Nynke van de Nadort

Waking up on the boat after a rainy night, feeling a little sore and tired. I get out of bed and I hear Michelle getting the handpump out, there is water under the floor again. While the water for the coffee is heating, we fill buckets with the fresh water that keeps making its way under our floor. With our floor, I mean Michelles floor. She adopted me on her boat when I was looking for a new place to stay. “I don’t mind you living on my boat”, she said. We met the first week I was in Bocas del Toro and she was looking for someone to sail her boat, since she couldn’t move that 47 ft. monohull on her own. I said I could teach her sailing and without a doubt she let me sail her boat.

The cat on board is crippled and pisses everywhere she goes. I got used to not be scared stepping into it, since its unavoidable. There’s a special bottle on board with detergent and a piss-cloth to clean it up easily. I’ve seen this cat in the weirdest positions. Since she can barely move from the waist down, legs are just hanging everywhere. Michelle called her ‘Black Jack’ because she’s lucky she found her in the garbage in Bocas town. It’s the sweetest cat I’ve ever met.

To work on this blog I need to go to town because there is no internet connection on the boat (duh). But also because we need to be careful with the solar power since there are a lot of cloudy days lately.

The dinghy-motor is broken and usually I take the kayak, but today I’m not in for a wet butt so I have to flag a  water taxi. Sometimes it takes five seconds, sometimes I’m waving like a moron to all the taxis passing by for over half an hour without any results. Some just wave back and smile like I’m standing there to wish every taxi driver a happy morning.

The town is still quiet. High-season is almost starting, but you can’t really tell yet. While the men on the side of the street declare their never-ending love to me and my forehead gets roasted by the strong sun, I’m walking on my flipflops to the North of the town where my favourite internet spot is.