News from Bocas - July - The Dark Month
AJAYA'S CRUISE
Phil & Nikki Hoskins
Tue 7 Aug 2012 16:30
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Apologies for the wordy text this month!
It's not too surprising really that the locals call July 'The
Dark Month' as it seems to do nothing but rain, rain, rain !!
The Indians still have to get about - try bailing, paddling & holding
an umbrella at the same time!
We had a total of 21.4" of the stuff all told during the month
and a lot of that was accompanied by thunderstorms - frightening
ones. Not once but several times we found ourselves out in the sticks on
one of our mini cruises right in the path of one. We would not wish it on our
worst enemies - if we had any that is. On this occasion we
were anchored out in the secluded mangroves in one of our favourite haunts
in the Buttonwood Cays when the mother of all lightening storms passed overhead
around breakfast time. This one had been brewing all night offshore but when it
came through it was directly overhead. The first lightening flash followed
immediately by the thunderclap was so close that we moved into our
forward cabin well away from the mast. Immediately a massive bolt hit
the water just behind us and then another hit just ahead of us. This was
probably the closest we have come to taking a direct hit. The storm seemed to
take an eternity to clear through. Of course a massive amount of rain poured
from the sky in the process and despite the sun being well on the rise the whole
area was dark and foreboding. Our friends anchored two miles away happily played
cards during the storm as they are onboard a steel Shrimper of about 60 feet
length - a complete Faraday's cage! As the weather cleared through we decided to
stay another day (fools) and were again surrounded by electrical storms the
following morning only not so close this time. On leaving the anchorage later
that day we found that our wind monitor system had suffered an electrical spike
and no longer worked at all. Although the damn thing has not been reliable since
almost day one! We've had our fair share of storms during July, although
strangely, Bocas town seems to miss most of these electrical cells that pass
over the local islands nearby.
 
Oh! Oh! here comes another one -
this is mid-morning and its so dark
On our way back from the cruise we called into Dolphin Bay to
pay a social call to 'Mr Bill' and his good lady, or Ben 42 as they are known
over the VHF. They are typical of many of the ex pats in the Bocas area who have
bought some land and had a house built. It wasn't all plain sailing for them but
they are a truly nice couple who open their house to anybody arriving by boat.
We were invited for some cocktails along with an Australian who is house sitting
for an English owner a few hundred yards away. House sitting is vitally
important here as the rights to build and live on the land in the area are only
rights of possession. If the property looked to be abandoned then you could be
in for a shock when arriving back from a visit home to find your house has
become the new home for some Ngobe Indians! So nearly everyone uses house
sitters to keep the property occupied.
  Ajaya anchored off Mr Bills house (mid afternoon and still
dark!) This piratical deterrent to intruders is a sculpture, not
'Skip' fooling around!
Back in town we became aware of a scam that the Chinese
supermarket we had been patronising since arriving here was using. It
became clear that they were taking our cruising friends for the same ride after
we announced the problem on the morning VHF net. On a $75 shop they were
casually adding up to $5 on top of the final bill which they would do by
'mis-keying' on their shop calculator which conveniently did not issue an
itemised slip. Even when they had been using a machine with a paper receipt
they had a way of putting $5 on at the start of the list which didn't show
on the printed paper copy. Clever work eh? We caught them one day when
we took our own calculator into the store and added up the items as we went
round the shop. Sure enough there was a $5 difference between their total and
ours. The young Chinese lady at the checkout looked ashen faced as we showed her
what we had calculated the total to be but left the shop after paying their
amount so that we could go through everything outside. Sure enough
our calculation was correct so we walked back into the store and dumped the
shopping on the checkout and demanded they add everything up again. The
assistant then tried to peel the price label off a bottle of gin saying it
was more expensive than what the price label read but the 'Admiral' was wise to
that having purchased that particular brand several times before. In the
end the difference was refunded and the assistant then stormed
away from the checkout almost in tears. It was not the first time we had
been diddled but it was the last for that shop as we now shop elsewhere,
still occasionally using the calculator!
