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April 8, 2015 · 9:42 pm
The Dog Gets A Painful Lesson
You may notice that I said “The” dog, not “My” dog. That’s only because she’s only “my” dog by virtue of the fact that I feed her. And even then, it’s not every day. She’ll disappear for a couple or three days every now and then. She kind of accepts that her name is “Dirt Dog” though she’ll only come to that name when I call her if she feels like it. The reason I call her that is because she’s mostly white with a couple of BIG black spots and one of her favorite things to do is to go down to the river, take a dip and then lay around in dirt giving her a coating of mud sometimes.
She came limping into my life a couple of years ago with a broken leg. Naturally I took her to the vet and got her fixed up. Who wouldn’t? And I took her to one of the spay and neuter clinics that are held around the area monthly. Chiriquí doesn’t need anymore dogs.
Anyway, this morning when I went to feed her I noticed there were a couple of things hanging from her lower lip. It looked like a couple of pieces of dried grass. She does spend a lot of time roaming around in the brush, and right now towards the end (hopefully) of the “dry” season most of the grass and weeds around are the color of straw. But when I was able to get up close to her I saw it wasn’t grass. It was a couple of what looked like porcupine quills.
I was able to pull them out of her lip. She shook her head and walked off without touching her breakfast. I wondered if there were, in fact, porcupines in Panama and this is what I discovered…
It’s Rothschild’s porcupine (wouldn’t you know those rich bastards would have an animal named after them?).
According to Wikipedia, Coendou rothschildi, is a species of rodent in the family Erethizontidae. It is usually considered endemic to Panama. This species can be found in lowland deciduous and evergreen forest. It is nocturnal and arboreal; it sleeps during the day in vine tangles near the tops of trees. The diet includes fruit and leaves. Well, I had a cantaloup that was going bad and threw out in the back yard the other day. I noticed yesterday morning that one large part of it had been dragged off to another spot and it was probably one of these guys, and last night the dog decided to tangle with it and got a surprise.
I tried to get a photo of the quills but they didn’t come out. They’re about an inch and an eight long, black on the barbed end and about two thirds of them are straw colored.
That’s your lesson for the day, kids. And your new vocabulary word is endemic. There’s probably never going to be a time in your life when there’ll be a chance to use the word Erethizontidae but you might be able to work endemic in somewhere. Endemism is the ecological state of a species being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation, country or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. Huh, I didn’t know that until this morning, did you? You would, of course score HUGE points if you could work Erethizontidae into a conversation some day.
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Just Do It!
“Whatever’s good for your soul… do more of that.”
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Sight
You know, sometimes we think of our mothers as just “moms.” Later in our lives, we often realize how unique and special they really were. I’m not talking about moms like Hillary Clinton who might some day be president of the United States. I’m talking about the moms who cooked your breakfast in the morning and packed you a lunch for school. That kind of mom. Sometimes they do things that really surprise you by doing something you never expected.
I was looking at a quote just now that reminded me of something my mom did a long, long time ago that I haven’t thought about for probably more than half a century. But before I get into that, here’s the first thing she did that blew me away…
I’m the first of seven sons. Two of my brothers died in infancy. They were buried at my father’s plot in Woburn, Mass. My mom’s family was buried in Westminster, Mass. When she died she had herself cremated. Part of her was scattered with the boys in Woburn and the rest with her family in Westminster. I remember I thought that was one of the coolest things I’d ever heard of, and I was really proud of her for doing that. (As a sidebar: My dad was also cremated. Part of him was scattered off the mouth of Venice Inlet in Florida, a place he loved and had fished at a lot with my mom. Most of his ashes were buried in Woburn. After that my brothers, David, Jeff and Mark, and I went out to Westminster, each with a small Ziploc bag and scattered what remained of him at our mother’s grave.)
But what started this whole thing off was seeing a Louis Bourgeois quote that said: “Just remember that others don’t see what you do.” It was back around 1945 when my brother Jimmie died. Of course, back then, there was nothing like heart transplants going on, but they were doing corneal implants and despite her grief my mom’s thinking was so ahead of her time that she donated her baby’s eyes so someone else could see. It’s a shame that I hadn’t remembered that for so long, and remembered what a unique way of thinking she had.
That’s me on the left in the photo, and my brother Jimmie on the right.
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House Sharing in David #2
I have not been to this house, but I have met Cedo on a couple of occasions. She’s a sweet woman, and her house is quite typical of middle-class Panama.
This home is in Villa del Carmen, a quiet middle class Panamanian neighborhood on the north side of David, just within the city limits. The neighborhood is surrounded by woods and a beautiful river runs along the east side. There is only one way in and out so it is quiet and safe, and the neighbors are friendly and welcoming.
