Hanging With The Cruisers

One of the treats of living in a place like Boquete...or in fact, Boquete itself, (ha!) is meeting people who have come to visit from all over the world or, as in the case of friend A.T., from distant planets. This meeting with extranjeros seldom happened when we were in the wild and wooly woods of southwestern Colorado. There we met people who had traveled only as far as Denver or Alberquerque where they were terrified by shopping malls and rush hour and hastened to return to their rural environs. "It was spooky man. They have these poles on street corners with lights that tell you when to come and go and a lot of the people, now this is really weird, said they were Democrats! I couldn't wait to get home."

Last night Woowoo Charly, RTGFKAR and I sat on our patio sipping cocktails with cruisers - people who live on boats and sail about the world - listening to tales of the sea. One was an Aussie man named Rahja (Roger) from whom I learned the word ova-nite-ah (over nighter), another was a Craotian woman named Sasha whose accent reminded me of all the Russian women in James Bond movies and there were, additionally, four people from perhaps the most peculiar of all foreign lands, Texas. Left behind in Bocas Del Toro where their boats were docked, were two further pairs, one French and one British. I regretted not having their accents to tease my writer's ear. All had been sailing about the Caribbean for awhile in a sort of flotilla or armada or whatever the term is, island hopping together. Two of the Texans were our pals Randy and Maryellen who will be staying with us a week or so as they check on their property here in Boquete and polish off a checklist of chores. (From Randy I had earlier acquired the word barbwhar (barbed wire)). We heard tales of places with alluring names like Providencia, Guanaha and San Blas. "Be careful not to step in the guanaha" was my contribution, but then as you know, I can't be helped. And further, there were harrowing tales of rough seas, high winds and cranky customs officials along with cruisers either nutso or clueless. All the cruisers present were in their fifties and had made enough money to drop out early and sail about. Nice. I was jealous. Well, for about a minute anyway. My life is too good to be jealous of anything for long. It was, all in all, an excellent Boquete eve.