The next assault on our budget came via the local Mayor's
office. They have a trash problem and the story goes that some years ago they
agreed with a local landowner to use some of his acres for landfill for the
Bocas area trash. Despite the site being used for waste the landowner never
received any money with the suspicion that it went into the Mayor's pocket. Well
this is Central America where local officials are regularly locked up for
embezzlement. Now the Mayor has a waste problem as the land owner has closed his
site and it costs money to have the waste taken elsewhere which is where the
cruisers come into the equation as we are seen as a cash-cow. So he promptly
sends out a launch with two representatives from his office to collect $12 per
month for trash disposal from each of the boats anchored off the town. (The
annual charge for locals by the way is $7 which means we are paying about 15
times the going rate and we still have to take the dinghy ashore to dump it).
Most of the cruisers managed to 'dodge' the fee collection by being ashore or
feigning lack of cash. This month the trash police were out collecting fees
again only now it's dropped to $7 per month. Now there's deflation for
you.
The next money making idea that would affect the
cruisers was broadcast by the Bocas harbourmaster during one of the morning
VHF nets. Leaving everyone open-mouthed he announced that every person piloting
a dinghy with an outboard in the Bocas area would have to have a license to
operate which as a special concession for this year would only cost $160 !!!
Yes, just getting ashore from your anchored craft would mean being in possession
of this special piece of paper and, wait for it, next year this license would
cost $280 !!! When somebody asked what the locals pay he replied $18.
So if you had 2 persons onboard who operated the dinghy it
would cost nearly $600 in future. This is on top of the cruising permit cost of
$193 per annum which in Bocas is 'manipulated' up to $293 as the officials
insist on coming out to the boat in a hired launch! After one of the local ex
pats wrote to Don Winner at the 'Panama Guide' (an internet news site that digs
the dirt on local affairs) Mr Winner subsequently contacted the
Harbourmaster by telephone who back tracked at a rapid pace to announce that
this rule was only meant for the local launches and not yacht tenders although
we had all clearly heard him say ALL craft driven by an outboard. So another
hole in our cruising budget was averted.
  Back in Bocas Town anchorage - a little less
dark!
The end of the month saw the 'Admiral' marched off to Mr Wong
the dentist for a molar repair in Bocas town. The tooth, or what was left
of it, had broken up a few weeks previous and so an appointment was made to put
it right. This provided the opportunity for many in-jokes amongst friends
revolving around the poor chaps name such as, make sure he doesn't fill the wong
tooth, or, turning up for your appointment on the wong day. However, on the day
in question Mr Wong duly arrived at the surgery at the wong time
due to appalling weather conditions! We sat freezing in the
air-conditioned waiting room whilst he made his way from the mainland,
arriving an hour late. But he did do a good job!
Earlier in the month saw Skip take on the challenge of Net
Controller on Wednesdays for the Southwest Caribbean Net on the single side band
radio. As we are in the off season there are a lot of people away and so to keep
the net going they asked for some 'volunteers' from the local cruisers (well it
was closer to being press-ganged actually) and he 'stepped up to the plate' as
they say in the States, although we're not quite sure where this phrase emanates
from. Then a few weeks later and at 10 minutes notice he was asked to run the
Saturday edition of the Bocas Cruisers and Ex Pats net on VHF. Having already
become involved by running a small musical trivia section on the same net it
wasn't too awesome a task to actually run the net. He has just one more to go
before we fly back to the UK to catch up with family and friends.
On another occasion due to the length of his locks the
'Admiral' was asked to make with the scissors on the aft deck so as to reduce
his chances of being mistaken for a Yeti at British Customs. After only five
minutes the heavens suddenly opened above us and Skip sat dripping forlornly on
the aft deck in the pouring rain with half a haircut whilst the 'Barber of
Bocas Town' scurried around inside to shut the hatches and port lights.
Fortunately it was a passing heavy shower so unlikely to bring on pneumonia
and several more inches were hacked off nicely blocking our small aft deck
drains with loose hair. No wonder he doesn't have a haircut too
often.
