Hi again everybody, and hope you had a great fourth! Ours was…amusing. Some of our gringo neighbors (about half the boats here are American) surprised us 4th of July morning by busting out a truly horrifying glut of Americana decorations. Who knew I would get to experience the holiday flag phenomenon so many thousands of miles from the Heartland? But in the spirit of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” we sang corny 4th of July songs and joined the party. After all….where else were we gonna go? We’re in the middle of the jungle, for god’s sake. The marina has a shiny well-equipped kitchen that we put to good use in cooking up a feast….as a matter of fact the management was so taken by Allen’s skills at the grill that there has been some talk of us helping to open up the restaurant here. Hmmmm…maybe?

Lamentably our limey neighbors never emerged from their coccoon to receive their complementary clobbering. But we colonials partied down undaunted. My volleyball skills are improving. It’s not easy being parked and doing engine work for a month, but we have to make certain sacrifices for the boat, and if that means playing volleyball with young Panamanian firefighters every afternoon, so be it.

After the holiday it was back to the real world. Well, actually this is nothing like the real world and we feel like we live in some weird bubble, so I guess I should say back to work. The starter is still in the shop…we call every day and – surprise surprise – it’s always going to be ready manana. But we keep the faith. Life is funny here. It’s like living in a really exotic retirement community…there is even a Bingo Bus that takes us all to town a couple times a week. Everybody bitches about everybody else and tries to avoid direct sunlight. We are considered suspicious by virtue of the fact that we pretty much get along with everybody.

I think I’m getting addicted to the canal zone, if that’s possible. Being at this crossroads of the Americas is every bit as scintillating as it was when we first arrived two and a half months ago. A couple days ago a cruising family rolled in…..Mom, Dad, 13-year-old boy and 10-year old girl from Maine. They are homeschooling the kids on board, had their kids relatively late in their 30’s, and have made their living for the last several years writing cruising guides and sailing articles. We even own one of their cruising guides to the ICW! (we made them autograph it, which they found funny). Naturally I have been picking their brains about every single aspect of their life…..they are just LITTLE interesting to me (right). Within the first 20 minutes that we knew them we were already finding out which homeschool curriculum they use, which hospitals in Maine offer the best birthing plans for older moms, what it’s like cruising with kids, how to pitch articles to boating magazines. If it had been a sales presentation I would have signed on the dotted line and jumped on the baby wagon. I think Allen was a little frightened by the gleam in my eyes but I can’t help but notice he’s becoming a groupie himself. Sure makes ya think……

I’m still spending every day in the sweatshop. You might be amazed how much STUFF you need to amass to do quasi-professional canvaswork. Canvas, vinyl, binding tape, basting tape, grommets, grommet dies, bone folder, chalk pencils. Upholstery pins, industrial thread, t-square, yardstick, snap setting tool, measuring tape, velcro, zippers, zipper feet, soldering iron. Luckily we brought most of the stuff from California in anticipation of doing this along the way to make money, but every day there’s something else we wish we had. But the work itself is getting easier…I only have the urge to chuck the sewing machine out the window about 10 times a day now…down from 20+ per day all last week.

Allen has bravely been tackling jobs like fixing our colicky outboard and rewiring our wind generator. Yesterday I found him rocking and swearing and speaking in tongues after a couple of hours of trying to coil a spring back into the top of the outboard. It wasn’t pretty. Thank you, sweetie, for taking on the ugly jobs.

As for the chance to drive in reverse, we can’t work on that ‘til we can start the engine. Heck, at least our flow chart is laid out for us. A month ago we had big ideas about tackling the to-do list, but now it seems like everytime we scratch off one thing, two other things break. We’ll have to get our act together by the 22nd, as that’s when we’re planning to leave for Bocas del Toro, where we’ll host friends from CA for the first 10 days ot August, then both of our moms for a couple weeks after that…whew! If our guests are very, very lucky individuals we’ll succeed in rain-proofing and bug-proofing the boat by the time they get here. (Cross your fingers, future guests. We’re trying, I swear).

In the meantime we enjoy the jungle around us…its allure has not faded a bit. Today I looked out the window of the loft and saw five coatimundis rummaging around in the brush, their tails held high, looking like little ring-tailed lemurs. Flocks of lime green parrots squawk back and forth over the volleyball court each day. The rains have been beyond torrential the last couple days…It’s hard to believe that much water could ever have been suspended in midair in the first place. Last night I stepped out of the marina clubhouse into a wall of water, and a bacchanalia of flying, hopping, swimming, buzzing, skittering critters. Crabs, frogs, winged termites, mosquitoes, bats, moths, flying fish. It seems that everything is alive….and, inside our boat at least, festering. Towels are washed and stacked in a dry place only to be found molding just three days later. Porous and nonporous surfaces alike compete to be the fuzziest. Flies come in 17 sizes here on the isthmus. Good thing we’re nature lovers. We even had a crab appear on our DINNER TABLE the other night, which sort of crossed a line for me. On the floor, I can see, but what the hell was he doing right in between our plates? Gutsy little fella.

Enough blather outta me – picture time.