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Dawn & Penn's Panamanian Adventure - Part 16

11/27/2016

Mid-August 2016

A green garter snake on our steps

Time is a weird paradox. At once it is flying by all too quickly and at the same time, it is frozen.

One hour blends into the next, one day into another. We looked at a calendar the other day (We needed to know what day of the week it was. I forget why.) and discovered that we were in mid-August.

How did that happen? We just got here, but we’ve been here a life time.

We are at the end of the rainy season. By mid-August, the storms go away, the sky returns to its normal cerulean blue and the Caribbean its normal clear turquoise.

After days at a time with fierce tropical storms marching over us, the weather lightened. The wind died down, making it uncomfortably hot, and we again spent a lot of time swimming.

As I write this, the rain is coming down so hard I can’t hear the surf crashing on the beach. I don’t know how heavy the waves are because I can’t see the beach, some hundred feet away. Lightning and thunder are almost simultaneous, meaning that they are right on top of us. The dogs are curled at my feet (because Dawn has gone into town) seeking comfort.

After several days of nice weather, the tropical storms are back with a vengeance. This is by far the hardest it’s rained since we’ve been here. Remember the scene in Romancing the Stone where Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner are in the drenching storm and end up sliding down the hill? That’s nothing compared to what we have today.

The floors in the house are all flooded with water. It’s coming down so hard and fast that the roof can’t channel it off and it works its way into the house.

But I’m not here to talk about the weather. What could be more boring? Today we’re going on an Indiana Penn adventure. (Queue up the Indiana Jones theme song here.)

In the first scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, we hear Indy say, “I hate snakes.” Well, he better not come here

I’ve told you about the little (and not so little) garter snakes we find in the yard and Peanut’s predilection for hunting snakes. Joyce told us that she wants the dogs in at night. She doesn’t want to expose them to night predators.

A baby boa in the back yard

Today, we meet a couple of those predators.

The day before yesterday, Dawn shook me awake with “Penn, there’s a snake in the bedroom.”

I piled out of bed, put on my slippers and dragged myself to survey the situation. Dawn is no fonder of snakes than she is of spiders.

Big deal. A little garter snake made its way into the house. Peanut could take care of that for us.

“Where is it,” I slurred, not quite yet awake.

“Right there!” Dawn screeched. She must have thought I lost my mind being so lackadaisical about this emergency. She always complains that I have no sense of urgency.

I turned to see where she was pointing. Holy Shit! A monster snake was in the hallway happily munching down on the cat food.

The snake was about six feet long. (By the time I see you and tell you this story in person, it will be a twenty-five foot long anaconda.) What kind of snake was it?

Was it poisonous?

It saw me and didn’t coil up like it was ready to strike. Maybe it was a nice snake.

I tiptoed delicately around the snake to get some weaponry with which to remove it. Dawn refused to walk down the hallway, so she went outside, down the stairs and up the stairs into the main house.

Cesar's terciopelo

I thought about all the Wild Kingdoms that I watched as a child. Marlon Perkins always had a long forked stick with which to trap the snake. Then he picked it up at the back of the head to keep it from biting him.

Okay, where can I find a long stick with a Y-shaped end? How about a broom? The bristles on the broom should be stiff enough to keep the snake from getting away.

Am I nuts? I want the snake to get away, out of the house. It might not be a good idea to scare the snake and have it hide in the mattress or climb into the rafters.

I formulated my plan of attack. I’d sneak up on the snake from behind. It was about halfway into the hallway and the other half in the bathroom. I’d pin it down with the broom, grab it behind the head and toss it back into the yard. No sense harming the creature.

By now you should know how my plans usually work out. I don’t know why I do these things. They seem perfectly logical at the time, but in hind sight, I think I must be insane.

Time for action. I pinned the snake down with the broom, about six inches back from its head. It didn’t like that very much.

It turned and twisted its head to attack whatever was holding it down. In the adrenaline rush of the moment, I decided to grab it a little further back, where its sharp fangs couldn’t reach me.

