Hitchhikers

Two beautiful little birds that sat on one of the spreaders,
and hitched a ride up the river

A RIVER OF CROC’S

Sunday 12^th June.  Location: Chagres River, Panama

Bob was the first up on deck this morning, to watch the sunrise and the creatures in the jungle surrounding us.  This is just another magical place that my husband (the adventurer) has dragged me to; although now I’m here I’m really grateful that he did. As I sat quietly watching the steam rise off the water and settle like puffy white clouds around the tops of the trees, I couldn’t help wishing that Scoop, Danni, Edi and Paige were with us.  This truly is an amazing place. The heavy rainstorm last night had resulted in a very humid morning.  Walking up on deck was like walking into a sauna, I was immediately drenched in sweat. Daisy’s air-conditioning had worked well to keep us comfortable through the night, but now phew…

The scenery surrounding us was surreal, it’s both wonderful and reassuring to still be able to find places on this planet totally un-spoilt by man, this place is as natural as Mother Nature intended.  The jungle was full of noises and activity, beautiful colorful butterflies the size of my hand, flocks of noisy parrots, kingfishers, insects and monkeys, they were everywhere you looked, easily spotted swinging around by their tails high up in the canopy of the trees surrounding the river.  The stillness of the river otherwise, was soothing to the soul, and I felt very privileged and blessed to be able to see it first hand. Bob pointed out all the small circles of bubbles rising up through the water disturbing the otherwise glass like surface. “It could be Crocodiles” he said with a smile, I looked around and there were indeed several circles of bubbles just a few feet off Daisy’s bow, I counted 10 of them.  “Let’s get in the dinghy and go exploring” Bob said!  “OH lovely” I thought, “what a great idea, lets all pile into a small soft sided boat and float around with a river full of croc’s! What did he think his name was “Dundee?”

So, anyway, after breakfast we covered ourselves liberally with anti-bug spray, (even though surprisingly there was a distinct absence of bugs) and motored the dinghy quietly and slowly up several of the smaller inlets off the river that ran into the jungle.  We stopped periodically to take photographs, and just watch the antics of all the monkeys, we saw a troop of the little white faced monkeys and quite a few of the howlers, who, according to something Niki was told, are the loudest creatures on the planet, and if the noise we were experiencing was anything to go by I would agree whole-heartedly with that.  

The river which started out about 20-30 feet wide narrowed significantly as we ventured further up it, to just a few feet across in places, barely wide enough for the dinghy, and we had to duck and push our way under the overhanging tree branches.  A couple of times spiders fell off the branches into the dinghy, this didn’t go down well with either Niki or myself, although I have to say I was actually more concerned about the croc’s that Niki was pointing out.  When something much larger than yourself, with a ginormous mouth full of razor sharp teeth and bug ugly eyes that are looking right at you, is only a few feet away from the soft sided craft your currently sitting in, it doesn’t really do much to instill confidence for your safety.  We moved quickly on, and I reassured myself that we did at least have the motor which, I like to believe can travel at light speed when required.  I had a flash back to the time Danni was with us in Los Roques, Venezuela, when we had to flee an attack of thousands of mosquitoes. The dinghy had done us proud that time.

It was an amazing morning, I felt as though I was on a David Attenborough expedition.  We rowed (well actually Niki and Bob rowed) up and down a couple of the river inlets, Bob was looking for a place to pull the dinghy up so we could go exploring, I can’t say I was disappointed when we couldn’t find anywhere, the jungle at the rivers edge was very thick, and the footing sticky mud, perfect for the croc’s, not so much for me in my brand new Coach sneakers.

We saw one of the beautiful, rare and amazing panama butterflies, each of its iridescent blue wings stretch about 4” across, sadly it flew too fast for me to catch it on camera.  The riverbanks were crowded with land crabs with huge white front claws; there were red crabs, bright blue crabs, and snow white ones, in abundance all along the shoreline and on the overhanging branches.  We stopped for a while to watch a pretty little black and white kingfisher, and I took some photographs.  The jungle air was filled with a heady scent of jasmine, although we only saw a few of the flowers.  We photographed a very unusual looking lizard sitting on one of the overhanging branches, it had a large odd shaped crest, I’ve never seen one like it before.

Daisy on the Chagres River

Beautiful Kingfisher

After lunch we moved Daisy to anchor in another spot a little nearer to the mouth of the river, we had planned to go ashore at a place Bob had read about, where there is supposed to be good access to the jungle, sadly the storms moved in and we had to retreat inside the boat for the rest of the afternoon.