Despite the rain July proved to be quite a social month with a
couple of visits to 'Rana Azuls' our favourite meeting place. As their boat was
secure in the marina we asked our friends Jim & Laura to overnight with us
onboard as they too liked to go to that restaurant. They bravely accepted and
seemed to enjoy the experience despite us having to motor through a torrential
downpour with attendant lightening the first time and an absolute deluge on the
Monday morning the second time. Whether due to not being used to having guests
on board or an overwhelming urge to expose himself, twice Skip was caught
in the nuddy when Laura was innocently going about her business in having a
shower on the rear deck or merely hanging up her swimming costume. Once was
accidental to which an embarrassing apology was accepted but she probably
downgraded Skips respectability when it happened a second time on the following
trip when he emerged up the rear steps from a swim in 'swimwear economy mode'
just as the poor woman was emerging into the cockpit from below to hang up her
costume! On the way back to Bocas we collected two other friends who were
leaving their boat at anchor under the care of another cruiser and going back to
Boston MA. So for the first time in four years we had 6 persons underway onboard
Ajaya and unbelievably the sun came out!.
  Stopping off at another friends house in the big
boat and delivering two of our 'guests' back to town in the
little one!
In fact it was on their boat that Phil discovered just how hot
the emission of antifreeze could be when exhausted under pressure from the glow
plug holes in a diesel engine. Phil had gone to assist when our friend who shall
remain nameless to avoid embarrassment accidentally poured neat antifreeze into
his air intake instead of his water filler cap, resulting in a
hydraulic lock when he then subsequently attempted to start his engine.
Ajaya's resident engineer duly offered to assist and was
blasted for his troubles when we took out the glow plugs to blow out the
antifreeze when turning the engine over. Despite overlaying an oil absorbent
cloth over the holes the blast of hot vapour blew a hole in the cloth and hit
Phil in the side. Fortunately he had a t-shirt on but was that vapour hot!!! The
next time the engine was turned over he was standing safely behind the main
engine, a massive Detroit diesel, some 10 feet away on the other side of
the engine room from where the generator was situated. As the engine was cranked
up again he could see the white cloth wafting up and down in a ghostly
dance as each piston came up to compression. Fortunately no permanent
damage had been done to the generator and the job was declared a roaring
success.
One important world event we simply
didn't want to miss was the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Quite a
large crowd gathered at the marina bar, however, unlike some
other establishments boasting huge 40" TV sets, the set at the
Calypso Cantina bar is barely 15" wide which made viewing from any distance,
like 10', a challenge. A further frustration came by way of some
annoying breaks in the satellite transmission due to a deluge of
rain accompanied by yet another thunderstorm. At one time there
were about 10 breaks inside one minute which drew oohs and aahs from the
assembled audience as the picture repeatedly returned only
to disappear again. In one of the longer breaks we missed the 'queen'
exiting the helicopter and, bless them, some of the assembled viewers actually
thought it was the real Queen accompanying 007 on his mission! It also didn't
help matters when we could not find any satellite transmission that was in
English language so had to be content with a
Spanish commentary overlapping a barely audible English
commentary in the background. Although with the rain hammering on the tin roof
above us any commentary was difficult to grasp. The Spanish commentators,
as did many of the foreign viewers we were watching with, hardly knew what
the heck was happening in the stadium but we tried to fill in the parts that
were purely British in nature. The biggest cheer of the evening came with the
arrival of Rowan Atkinson at the piano. He needed no explanation!! It was
an evening to remember and, without prompting, our friends who are mostly
American gave generous praise to the organisation of the ceremony. We
thought it was pretty special as well.
 So that was July in Bocas and as we move into August we are
secure in the Marina getting the boat ready for a 5 week absence. Our daunting
trip home has the following flavour -
Sunday 12th August AM:
0600 Water taxi from Marina to Bocas Town (3
mins)
0630 Water taxi from Bocas Town to Almirante on the Panama
mainland (20 mins)
0800 Bus to Panama City (appoximately 10 hours depending on
mud slides or demonstrations!)
2 nights in Panama City to recuperate
Flight to Miami (3 hours)
Flight to London Heathrow (8 hours) - arriving Wednesday
15th PM
Phew!
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