I grabbed the snake about an inch behind its head with my left hand. (I was holding the broom with my right. Who knew snakes were so flexible? It immediately turned and bit me. I was a little worried. I didn’t think it had time to inject any venom into my hand because I moved so fast (Dawn, about that sense of urgency?) transferring it to my right hand. Not a real good idea.

As I got a hold of the snake with my right hand, it turned and bit me three more times.

While all of this was happening, I was racing for the door. By the time I’d gotten the fourth bite, I gave the snake a strong toss into the back yard. The snake hit the ground and quickly slithered into the bushes.

My heart was threatening to burst out of my chest. I slunk down on the bed, looked at my bloody hand and had time to think.

Was the snake poisonous? I was soooooo stupid not to have considered that before my ill-advised adventure. Now, in the wake of the tragedy, I was worried.

The snake was about six feet long, smooth and black all over. It had a wicked looking head with a white mouth. Its scales felt like an expensive handbag. I was amazed at how strong the snake was as he curled around my arm.

Continuing my bout of stupidity, I ran to the main house to get the book about snakes. I’ve had enough first aid training to get an MD license. I thought back on how to treat snake bites. Put a tourniquet on the limb to restrict blood flow and elevate it. Cut a channel between the fang marks with a razor or sharp knife. Suck the poison and spit it out. Seek medical attention as soon as possible, but most of all KEEP CALM. A racing heart moves the toxin to the heart faster.

I think that by now, you have an idea how remote we are. If I had to go to the emergency room, I’d have to drive forty-five minutes into town. The emergency doctor would look at me and call for a med-evac. The chopper would fly from Panama City, about an hour’s flight then take me to the hospital in David, another hour. It the three or four hours all of this would take, I’d be dead

The snake book was no help. I don’t know if it has all the snakes in the world, but there are hundreds of pictures of them. I couldn’t find the snake I had just battled in the book.

Cesar had shown us a baby boa a couple of weeks ago and Peanut had eaten one. This snake looked a lot like the juveniles.

I guessed it wasn’t poisonous. I cleaned my wounds with alcohol and went about my business.

For the next hour or so, I constantly watched my hands. The holes didn’t burn. They weren’t turning black. I thought I’d be okay.

We drove over to Jim and Frances’s house to borrow their Internet connection. Jim looked at the wound and said “I’m glad you’re still with us, dude. If it was poisonous, you’d know by now.”

He meant I would be dead.

Was that a long story? We ain’t done yet.

Cesar's latest trophy

Yesterday, I was laying in bed deciding whether or not I wanted to get up when Dawn came charging into the room.

“Get up right now. Cesar has something he wants to show you.”

I struggled to my feet, pulled on a pair of shorts and headed to the main house.

“VICTOR!” Cesar yelled. (In Spanish speaking countries I go by Victor because no one can pronounce Penn.) “Mato una vivra.”

He stood with a long, wide snake handing from his machete.

“It is very dangerous. It bites you and you are dead.”

“Where did you find it,” I asked.

“In the yard, by the drive way. I was chop, chop the road (this means he was cutting the brush with his machete) when cuebra (snake) jumped up at me.” He gestured with his hands showing that the snake had leapt straight up so that its head was at his eye level. He pantomimed his fight.

“I stagger back a couple of steps.” (You have to understand that I’m translating his Spanish. He doesn’t talk in this polished manner.) “He is in the air, looking at me. This is very dangerous snake. I take two steps back and go swish with my machete.” He pantomimes swinging the machete. “And take off his head.”

We found this bad boy in the snake book. This was no harmless boa. It was the most dangerous snake in Central America, a terciopelo. These snakes are extremely poisonous. If you don’t receive medical treatment immediately, you die. Our book says that the terciopelo is responsible for ninety percent of all serious snake bites in Central and South America.

He laid the dead snake on the ground and we examined it more closely. It was much thicker around than my boa from the day before and maybe a little longer. It was kind of strange. The body was thick right up to the tail, then a thin tail exited the snake and left a kind of uneven back side. It was dark brown with white markings that made X on its back and a white underbelly.

