Day 67, June 6: How Business Is Done In Balboa
The Port Captain found us at the little open air bar/restaurant on the edge of Balboa Harbor. Brian and I had just settled in for a beer and a burger. We turned as he addressed us, "Are you the crew of the Faith?" I instantly identified the insignia on his shirt, along with the ID tag hanging from his neck. A short, blocky man in his later thirties, smartly dressed and clean cut, carrying a thin sheaf of papers in his hand. He was peering intently at us, quietly judging. My mild, amused surprise rapidly became dismay and slow panic, "Oh, shit," I thought, "no Zarpe..." To the Capitan himself I responded, "Yes." "OOhhh!" he leaned against the bar, tilting the pages in his hand as he did. To my mortification, I recognized them. "I was just on your boat!" He waved the documents over the bar, "I got these from your mate, but he didn't know anything!" Eric had stayed on board out at the anchorage while we came ashore to talk to the harbor master and see about the haul out procedure for our anticipated rudder repair. Failing to find anyone we'd opted to have a little sit-down at the cantina we'd discovered at the top of the dock stairs. Apparently a mistake we'd shortly regret....the Capitan de Puerto was really getting worked up: "I saw you come in from the Canal! I called on the radio, I went out to the boat, but I was too late!!" Faith's registration, our stamped crew list and the Colon Port Captain's Canal clearance were beginning to crumple in his clenching fist as he gesticulated. I briefly considered the option of making a run for it, but the Capitan's imposing presence had me riveted to the spot. "You know?!" He was coming to some kind of crescendo now, I could feel the axe about to fall. "You guys are so(!)...so(!)..." "Oh, out with it already," my internal dialogue had abandoned all hope, "stupid, irresponsible, crazy, brainless...."
"Ah, what's the word?!" He obviously had something particularly applicable, "bravo," he said.
Bravo? I translated quickly, "Brave??" I ventured.
"YES! That's it! BRAVE!" the relief on his face somehow matched the stunned pleasure on both Brian's and mine. "I was on your boat!" he emphasized, "I was trying to write this for you but I couldn't because it was bouncing around so much!" he waved a new sheet under my eyes. "Then I realized I need your signature anyway! Oh, my God! I just...I see a lot of boats, but that little one...."
"Small boat, big cojones," Brian put in.
"YES!" cried the Port Captain of Balboa, "VERY big!!" accentuating with arms spread akimbo. "I just, here, I need to sit down...oh, you're eating! Just go right ahead, I'll do this, we'll be done in five minutes. Oh, my name's Jorge Castro, Jorge that's like 'George' in Spanish and Castro like Fidel. Say, I am hungry...how much are those burgers?"
"Four dollars," we offered.
"That is good to know," said Jorge the Port Captain, though he went right back to work, producing a finished document in the stated five minutes. "I just want to shake your hands," he said as he got up to leave, laughing in amazement, "anything you need, you just ask."
"Well, we need to haul our boat out and repair the rudder," we told him, "would you know who we talk to or where they are?"
"Hold on one moment!" Capitan Castro dashed away, returning shortly after talking with one of the men passing by the other end of the patio. "You talk to that man, Dave! He runs this place, he knows it all!" Jorge took his leave after returning our documents and assuring us that he'd process our Zarpe whenever we wanted to go. "Just come the day before you want to leave," he cautioned.
Brian and I returned to our meal, laughing and joking at our slight scare. Just as we finished the last of our fries and polished off the beers, Dave the Harbor Master sauntered over. "I hear you need to pull your boat out," he said, leaning both hands on the bar to take the weight off of what had probably been a long day. We answered in the affirmative and fifteen minutes later had all the information we'd need for a haul-out the next afternoon. I was to go down the stairway, take a left at the guard station, and find Ricardo, who would arrange everything.
Eric made his appearance as we chatted with Dave. We filled him in on the Port
Captain situation, to his relief. "This very officious looking person jumped on the boat and started yelling something about getting a Zarpe before we left. I tried to explain that we didn't want a Zarpe yet," he told us, "but he seemed to think we were leaving right away. He tried to do some paperwork but the boat was rocking so much he could barley balance just sitting there. So he just took the papers and went looking for you guys." As Eric concluded his explanation an arm snaked around my shoulders and a voice cheered, "You guys made it!" Following the appendage back to its owner I discovered Erin's smiling face a few inches from my own. "Erin!" I cried and lifted her in a crushing hug, "I figured you'd be gone by now!" "I wish!" she responded, "but Phillipe (the French Captain) and I had a talk when we got here and left. I'm back on the Taking Off, only we haven't taken off anywhere. There's all this stuff we keep having to fix and the Captain keeps postponing...anyway, it's good to see you!"
We sat down together with Erin's shipmates, Nedra and Brian, did introductions and talked for an hour or two. Eventually we made runs to the Faith, got showered, talked to the haul-out guys, and returned to the Yacht Club.
Here I should note that the Balboa Yacht Club does not formally exist. The building had been burned down several years before during a property dispute and was never replaced. All of the guide books note this. What they don't say is that, in essence, what BYC has become is an open air Yacht Club. I've already mentioned the patio bar and restaurant, which has adjacent bathroom and shower facilities. Phones are located on the side of the bathroom building. Mango trees surround the park-like landscape. The harbor area is sheltered from the water by a steep hillside with a long staircase leading to the patio bar. At the foot of the stairs are a security station and the pull-out facilities on the left, a ramp leading to the top of the hill on the right, and a large dock stretching 150 yards out into the harbor. Toward the end of the dock are two sets of buildings, one housing the Harbor Master's office and, quite conveniently, Immigration, the other is the headquarters for the panga drivers. The water taxi service at Balboa is excellent, assuming you don't piss the drivers off (they leave you on your boat, and don't hear calls or see signals � we noted a couple of apparently unpopular boaters getting the shaft). The taxis are fifteen foot pangas (open, lifeboat looking craft) with chugging diesel engines and expert drivers who can find your vessel rain or shine, night or day. So while the BYC doesn't exist on paper it is very much alive in every other way.