We skipped Colon because it was high season. Too many hucksters peddling all their myriad (non)necessities, and the crowd was hyper and amped to get one last night, and one last wave, and one last exotic fling under their belt before they migrated north. At least that’s how we saw it. On the nights and duty-determined days that we did make it to the main island, the perception seemed point-on. The Bar Hundido that the gringos called Shipwrecks, for instance, was shoulder to shoulder like a frat party on Ladies Night, shots of seco flying everywhere, and it lasted like that until four in the morning. Then there was the mayhem of power hour at Mondo Taitu on Tuesdays. We thought it better to let them have their final episodes of madness and only dip our heads in when necessary. The crowds would thin out soon enough. We found refuge on a more placid island. There were three of us: Paul, Matt, and myself, and we had a tight, rich history that dated back into the middle school years, and beyond. We knew each other deeply and well, and we knew what we wanted, so we made our away from Bocas town around Isla Carenero – “You see that left breaking on the inside?” – and shacked up on the top floor of the Hostal Bastimentos. It was mid-afternoon.

Dixon was the man who ran the joint, and I remember the second thing he said to us – after “Whap’n!? Welcome back, top floor?” – was “Maybe I tell you before – there’s a problem d’Bastimentos people have wit’ you surfers: you want d’bad weather ‘cause it bring d’wave… we want d’good weather ‘cause it bring d’smile. Don’t add up.” I didn’t want bad weather at all – I honestly hate the place with bad weather – but I laughed, as I do at most superstitions (only harboring them secretly). On the way to our room we saw two jars filled with floating pickled snakes.

We unbundled our boardbags and looked out over the bay. The sky was grey and heavy and the wind was still, and all you could figure was, “Might as well, weather’s bad, probably some waves,” and so we made our way over the hill, barefoot with boards slung under our arms, to the exposed side of the island.

“When does the dry season start here?”

“Bocas doesn’t have a dry season. That’s why all this investment is fucked.”

The fifteen-minute hike took well over half an hour, braced and conscious with each step – apparently it had rained straight through the last two months. Take that, Century 21. The mud was thick and shin-deep and for most of the walk there was no way around it. It was dark, rich, healthy mud, and it would spurt skyward from the cracks between your toes as you stepped. We passed through the slip in the barbed-wire gate that marks the start of the final descent, and with a yelp, Matt upended, horizontal and airborne, and by the time Paul and I were stable enough to turn he was ass deep in a pool of it.  Read More...