He told us the story about how his daughter was bitten by one of these snakes and air-lifted to the hospital in David (remember, that’s pronounced Dah-veed). She was in the hospital for two weeks before she was released.

Poor Cesar’s heart was going super-sonic. He was breathing hard and shaking. I couldn’t tell if he was suffering the after affects of the adrenaline rush or going into shock.

I decided that he’d had enough for one day. I told him to take the rest of the day off to recover from his ordeal and Dawn drove him home.

So, what happened to the snake?

I'm guessing that he went into the pot for Cesar's dinner. They don't waste anything around here.

Now we turn on the lights and check it for snakes before entering the room.

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Penn & Dawn's Panamanian Adventure - Part 15

11/18/2016

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Mid-July 2016

I’ve mentioned the insects several times in my musings. Today, I tell you about the wasps that ate Chicago.

Dawn is absolutely in love with Bocas. She keeps trying to find ways to convince me to move here permanently.

I could live here but for a few things. First of all is the sense of isolation. Without cell phone service and Internet, I feel like I’m living in the Nineteenth Century. I don’t know what’s going on with my family or who the Republicans nominated for president. (I know who the Dem’s will nominate, but keep hoping the GOP will come to their senses.)

Next is the lack of social interaction. We’ve met most of the neighbors on our side of the island (all 8 couples) and like them, but there is not a lot of social activity out here. We went into town yesterday and hung out at the Toro Loco bar. We’d been told it was where the local ex-pats hang out.

We got to meet a couple of good characters for future books, but it still takes us forty-five minutes to drive into town and Dawn has to drive home after I’ve had two Margaritas.

Then there are the insects. They drive me crazy. For the first month we were here, I was a mass of red dots from all of the insect bites. I itched constantly and often had blood running down my legs where I inadvertently scratched an insect bite.

When we sit in the living room at night and watch TV, hordes of insects of various sizes and shapes gather in the corner where the light is. It’s busier than O’Hare International.
Then there is the bathroom. When I go to bed at night, I have to fight a holding-action against all the insects to brush my teeth.

I finally decided to take action. Enough complaining, I was going to do something about it.
Joyce buys a bug spray called “Dos Tigres” (Two Tigers) by the truck load. It is a very efficient bug killer. It probably has every chemical banned by the FDA in it, but it gets the job done, sometimes too effectively.

Our private lagoon

I planned my attack with great care. I would commence my offensive an hour before bed-time. I’d spray down the sink area and the bathroom before we headed to bed so that by the time we were ready, there would be no more insects.

I sprayed the shower area and to my satisfaction, mosquitoes and moths fell to the floor. I sprayed the area around the toilet with similar results. Unfortunately, a gecko got caught in the cross-fire and became collateral damage.

Then I sprayed the area around the sink. Job done, I returned to the main house with a smirk on my face. What a surprise this would be for Dawn, to be able to get ready for bed bug free.

About twenty minutes later, I went over to the bed room to see the results of my attack.
Holy Crap! Dozens of huge, black wasps were swarming over the sink and in the shower. What had I done?

I quickly shut the door, not wanting to become a pin cushion for the angry wasps.

I told Dawn what I had done and she said, “Didn’t you know that there are two huge wasps nests hanging from the eves just on the other side of the wall from the bathroom?”

No! Duh! I had seen two shapes hanging from the eves one night when I was out on the deck, but had assumed they were bats. TWO wasp nests?
I had to take action. I grabbed another can of bug spray from the main house (remember: Joyce buys them by the truck load) and planned another sneak attack.

I crept up to the bedroom door. It drags on the concrete when you open it, so I carefully lifted and pulled at the same time. I got in without a sound. I sprayed the swarms of wasps and beat a hasty retreat.

Half an hour later, I returned to the battle scene to see the results. Piles of the nasty creatures lay on the floor. Maybe a dozen or so of the wasps were still flying and I had to hunt each one down and spray it with my accurate can of spray while taking care not to get stung.