My good friend Cedo has an extra room in her charming little house. There is also a recently arrived expat lady from the US staying there, so you would get a mix of Spanish immersion (Cedo speaks no English), and a gringa friend having a similar experience.
Cedo is easy going and not fussy about little things, and will do anything she can to take care of you and make you comfortable. There is internet in the house, and use of a washing machine.
There is a neighborhood bus that…
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March 26, 2015 · 4:11 pm
House Sharing in David #1
I’m sure there are people who read my blog who wonder what housing is like here in Chiriqui. My friend, and fellow blogger, Kris, has two stories on her blog about houses where short term room rental is available.
Some people have popped up recently looking for short term rental possibilities in this area, so I am putting together a couple things that I know about. Here in David short term rentals are probably a bit difficult to find. Even long term furnished rentals are harder to find than unfurnished (and unfurnished means no stove or fridge or washing machine). But, I know of a couple house sharing possibilities and a couple casitas for rent in Cuesta de Piedra, so I’ll put together some photos and some information in case it is helpful to anyone.
This house is on Ave Tomas Herrera close to Colegio Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles. (A google map should bring it up – look for the school on the north side of David, north of the Pan-American highway) This is a very nice neighborhood with some beautiful homes. It is close to a bus…
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March 26, 2015 · 4:07 pmA Trip To The Bocas (Chica and Brava)
My friends, Kris and Joel Cunningham, and a neighbor of theirs, Lauren, made a trip over to the Boca Chica/Boca Brava area today, with Joel driving.
The Interamerican Highway is under construction the whole way from David to Santiago in the middle of the country though traveling over to where we turned off to Hoconcitos was pretty easy going. The road from Horconcitos to Boca Chica, which is on the mainland was a different story. We passed a lot of houses that gringos would definitely consider hovels, some made of split bamboo and others that looked as though they were made of discarded lumber picked up along the highway somewhere. But as we discussed, at least these people have places to live. They have homes and aren’t living under bridges which, to our group’s way of thinking is a huge step up from being homeless in America.
The road from Horconcitos ends at the waterfront in Boca Chica…
One of the biggest lies found in travel guides, anywhere, is the phrase, “English is widely spoken.” Well, sort of…
We caught a water taxi from Boca Chica…
Over to the Hotel Boca Brava where I promptly fell in love wit the girl who works at the restaurant there. As usual I didn’t take nearly enough photos of the whole event. But to access the hotel you have to walk up about eighteen hundred gazillion stairs. I found it to be a challenge, but the views when we got up to the top were worth the pain…
Looking out towards the Pacific Ocean.
Looking back towards the mainland.
I don’t know how drunk the driver had to be to pile this truck up at the Boca Brava Hotel maybe 75 feet above the water and with no road…
We had lunch at the hotel with huge, surprisingly tasty hamburgers and fries while Lauren opted for the “fish fingers.” I never realized fish had hands, let alone fingers…
Back on the mainland I asked one of the fishermen if he knew of anyone who had a boat they wanted to sell. He said he did, but it needed work and pointed down the shoreline and wanted to take me there, forthwith, as they say, and it was all I could do to get him to stop trying to get me to go along with him. He said the owner wanted about $2,500. I’d seen the boat, I’m sure, from the water taxi, and if this isn’t it, the color scheme is the same, then it’s pretty close. Yellow and red. On the way out of town we took a peek at where the boat was. These boats are very narrow, with a beam of about six feet which, if you go look back at my post about the narrow boats of England, can make quite tidy homes. This hull, rather roughly finished fiberglass, is about 30 feet long.
Before heading for home, we swung off the road to Horconcitos onto a horrible road that took up to the Seagull Cove Lodge where Kris and Joel have stayed several times. They were very warmly greeted by the manager, Marcelo. Joel took this picture of Marcelo, Kris, Lauren in the background and myself, standing out at the edge of the dining room.
The views from where we were standing were gorgeous. In fact, they all were.
On the road back to the Interamerican Highway there are some spectacular vistas. It’s a shame a two-dimensional camera can’t capture the depth of the scenery.
Traffic was much heavier on the way back into the city but Joel and Kris dropped me off at the bus terminal around 4 o’clock or so and I was home, dead tired but happy by 5.
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What Good Are Plans If You Can’t Change Them?
I’ve had problems sleeping, lately. I get up in the middle of the night to take a whiz and can’t get back to sleep because variations of the shanty boat build whirl around in my mind.
