAN OF PARMASEAN CHEESE. Ok, I said it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

Wayne’s lost 23 pounds since we got here without even trying. I still look like a tick that’s been gorging on the family pet for the last week. WHAT THE %#$@!!!!!!!!!!!

So we almost flipped then sunk our boat the other day. There’s a boat launch in town but it’s only good at high tide. So we headed out a bit before high tide. No problem. Fished for about 2 hours and figured we still had time to make it back up the river. Well, in order to tell if the river has enough water, you kind of need to get close to the river mouth to see. To do that you need to drive horizontal to the beach, which we did. Well, sure enough a pretty big wave smashed the side of the boat. I literally went flying off the boat. I can only imagine what that had to look like. The motor stalled, the boat filled with water. I managed to hold the boat facing more oncoming waves while Wayne got the motor started. Then we bailed water like mad. We were able to take off and let gravity do it’s trick to drain the rest of the water. Ok, next option, beach it. So we headed to the beach where most people just beach or moor their boats. Wayne, not being all that comfortable with driving at ramming speed towards the beach, did his best and got the boat on land….kind of. Looked good at first. Turned ugly though after Wayne left to get the truck about ½ mile away while I held onto the boat. The tide was supposed to be going out but for the small section where I was standing, that wasn’t the case. Wave after wave continued to fill the boat. Ok, how the f*&% do you say HELP in Spanish? I should know this. Maybe it was the look of terror on my face that said it all. 3 locals came to my rescue. Bailed the boat and helped me hold it. Wayne arrived w/the truck and trailer and we had plenty of help tying the boat up and dragging it up onto the beach where it stayed for the night. Next day we returned to the beach and again, lots of help from the locals. I said to them ‘gringos idiotos’ or something like that. They all readily agreed with big smiles!!!! Word certainly spreads because pretty much everyone we come across knows about our ordeal. Great! I’ve got to say, the people here are great. I tried to offer to buy them beer and they wouldn’t have it. No way. It’s just what they all do. They all help each other. It’s nice. (Yes, we know they are totally ripping us behind our backs, but that's ok. We deserve it!!!)

Wayne had a virus of some kind. Came down w/a fever a few days ago. Got a super painful shot in the a&& and within an hour he was drinking fluids as the doctor prescribed. Not sure if she meant beer but in any case he was doing as told. Felt better for a day and then it came back. We are told right now because there is so much moisture there is a lot of mold and it’s causing a bit of bug to be going around town.

Big fishing tournament happening this weekend. Started Fri. and ended Sunday. Obviously if you’ve read the above, you know why we didn’t take part in it!!!! Next year though we’ll know what we are doing. Wayne, once he feels better will work on making the mooring and we’ll buy a small rowboat to get us to and from Gato Solo. He also just got GPS and we are hoping to download more detailed maps and get a transducer. We tried to get one in Panama City but didn’t have any luck. Any one want to come to visit and bring us one????? There are ways to get them, just takes about a month.

I'll work on more pictures. It's so beautiful here but pictures just don't seem to capture it.