After another thirty minutes I returned. I was triumphant. All the wasps were dead, as was every other living thing in a fifty foot radius. All that was left was cleaning up the crime scene.

I swept up my defeated foes. They made a pile about a foot and a half in diameter and maybe four inches deep. I didn’t bother to count them, but there must have been a hundred or two.
Feeling victorious, I went to bed, about an hour late, in triumph.

I kept Dawn in the main house during my offensive. I figured that if she saw the wasps, she would never go into the bedroom again.

The dogs guard the beach

That wasn’t the end of our wasp troubles though. Dawn found another large, very busy nest on the other side of the house. She asked me a couple of times to get rid of them.

Having dealt with wasp nest every summer in Seattle, I know how to handle them. I wait until dark, then put up a ladder, climb it and spray down the nest until it is soddened, then get the hell out of there.

I learned the hard way that you spray the nest after dark for two reasons. First of all, the wasps will all be home. You won’t miss any. Secondly, they’ll all be asleep. They won’t have time to wake up, get angry and come after you before they’re dead.

Of course, this is predicated on putting up the ladder in the daylight. I conveniently forget to put up the ladder during the day, that way I don’t have to attack the wasps at night.

Dawn has the patience of an angel. She puts up with my excuses time after time, until finally she takes matters into her own hands.

We had asked Cesar to spray a couple of ant hills next to the house. We’ve tried to fight off the ants with cans of Dos Tigres, but it’s a losing battle. We decided if we were going to make any progress, we would have to take the fight to them.

Cesar is a professional. He doesn’t kid around with cans of spray. He goes nuclear on them. He has a sprayer into which he pours deadly chemicals, then pumps it up and drowns his victims.

Dawn saw this and had a bright idea. “Let’s ask Cesar to spray the wasp’s nest.”

“No,” says I, “it’s still day light. The wasps will come out angry as hornets and sting everything in sight.”

You know the old saying, “If Mama’s not happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

I talked with Cesar and he said he’d handle it. I offered to get the ladder and he laughed.

“I’ve been doing this a long time. We don’t need a ladder,” he said in Spanish.

He walked up the steps and I closed all the doors and windows so the angered wasps wouldn’t get in the house.

“You can come in here if they come after you,” I said.

He laughed again. Stupid gringos.

I snuck my cowardly head out of the door to see what he was doing.

From the deck, he pumped up his sprayer and let fly. He easily hit the wasp’s nest, ten feet above him.

He sprayed it down good, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. Not a wasp survived. They dropped like flies.

I don’t know what was in the spray, and I don’t want to know. I just know I’ll never use it around food, pets or children.

Now we can live in peace, knowing that no wasps would ever dare invade our premises again.

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Dawn & Penn's Panamanian Adventure - Part 14

11/13/2016

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Still Early July 2016

Now come the cute dog stories.

Joyce has two dogs, they are the light of her life. Peanut is a dirty white mongrel that weighs in at about forty pounds. She is extremely fast and has a nose and ears that pick up threats faster than NORAD.

Little Bit is a smaller, slimmer jungle dog. I mean he is a street dog. There is a species of wild dogs here called jungle dogs. The jungle dogs are heavier built than the street dogs and have shorter legs.

What I’m trying to say is that these dogs don’t have all the instincts bred out of them. Little Bit is a herder and Peanut is a hunter.

Joyce’s cat, Polly is an inside cat. When they first got her, they were living in a motor home traveling the country. The cat was not allowed outside because they thought she’d never find her way home.

When Wes and Joyce were building their plantation here, Polly lived with Dawn in Florida. Now Polly lives in the master bedroom complex. She is not allowed outside. To prevent her escape, Joyce has covered the deck railing with a plastic chicken wire.

One day, Little Bit got trapped in the master bedroom while we went to town. When we got home, Dawn found him with this head struck trough the chicken wire, but his body stuck on the deck. He wasn’t happy.

I tell you this to explain how the hole got into the chicken wire. Naturally, Polly discovered the hole, her ticket to freedom.

