Monday, May 3, 1993

As soon as we reached the head of the pier, the immigration officer took us into his office and stamped our passports. He told us we had to go to the Migracion office at Diablo Heights for our visas.
Harper was still hanging around, wanting to handle lines for us. We told him we didn't know yet.
Went to the yacht club office to register. No sooner got there than the Quarantine Officer popped up. Don't know if the immigration officer notified him, or if our contacting Flamenco Signal Station started the ball rolling. He and Roy went off to the boat, while I stayed in line at the office.
The yacht club charges a one-time fee of $15 plus a daily charge of 35 cents a foot for the mooring. That's $14 a day for our boat, which is absurd for a mooring, but we have no choice; it's the only show in town.
This so-called "yacht club" doesn't even vaguely resemble those in the United States. It's a rickety, junky old building that hasn't had a coat of paint in 30 years. It's dirty and depressing. There isn't much of anything there except the office to collect your money, a bar, ugly restrooms, and the laundry room, which has one washer and one dryer.
I settled with the office, put deposits on keys for the shower and laundry room, and kicked back to wait for Roy. He was gone so long, I was beginning to think the inspector must be taking the Jofian apart board by board, but it turned out the water taxi had taken a long time to take them out there and bring them back. The inspector had been very nice and hadn't snooped around at all. Roy told him about the incident a few days ago with the Trigana. The inspector was very much interested and is going to report it to the Port Captain. He wants us to report it to the yacht club, so Roy brought the log ashore and had the yacht club office Xerox the relevant pages. When we get back to the boat, I'll write a report for the club.
Walked over to the Intel office again, and I phoned Kathy at her job. I always hate to phone people at work, but her home phone's been changed and is unlisted, so I had to get her new number. Got it.
We ran into some people from the U.S., who told us about a good lunchroom in the YMCA building, so we went there. Had soup, carrot cake, etc. Then we went across the street to the Chase Manhattan Bank and cashed a couple hundred dollars' worth of Travelers' Checks.
Then we took a cab to Rey's super market for more groceries. For blood-curdling thrills, forget amusement parks, forget bungee jumping, forget white-water rafting. Just go down to Panama City and ride in a taxi. The driver zooms at high speed through crowded streets, barely missing pedestrians and other vehicles. He invents his own lanes. He ignores stop signs. He makes left turns from the right lane. He squeezes through the tiniest cracks. Believe me, you get your $2 worth.
We ended up at a different Rey's from the one we were at yesterday. They're like Lucky's--all over the place. Bought a few more groceries and headed back to the boat.
The Trigana was leaving, so we hailed her on VHF and asked the skipper why he had nearly rammed us a few days ago. He said he had been marlin fishing and sometimes he took a nap and the crew took over. Yeah, right. But at least he did apologize.