The Adventures of S/V Jupiter's Smile: Moored Six Days at the Balboa Yacht Club

The Balboa Yacht Club does not allow dinghies at their dock, but they do run at least one launch 24/7 on request , more often two.

The launch operators quickly came to associate our faces with our boat so we had no trouble (exercising some degree of patience) getting picked up and dropped off and tipping the pilot.

Where the pier meets land, the club has a laundry room, (three washers, three dryers; 50 cents and 75 cents each) two men's and two women's shower stalls in separate rooms that are reasonably maintained except for the men's stall on the left. Once turned on, the hot water valve was inoperable so when I finished my shower I was unable to turn off the hot (scalding hot) water. I approached one of the fellows who hang out around the area and said, "L'agua caliente no…alto" and I made a cutting motion across my throat and pointed to the shower. He hopped up, went in to the shower stall, slammed the valve inward and then twisted the valve closed. I smiled and gave him a thumbs up. He smiled, nodded his head toward the shower and said one word, "Mal." I said three words, "Si. Mal. Gracias." I used the shower on the right from then on.

Princess Lines next to a neighbor Island Packet. Two handsome vessels.

A not so handsome, but a utilitarian vessel.

One morning it was declared to be laundry day, but when we arrived to do two loads of wash a woman had just arrived and was planning on doing five loads. Most cruisers would have taken two machines and left one for someone else, but this woman was going to do all her wash before us. Okay so she took all three machines and when they finished she could have two and we would use one. I went back to the boat and collected our seven, five-gallon jerry jugs, tipping the pilot, I filled them with diesel fuel at the fuel dock, emptied two into our fuel tank to fill the tank, returned to the fuel dock with the two empty, filled them, returned them to the boat and returned to the laundry room. Had the fox eaten the goose while the rabbit was crossing the river on the ….? Don't ya just hate those logic riddles?

One of the machines had finished and the woman was no where in sight, so while Barb went to find her, I emptied the woman's wash into a dryer and started our first load in the washer. Of course, the woman also took all three dryers so when our first wash load finished, I stacked it on top of one of the dryers and told her that our load was going into that dryer next and we started our last load of wash in the machine we had just emptied. When Barb stepped into the room again the woman told her she would have to wait until she was all finished before loading the next dryer and heated words were exchanged during which Barb was called a bitch. The woman's English was much better than our Spanish. The woman left to find Tito, who referees the area and when he came, he just shrugged his shoulders indicating that he did not take sides in a cat fight, I guess. One of the dryers that the woman had used finished and she put her hand in, withdrew nothing except her hand and put in 75 cents more, giving us a dirty look and left the room. I noticed that the dryer was not running. She had not pressed the "Start" button. So I did and it started. And of course, when the dryer I was waiting for finished she was no where around. I emptied the dryer and stacked her laundry on the table then loaded our wash and Barb started it. When the woman returned, she again lit into Barb, but I said I was taking the next dryer and I did and, that even though she put more money in her first dryer, she hadn't started it and I did that for her and I emptied the dryer for her. I was doing her laundry for her. She asked if I thought she was someone's maid. I said I didn't think about her at all. I was just trying to move the process along and finish our laundry. Later the woman, seemingly finished, had Tito cart her loads of laundry down the pier as she followed. Passing on the pier, she said that she was sorry for the disagreement. I said it all came out in the wash. Barb always brings plastic garbage bags to put the laundry in in case it rains and as I returned to help carry a bag, in the rain, I noticed that there was still laundry in a dryer and I knew it wasn't ours. I wonder if the woman forgot some?

It was interesting to observe that this Latina was giving the Gringa no quarter, but to what I said and did, she deferred. In a grocery store Barb had seen some young Latinas attempt to cut in front of an English woman, but they were rebuffed by a direct, stern, loud "NO!" The Panamanian women seem to have no problem trying to bully foreign women. I have stood my ground (without negative consequences) in situations with men. Once, I deferred when I was next to pay for the fuel I bought at the marina and a local fellow walked up and did business before I did. I let that go. I thought it best to not crap where I eat.

We were fueled up, gassed up, propaned, provisioned and we had clean clothes. Reason enough to leave the next day, Saturday - Panama's Mother's Day. It was a good thing I stopped in the office at the end of the pier.

Karyna and Carrolina said that the office would be closed on Saturday for Mother's Day, the day when the mothers stay home and cook for all the relatives. So they made up the bill, which I paid with a credit card. Then Karyna made out a receipt that I was to take to the dock master. He gave me a receipt that I took back to Karyna and we were then free to leave on Mother's Day. Panama is BIG on paperwork and most of it is done free hand on paper forms using battery powered calculators to figure the costs of things with fees and taxes included. The only thing that seemed high priced was what we paid for fourteen-gallons of gasoline; $70 and change including tax and delivery charge. The same guy charged $12 for the propane that he delivered the day before and that was more than fair. We are merely guests in the country so we pay what is asked, but don't hog the laundry room and don't try to cut in line!

Friday evening we heard a polite English captain on a catamaran call for a mooring and even though I could see two empty moorings they were told, "no oye." by the dock master. He did not use proper VHF protocol so the captain did not understand and called again. I answered and told him that the dock master had sand no, but that we were leaving in the morning.