We were sitting on the deck of an evening when we spotted the cat in our front yard.

“We have to get Polly back in the house!” Dawn screamed.

At about the same time, the dogs spotted Polly. They took off down the steps after her, Dawn and I in hot pursuit.

“Get the dogs before they hurt her,” I yelled to Dawn.

I just don’t know dogs.

While Peanut watched Polly and barked, Little Bit’s herding instinct kicked in. He started barking at Polly and snipping at her. I was sure we were going to lose Joyce’s cat.

I ran down the steps and tried to corral Little Bit, but he was too fast for me. He chased Polly towards the bedroom.

Dawn started laughing. “He’s herding her.”

Sure enough, Little Bit drove Polly back up the steps to the deck on the master bedroom. Polly flew through the hole in the chicken wire to safety.

Job done.

Peanut spots a snake on our side steps.

Peanut is a hunter and protector. She spends hours making rounds of the deck, keeping undesirable creatures from attacking us. Often she barks, then she and Little Bit take off in hot pursuit of something.

We were going to hang laundry beneath the house and Peanut was in a frenzy of barking. I didn’t know it at the time, but now we recognize that bark. It’s her hunting bark.

A baby boa constrictor, about two feet long, was sunning itself on the pavement and Peanut was lunging at it and barking. The boa was coiled, baring its teeth, ready to strike.

It looked like a standoff to me so I decided to end the fight. I took a stick, hooked into the snake's coils and tossed it out into the yard.

I was amazed at Peanut’s speed. Before the snake hit the ground, she was there waiting for it. The snake had no chance to coil and protect itself. Peanut bit the snake just behind its head and started flipping it around in her mouth.
She let go of the snake, but it was badly wounded. She grabbed another spot and flailed the snake around again.

The battle was over. Peanut ate her treasure and returned to the house with a shit-eating grin on her face.

A few days later, we heard her hunting bark again. She was on the stairs between the house and the bedroom. There, at the base of the stairs was an emerald green snake about three feet long.

She barked and the snaked coiled. The standoff went on for some time. This time, I didn’t interfere. Eventually, the snake managed to extricate itself from the fight and disappear.

A couple of days ago, Dawn and I made a trip out back to pick limes. The ground was soggy from all the rain. Peanut was walking with us.

Suddenly, she lunged and pulled an emerald green snake from the grass. She flailed with it and tossed it in the air. The snake was in bad shape and couldn’t escape.

This one she left dead in the grass.

We can’t forget her protector instinct. She guards us from monkeys, birds and the like. She was lying in her bed in the living room when she sat up and started barking. She and Little Bit took off down to the beach. We decided to see what she was barking at, it might be more poachers.

When we got to the beach we found Peanut barking at a ship out in the channel. She barked and barked and the ship changed its course and headed out to sea.

Mission accomplished.

Twice a day airplanes fly over the house on their way to the airport. Of course, Peanut responds instantly, barking and heading down to the beach. So far she has been one hundred percent successful. We haven’t had a single airplane land on our beach.

Dawn and Little Bit relax on the deck

Peanut was the first dog in the house. While the house was under construction, one of the workers came to work one morning with a five-gallon plastic bucket which he presented to Joyce. In the bucket was a little white puppy.

The puppy was in bad shape. The worker told Joyce that it needed to go to the vet. Joyce agreed, took it to town and showed it to the vet. The vet worked on the puppy for a while, gave it shots, and sent it home for Joyce to nurse back to health.

Joyce did a good job. Soon she had a healthy, loving puppy she named Peanut.

When the dog was healthy again, the worker wanted to take her home. Joyce refused.

“You let her get sick, then you brought her to me for help. I saved the dog. Now she’s mine.”

So Peanut and Joyce lived happily ever after.

How Little Bit joined the family is another story. Wes and Joyce were sitting on the deck, watching the ocean and reading when a little dog showed up on their steps. The wisdom on the islands is to drive off any stray dogs. If you let them stay, feed or give them water, they will think they belong there and you’ll never get rid of them.

