Adventures of a Tribe

Toadily freaky!

Posted on August 9, 2015

Due to our extremely slow wifi, it took Danny about 3 hours to book our tickets this morning. Aundrea will fly with us as far as Denver, then she’ll head to SLC while he and I continue on to Idaho Falls. We begin our travels on the 14th, and I pray my sweet dad will be able to hold on that long.

While he was doing that I took apart our head so Danny and I could try figure out why it wasn’t draining.  The macerator was working fine, but we figured something was plugging a hose. We ended up finding that the hose was just old and lined with a layer of a calcified cement like substance from years of salt water etc. I love working on projects on the boat.  I learn so much and feel even better educated and prepared for what’s to come. My goal is to know every square inch of this home of ours intimately, and to have the skills to fix anything and everything.

The veggie boat came at 11:30am as it usually does on Saturdays.

It still amazes me how inexpensive produce is. The ladies on the boat are so sweet and I love to support them.  Their produce is generally in far better condition than in the grocery stores in Bocas. In the past I have prepared a menu and then shopped for it, but here, one has to purchase what ever produce one can find, and then come up with a menu for the supplies you have.  It’s really quite fun.

When the day was at it’s hottest, the creatures retreated to their berths to read and talk, and at one point I heard more laughter than usual.  I went into Jude and Emma’s berth to find the two of them and Mycah wrestling and tickling each other. It’s not an uncommon scene around here, and always fun to watch.

Tonight when all the girls walked over to the public restrooms together, Jonathan and I hid in the dark and jumped out and scared them when they walked past.  I learn a helpful bit of information to keep in mind for my own safety in the future:  Mycah reacts the exact same way I do when I am startled – I enter ‘fight’ mode rather than ‘flight.’  When I jumped out and scared her, she had no idea who I was and she back handed me with all her strength and got me square in the shoulder.  I was completely impressed (and surprised) by the force of her clout!

Karma came and bit me in the butt later on though…I later walked to the ablution blocks and when I reached the doors to go in, I saw sitting in front of me, a big fat toad the size of a vw bug. It had one eye on my eyes and the other eye on my jugular! I slowly backed away and paced back and forth at a distance, trying to not make eye contact, when a big black Jamaican man walked up and I asked him to save me. He looked like he was about to burst into laughter and said, ‘Oh no mon, dat ting can not hurt you mon.’ I explained to him that he had been mislead his entire life and that they can in fact hurt you, and he doubled over in laughter and gently moved it to the bushes on the other side of the building. I took the quickest shower ever and came back and lay my head on Danny’s chest to get my heart rate down! The creatures had to remind me that it makes no sense for me to feel no fear diving with sharks, and then fear toads, but it makes absolute sense to me.

I am so grateful for the lessons life has to offer. I am grateful for this beautiful world, and the people with whom we have opportunity to enjoy the journey with.