It had been a truly incredible day, but over the last 4 years of this adventure, I’ve become increasingly aware that everything has its price, and every ounce of joy is often followed by a pound of despair; I’m wondering how long it will be before I have to pay for the wonderful day I’ve just enjoyed.

Back in Panama...

Well done American Airlines, we had great flights, and they were all on time, the entire luggage arrived with contents undamaged, Bob’s driver was waiting for us as we came through customs, such a successful trip.  If only all flights were this way.

Sadly I was travelling coach (using up an old ticket) while Bob and Niki were in first class, they were having ice cream and cocktails while I could barely get a glass of water from my most miserable flight attendant, who was obviously not enjoying his job and making it clear to all around him. However, all was not lost, I managed to snag myself a window exit isle seat, and I was sat next to a lovely lady, and I had masterchef on my Mac, so I enjoyed great entertainment during the flights.

Our first morning back on Daisy started early, while I took the 8am bus to the supermarket to do the provisioning, Bob took Niki into the jungle to photograph the monkeys.

The weather here is hotter than usual and there is little wind, it’s really humid and we’re all soaked with sweat, the lovely hair-do Paige gave me, that looked so chic when I left, has turned into a ball of fluff from all the humidity and I now look like a bush woman, welcome to boat life (sigh)

Shelter Bay Marina

In the afternoon while Bob worked on the refrigeration, Niki and I scrubbed the decks, and filled the water tanks.  Despite liberal use of sun tan lotion we both got quite burnt. 

A large container of cleaning solution burst in Nicolette’s bathroom and flooded the under-sink cupboard, but at least it smells clean! Boat bathrooms frequently smell nasty no matter how often you clean them, another joy of boat life!

Filling the diesel tanks at Shelter Bay

Both Niki and I have collected a dozen or more mosquito bites, and I’m making every effort not to scratch them, but they’re so damn itchy…

Saturday we are off up the river to go jungle hiking, this should be interesting, watch this space…

For Now !

Less than 24 hours till I leave, I've still not looked at packing, I can already see that this is going to be another late night panic pack, I just can't seem to help myself.

I'm not sure when my next post will be, it all depends on whether we can get Internet where we go.  I know Bob plans on some jungle exploration, and Bocas del Toro looks lovely so I should have plenty to write about.  Or maybe I'll find something to write during my hours at airports waiting for flights...

Enjoy the glorious summer weather everyone, I'll be back soon :o)

So Disappointed !

Sunday was such a busy day, with Bob having been home just a day and a half and leaving again that night, I was trying to spend time with him, and get everything ready for him to leave, and for the first time in months I didn’t get out to see the horses, but I didn’t worry about it because one of the workers at the barn responsible for turn out had assured me my horses would get turned out every day, and he would call me if for some reason they couldn’t do it.  Sunday was such a lovely day and I was happy to think of my horses out in the field enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, instead of standing in a dark barn. So I spent the day at home with my family, which was lovely.

Monday arrived with a very early morning start following a sleepless night of worrying about all the work needing to be done, I was completely bogged down with paperwork and phone calls and errands to finish in the preparation for leaving on Thursday.  Here I am once again running away to sea abandoning my responsibilities, but I don’t do it without a huge burden of guilt, and as you all know running away to sea is not exactly my choice.

However, moving on… I knew the horses were taken care of, something I didn’t need to worry about.  But as the day went on I became more and more depressed through trying to deal with incompetent idiots. Honestly I don’t know how businesses ever stay in business, the level of inefficiency is astounding, and the rudeness of people who are paid to assist you is just incredible, every little thing is done to make life difficult, but I think the thing that upsets me the most is the outright dishonesty, the lies people tell to pull the wool over your eyes, or to cover their inept capabilities, mistakes or laziness.  Integrity is a word that is given no value in businesses today.

By the end of the afternoon I was nursing a massive headache, I was exhausted, frustrated and angry, I couldn’t deal with any of it any more, I decided to go and spend some time with the horses.  My level of frustration with everything was such that I cried all the way out to the barn.

When I arrived, I found everything exactly as I had left it on Saturday afternoon, meaning they hadn’t been turned out, they had been left standing in the stalls for 2 whole days.  Today had been bad enough; this was like the straw that broke the camels back, just further proof of inability and inefficiency, and “I don’t give a fuck” attitude.

When I asked the employee about turnout I was told that they didn’t get turned out today, when I was well aware that they hadn’t been turned out in 2 days, but he was too chicken shit to tell me that, his reason for not turning out  “the tractor broke down and there was a water leak to fix !”   