Wes got up, grabbed the hose and drove the little dog off. As soon as Wes was settled in, the dog was back. After several attempts, Wes finally drove the dog off.

The next day, the dog was back. “We’ve got to get rid of that little shit,” Joyce said, thus he was named. For several days, they drove Little Shit off and each day he returned.

Wes decided to get rid of him once and for all. He enticed Little Shit to get in the truck with him, then drove up to Juanie’s café and dropped him off. He surely wouldn’t be able to find his way back.

By the time Wes was back, Little Shit was waiting for him.

The next day, Wes decided to take the nuclear option. They were going fishing and Enrique met them with his boat. Wes took the dog with them back down to Juanie’s.

They prepared for their fishing adventure then boarded the boat and shoved off. Little Shit plunged into the water and followed them.

“Don’t worry about him,” Wes said. “He’ll get tired and swim back to shore.”

He didn’t.

Finally, Joyce threw in the towel. They picked up the dog and went on their way.

When they returned from their trip, they asked Enrique to take the dog. Enrique lives on the other side of the island. He took the dog home by boat so that it had no idea how to get back to Wes and Joyce’s house.

Or so they thought.

By four pm, the dog was back. Joyce gave up. “I guess we’re going to have to keep him.”
Somehow or other she convinced Wes to go along.

“We’re going to have to give him a new name. We can’t go around calling him ‘Little Shit.’”
Thus, his name morphed into “Little Bit.”

I’ve already told you about Peanut’s taste for baby turtles. She also likes to dig sand crabs out of their holes. Little Bit also indulges in this activity, but I’ve never seen him catch a crab. Peanut is way better.

She smelled a crab under the sand. She stared digging a hole to go after it. When the hole was about two feet deep, she popped up with a good sized crab in her mouth.

I decided to save the crab and took off after Peanut. This was a futile gesture. A two legger can’t catch a four legger on a good day, and this is without reckoning Peanut’s spectacular speed and my gimpy knees.

However, my chase did cause Peanut to drop the crab and before she could pick it up again, it disappeared into the water.

Dawn takes the dogs on two or three walks a day. Lately she has discovered the lazy woman’s way to get the dogs their exercise.

Miss Polly, Queen of the Jungle

Joyce told us that we had to lock the dogs in the house when we drove into town because they would follow us. She said we could take the dogs as far as the gate on our private road, but not let them past it.

There are all sorts of dogs wandering around in the jungle. I suspect that a great many of them are feral. Joyce doesn’t want her dogs hurt or killed by them.

You also know that we don’t have any cell phone service at the house. If we want to make a call, we have to walk or drive up the hill, past the gate to Rosemary’s or all the way to the public road to find reception.

I was driving into town but Dawn was staying home. We expected that the dogs would want to stay with her.

WRONG-O!

The dogs followed the truck. I drove the quarter mile to the private road and they kept up with me step for step. I should mention that on these roads, you’re never going to go faster than twenty kilometers per hour.

I tried to leave the dogs in my dust. Fat chance. Peanut ran alongside me and Little Bit was not far behind. I got to the road and thought I’d exhaust them before we got to the gate. Nope. They kept with me all the way. Finally, I had to turn around and lead them home.

(I wrote about the tropical storms earlier, right now it’s coming down so hard I can hardly think.)

So, Dawn’s method of getting the dogs their exercise? She drives up to the top of the hill a couple of times a day to use the cell phone. We let the dogs run with her. When she gets to the gate, she stops and lets the dogs into the truck. She drives up the hill and makes her calls then lets the dogs out again when she goes through the gate. Then they have to run after the truck on the way home.

When they get home, the dogs are breathing hard, but have big smiles on their faces and are wagging their tails a hundred miles an hour. They take long drinks of water and collapse on their beds for a little nap.

I could (and will) tell you a lot of other dog stories, but this is a long post for today. We’ll take it up again tomorrow.

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Dawn & Penn's Panamanian Adventure - Part 13

11/5/2016

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More Late June 2016

Rainy season here in Panama is from May to July. The natives call the rainy season invierno, or winter in Spanish. According to the calendar, it is late spring and early summer, but for islanders, it is winter.