I thought about filling milk crates with empty 2-liter plastic bottles and then found out there’s only one dairy in the whole country that uses them and they won’t sell them. Using other kinds of containers to hold the bottles are no real answer to the problem, either. In any case, I would have built a plywood pontoon around them.
So I got to thinking about using foam flotation. I found a place that sells open-cell foam ceiling tiles and could buy enough of them to provide, literally, tons of buoyancy. The problem with them is each 2’X4′ panel is only 1/2″ thick. Also, open-cell foam, I discovered from rummaging around on line when I couldn’t get back to sleep, will absorb water over time. I’d also have to find a way to keep the 35 sheets that came in a bundle together.
Closed-cell foam doesn’t absorb water. There’s only one place in all of Panama that sells closed-foam sheets. The sheets are 4’X8′ and 4″ thick. They cost $100 each. I’d need 24 sheets to get the size and amount of buoyancy required for what I have in mind. I’m NOT spending $2,400 for floatation.
So, I’m looking at a site that shows some people building pontoons and stuffing it with foam.
As you can see in the bottom pic they’re using a combination of bottles, 5-gallon pails and foam. They also mentioned in their story that they weren’t making the pontoons water-tight because they were making a single river trip and the shanty wasn’t for long-term use.
The foam isn’t providing any buoyancy of its own. None at all. What it’s doing is providing potential buoyancy should the pontoons be breached.
Well, I intend on making my pontoons watertight using a combination of glues, epoxy filets, and glass over wood. I also plan on building the pontoons in separate 2’X2’X4′ sections. They’d be easy for an old geezer like me to build and move around than building two long 20′ or 24′ pontoons. These segments would, of course, each have closed ends so that a breach in one wouldn’t flood the whole pontoon. Then I would fill them, like seen above, with a collection of discarded bottles.
So, we’ll see if sorting this out in the daylight will help me sleep through the night.
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Harlan and Anna Hubbard Video
The artist, Harlan Hubbard, and his wife, Anna, could be considered the guru of modern shanty boating. He and Anna were married in 1943 and the next year they started to build their shanty boat in Brent, Kentucky eventually traveling down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, ending their journey in the Louisiana bayous in 1951. His book Shantyboat, and several others he wrote recounts the eight-year journey from Brent to New Orleans, are still available through Amazon.com. His book Shantyboat in the Bayous, which was published in 1990, completes the story.
Harlan produced many woodcuts and drawings like this one showing the inside of their boat and their voyage.
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Advantages of a Shanty Boat vs. Sail or Powerboat
I have a very dear friend in Florida who is always trying to convince me to give up the shanty boat idea. “Come up here,” he says, “and get a REAL boat. Then you can sail it back down to Panama if you want.”
Well, there are a lot of reasons I don’t want to do that. One, I don’t really want to go back to the States even to visit. People around here often ask me if I don’t miss my family and friends up north. Well, sure. But if I travel some place I want to go to somewhere I’ve never been before. I don’t need to go visit those people up there. I KNOW what it looks like where they live. They should come down HERE and take part in the adventure of a different country and culture.
But getting back to the theme of this post. One of the big disadvantages of powerboats and sailboats as live aboards is the DRAFT. My lovely Nancy Dawson which I lived on for nearly six years drew 4′ feet.
That meant that I needed to be in AT LEAST four and a half feet of water and also take into account the tidal range. For instance, over here around Boca Chica where I’d like to be, the tidal range is as much as 19 feet! Take a gander of these sport fishing boats at Boca Chica…(By the way, there are MANY world record catches off the shores in this area).
The boat I ran over in France, after we changed the old, short-weighted wing keel which made the boat dangerously unstable for a spade-type keel drew over TEN FEET!!!
Because of this great tidal range (it’s only about 3′ over in the Bocas del Toro area) if you’re in a sailboat with a keel or a power boat where the props and rudders hang below the level of the keel, you have to be anchored quite a way from the beach in order to stay afloat or pay an outrageous fee for a dock at a marina.
With a shanty boat you can choose from a couple of options. You could hang around, see where the low tide line is and anchor yourself just off it and walk ashore since your boat will only have a draft of a foot or so. Of course, six hours after you left it will be high tide and you’ll either have to wait for the tide to fall or swim out to your home. OR, if you’ve built your boat sturdy enough, you can go inshore as far as possible and “take the ground” as they say if you’ve found a nice protected spot where there isn’t much wave action to bounce you around as the tide drops.
In either case you’re going to want/need to have a dinghy. I wrote this several years ago…https://onemoregoodadventure.com/2009/04/29/the-boaters-car-of-pickup-truck/
My choice for a dinghy is the Puddle Duck Racer. I’ve written about it before on this blog. http://pdracer.com
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One More Good Adventure 