Disappointment is not a strong enough word.

God help me, I have little to no faith left in the human race as it is. Sometimes I feel as though I’m falling through a vortex of crap…

Panic!

I got up at 5am this morning after an almost sleepless night, my brain wouldn't shut off, I have so many things to organize and do before I leave at 4:30am on Thursday morning.  A morning when you can guarantee I will be sound asleep when it's time to get up!

I kept putting the light on all through the night to write down notes of things I must not forget to do. I still haven't booked a marina for us to stay in, I still haven't arranged to have Daisy's bottom cleaned before we leave, I'm still trying to sort out health insurance. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate health insurance companies they are hateful, nasty, evil organizations, that deliberately make everything so difficult and impossible to understand it makes you want to smash something, so you end up just signing because you have given up any hope of trying to understand all the hidden clauses and exemptions, of which there are so many the policy looks like a draft of War and Peace...  

I haven't even thought about packing yet, and I have to pack for 3 continents!  I still haven't bought an outfit for my niece's wedding, I hate shopping for clothes these days, so I'll probably just drag something old and moth balled out of my closet and end up looking like the poor relative!  I don't have anything suitable for a safari, all my cotton clothes are white or bright colors, the lions will love that, they will see dinner approaching from the far horizon... ARRRRGGGGGHHHHH

I have a pile of bills to pay today, and I need to sort out the fact that my stupid bank, Fifth Third seem unable to pay my rent on time, instead they remove the money from my account 5 days before its due, and then send my landlord a paper check 10 day later, so they have had the use of my money for 10 days, and my rent is paid 5 days late.  I can wire transfer money here from the Caribbean in 3 hours and yet the bloody Fifth Third bank is incapable of transferring money from one account to another when its just down the road (sigh).

So much to do and so little time to do it, so I'm sitting here making more lists, and typing this to try and relieve my building frustration, it's only 6"30am so it's still too early to start making calls to all the sad and incompetent idiots who, I know are going to get me wound up tighter than a drum, OH boy do I need a drink and it's not even breakfast time yet, actually kidding about that, coffee will do for now! Lots and lots of it caffeine overload...

Now which idiot do I call first?

Savoring the Moment

So the clock is ticking, and I'm both depressed and excited at the same time, to be leaving.  Depressed at the thought of leaving because I love being here with Edi and Danni so much, cooking for them, spending time with them, helping them in whatever way I can, actually feeling useful.  My children are so special I will never tire of being with them.

And I really love spending time at the barn with the horses, I feel so at peace when I'm there, just being near them makes me happy. Grooming them, giving them extra hay, and treats in their bucket when they come in from the field, bathing them on sticky hot uncomfortable days, when I get more of a bath than they do "seriously"... I even don't mind mucking out, it makes me happy just to know they have a nice clean soft stall to lay down in, I scrub the water buckets, so that they are so clean even I would drink out of them, am I nuts?

I wander through the isles of the barn every day and sneak extra hay and carrot treats to all the other horses that are left standing in a dark barn, when I feel that they should be out in the fields, enjoying the fresh grass and the sunshine, they all look so sad, it breaks my heart.  Danni tells me off, saying I shouldn't give treats to other peoples horses without asking, because perhaps they shouldn't have them, and maybe she's right, but what can an extra flake of hay or a piece of carrot or apple hurt?  I know Danni's right, but I'm going to do what the hell I want anyway because I never live by other people's rules.

The trouble is now when I enter the barn and say hello to my horses, all the horses in the barn nicker and whinny, because they recognize my voice "it's the treat lady!" they all say to one another... and I can't resist, I'm buying 2 large bags of carrots a day, I really hope Danni doesn't read this...

Also I love having a fabulous kitchen to work in, and great, fresh ingredients just a stone's throw away, for the first time in 4 years I really feel as though I have a home again, but now I'm getting ready to leave once more!  The tomato plants I planted 6 weeks ago, are growing like triffids, and they're going to produce a bumper crop of fabulous tomatoes and I'm not even going to be here to enjoy them :o(

On the other hand I'm excited because going back to Daisy means new adventures, new lands to explore, and much more material for my blog, writing has become a real passion of mine, and living on the boat provides me with so much to write about. I shouldn't complain, especially since this trip Niki is coming with us, for 10 days at  least, so I'm really, really excited to be spending time with her.
But I'm still sad to be leaving, I don't suppose I can expect to have it both ways!