Funny Boat people

""There's nowt so strange as folk" my granny constantly used to tell me.  As a child I really didn't know what she meant.  But I have to say that recently I often wonder whether I have become one of those people that she would have included in her "strange folk" category.

      Take for example a simple shopping expedition; I gather my towel to wipe the sea spray off me, my collection of assorted shopping bags, suntan lotion, anti-mosquito spray, purse and sunglasses, and wait patiently on the dock while Bob unchains "Woops-a-Daisy" (our dinghy) and starts her engine.  I untie the painter jump in, and we head off across the bay towards the pretty shantytown of Bocas-Del-Toro.  A town that, like so many other's in the Caribbean spill's out over and into the water.  Brightly painted hotels, houses, shops and restaurants perched precariously on stilts protruding out from the blue water, surround the island in a disorganized, ramshackle fashion.  It's all very untidy looking, but colorful and quaint at the same time.

      Parking "Woops-a-Daisy" involves maneuvering around, between and under a row of metal poles and ropes fencing off the "dinghy parking lot", we struggle to do this in the bouncing water, without hitting the dock or the other dinghy's tied up alongside, and gradually squeeze ourselves into a space. This takes us a while, and then having jumped out onto the floating dock, I hold the painter and fend off the other tied up boats bouncing around while Bob leans over the side and reaches underneath the dinghy to attach our chain lock.  Some taxi boats speed past while we are doing this, and the ensuing wakes cause all the dinghies and the dock to bounce violently up and down almost tipping me into the drink.  Eventually we're tied off, and Woops-a-Daisy is chained safely to the dock.

       Leaving the floating dock involves a walk along a wobbly gangplank on wheels, (I really should have been born in a circus to cope with this life!).  By now I'm a big sweaty mess, but thankfully the walk to the stores is a relatively short one.

"Where's the shopping cart?" Bob ask's me.  Let me just explain here, we have a small collapsible shopping cart with wheel's, that makes carrying heavy things so much easier.  "I didn't bring it" I said,  "I only need a couple of things".  Bob gives me his "you're an idiot look" and say's "I have to buy 2 gallons of oil, and 6 gallons of water, you're going to carry that in your little bag, all the way through town?"  My reply...  a red sweaty faced "OH"!

       So we make our way back along the gangplank to the floating dock, unchain Woops-a-Daisy, and head back across the bay to get the shopping cart, while my thoughts return to my dear Granny, who I'm sure is watching me from above and wondering what on earth I'm doing.