We had a particularly dry spring. Joyce said they had three weeks of totally dry weather before we arrived. (Why is it that they always have the best weather, see the most whales, etc before we arrive?) When Wes and Joyce left us, the cisterns were about half full.

We didn’t think much of it, but I checked them from time to time and the water was running low. I talked it over with Dawn and we went to DefCon 2. We were careful with the water, but weren’t on strict rationing.

The toilets here seem to have a mind of their own. When you flush them, sometimes they continue to run until you jiggle the handle. Other times, I have waited in the bathroom until they stopped running, then an hour later, discovered that they were running even though no one else had used the bathroom.

Then we had the big drain. One afternoon, Dawn walked into the bathroom and the faucet in the sink was running full force. She immediately turned it off and started looking for the perpetrator.

It seems that Heidi had used the bathroom last. I suspect that she saw a cucaracha or spider and panicked, leaving the bathroom with the faucet running.

In any case, we were nearly out of water.

This continued for days. After Heidi left, we had to resort to bottled water for drinking and washing. The truck was broken so we couldn’t go into town to buy water, so we had to ask neighbors to pick some up for us when they went into town.

In the meantime, it didn’t rain. Our situation was getting worse and worse.

We were in mid-June and had only had one big rainstorm and it came before our water crisis. We waited hopefully for the rain to start.

How stupid can you get? When it started, it didn’t stop.

Peanut discovers a tasty mid-day snack

Nearly every day a tropical rainstorm moves over us. Most of the time, they hit at night, but sometimes during the day.

It is awe inspiring to watch the storm. The winds arrive first. If it has been a hot day, they are very welcome. We hear thunder in the distance and see sheet lightning. Then it hits with the impact of a battering ram. The rain comes down so hard it disorients you. Our visibility almost disappears. The horizon and other islands that we can easily see during the day are gone. All you can see are the sheets of rain.

We have furniture on the deck. Every night we bring in the cushions so they don’t get wet. When the storm hits, we run to bring in the cushions and any laundry Dawn has hanging. They will be soaked in minutes.

Most of the time we have the louvered doors open, making the interior of the house open to the deck. It gives the cook a wonderful view of the ocean as he/she works.

The deck is maybe twenty feet wide with the roof overhanging that by about eighteen inches. The wind is so heavy that it blows the rain into the house. We have to scramble to close the doors to keep our inside space dry.

That doesn’t work too well. There are several leaks in the roof. Great puddles of water accumulate on the floor. We put towels down over some of them, but it’s a losing battle. More water comes in that we can sop up.

In the bathroom in the master bedroom, the floor is a lake. The causeway between the house and the master bedroom is covered with water. Just walking between the two spaces is a dangerous task.

We have a corrugated iron (steel?) roof on the house. The rain pounds down on it so loudly that it completely covers the sound of the surf crashing ashore. One night I was watching TV when a storm hit. It was so loud that I couldn’t hear the TV, so I turned it off.

The dogs are not found of storms. They are afraid of thunder and lightning. If the pantry door is open, Peanut hides there. Little Bit likes to curl up at my feet or in Dawn’s lap. If those options are not available, he joins Peanut in the pantry.

This morning I stood on the deck outside the bedroom and watched the power of the storm in the back yard. Yesterday, I noticed that the lakes and puddles in the back yard were gone. They had finally been absorbed into the soil. But the soil is so saturated that within a few minutes, they were back.

The rain came down in sheets. The wind blew so hard that the blanket Dawn had drying on the clothes line outside the bedroom was flapping around like an unsheeted jib in a gale. I went out to take it down and it tried to get away from me.
I felt like I was fighting our jib down in a blow off the coast of Baja.

The rainy season is supposed to end by late July. Since it started so late, it’s just our luck that it will continue until we leave in late September.

Our jungle island

Early July 2016

I want to start out with a tribute to our neighbors. Living off the grid is like the Old West. I’m sure that’s why these people are here. They grew tired of our regulated life in the States. They wanted to take care of themselves, not have the government decide what was best for them.
Some of the pioneers here want to tame the island, mold it in the direction that they would like to see at home. Others just want to be left alone. They don’t want any taming. They want to live in peace and make their own decisions. So what if they don’t want to wear clothes on a hot day or swim in the nude. No one cares.

This comes with a price. Freedom is never free. It means when your hot water heater breaks down or your roof leaks, you can’t just pick up the phone and call a repairman. There are no electricians or plumbers or roofers on the island. If you really do need their help, you have to fly them in from the mainland and pay for their room and board while they’re doing your repair.
Everyone here is handy. They fix their plumbing and roofs and repair their decks. Living here is not just sitting in your lounge chair watching the sun go down and the tide roll in. These houses take active maintenance to keep them habitable in this hostile climate. If you’re looking for a five-star resort, look elsewhere.

Wait a minute, did I just say hostile climate? You thought we were living in paradise with long empty beaches, palm trees and warm weather every day of the year.
Yeah. The humidity is one hundred percent. Any metal parts will be eaten alive by rust or corrosion unless you care for them. Everything is damp all the time. When you crawl into bed at night, the sheets are slightly moist.

The sun is unforgiving. It will destroy your wood unless you keep it protected. The rain is relentless. It pounds down with the force of a sledge hammer. It will destroy any electronics that get in the way and find ways through the roof into your house.

It is also a paradise for every species of insect known to man. I like the monkeys and sloths and turtles. I despise the insects. They are everywhere. When I brush my teeth at night, I am assaulted from every direction. Dawn hates the spiders. I dislike the spider webs.
The spiders here are very smart. Because the average human here is about five foot six, they spin their webs just above that level. We go walking in the forest and Dawn walks under the webs. I get them right in the face.

Bocas Town is like something out of the Fifties. You go into the hardware store and ask for a part. The person behind the counter disappears into the maze of shelves behind the counter and finds it for you. No self-service here.

There are no chain grocery stores. They all seem to be owned by Chinese families. The entire family works in the store. When you ask for help finding something, they take you to it. The big key here is that you can find someone to help you. Nine year old boys stock the shelves, teenage daughters man the till.

Our Jungle super highway

This is where I have to say something about our neighbors cooking. Courtney and Rosemary own the only marina on the island. They have an open air cantina on the point, looking out at the sea and back to the cove where the boats are moored.

They serve food in the cantina. Every day they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. On Friday nights they have live music and BBQ ribs and chicken. We’ve gone over on Fridays several times.

Whenever we go to Rosemary’s house, she’s cooking something. Sometimes it’s pizza dough for the Friday night spectacular, sometimes its hemp bread or coconut cream pie. One time she was working on an amazing chocolate desert.

She’s like a drug pusher. When we drop by, she gives us a little taste to get us hooked. Then we have to go to the marina on Friday night to buy a whole portion. With the chocolate dessert, we had to buy two. We shared one after dinner and took the other one home for a late night snack the next evening.

I have to tell you about Frances cooking. I already mentioned their BBQ, but I should tell you about the side dishes Frances made. She is a Loos-iana girl. She made a couple of Cajun dishes. I don’t remember (and probably couldn’t pronounce their names) but I remember their flavor. It was wonderful.

I think all of our neighbors are heroes. You could take the plot from an old western, change it to a tropical story and film it right here. We have neighbors that I have identified as the sheriff, the self-sufficient farmer, the good hearted farmers wife, the saloon girl with a heart of gold and the rigid storekeeper.

The best part of it all is that when one person has a problem, everybody comes to their aid. They may have petty feuds, but those are put aside until the problem is solved.

Thank you to all the residents of the north side of the island.

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Dawn & Penn's Panamanian Adventure - Part 16

Mid-August 2016

Penn & Dawn's Panamanian Adventure - Part 15

Dawn & Penn's Panamanian Adventure - Part 14

Dawn & Penn's Panamanian Adventure - Part 13

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