When you live as close to nature and the weather as I do you can understand why people of the past worshiped the sun. After so much rain the sun seems like a kiss from the Gods! The days seem so much brighter (literally) and my luck has seemed to take a turn for the best.
Splendid has three new additions. The first is a Kuna Dug-out canoe. My friend Paul was robbed a few months ago when he was away from his boat. The following morning he found a dug-out canoe in the mangroves. It had either been the thief’s boat, stolen by the thief, or just washed to the mangrove from the sea. Paul spoke to the police and left it in the center of town for about a month, nobody claimed it. Well he didn’t want it and gave it to me. I’m weary of owning things with bad karma, but this little boat needs some love and will 
be good exercise. I’ll retire my inflatable for a while to save on fuel costs :) not to mention burning rice and beans is better than gasoline.
The other thing that I have acquired is a really nice dive compressor. This Dive compressor is a Bauer Utilus 10. My friend bought it for $4500.00 7 years ago, and sold it to me for $250 and I don’t need to pay him off until July. His girl friend is coming and he really needs the room in his lazerette. This is the first time I’ve taken any sort of credit for many, many, years, but I just 
couldn’t refuse.
This little baby will fill an aluminum 80 in 12 minutes and supplies me with another income stream, $10.00 a fill. I can dive as much as I want, and opens up a world of pneumatic tools for me. It came with a complete rebuild kit for the compressor, oil, and 5 new filters for everything. I had to spend the day cleaning it up, and really cleaning the carb, but it runs like a top. My buddy Roger has a regulator and tank I can buy cheap. All I need to do is get a BC vest and I’m diving again!
The other good news it the Sea Recovery watermaker came back into my life. My buddy Roger is hauling his boat out and needs help with the bottom (shaft/paint) and offered to swap it for my help. don’t I know what’s going on with my Karma, but I’m really happy about it. I don’t need to get it working before I go anywhere and I’m going to put the watermaker install on the back burner but WAHOOO.
I really do know what happened with my Karma. After Alex left I really realized I don’t want to be in any sort of “relationship” again and it kind of set me free :) All that’s changed is I got my bullet-proof attitude back. I found my mojo!
On the down side I took a little welding job yesterday ($30.00). I was welding on shore with a small generator and couldn’t get a good flow on the stainless. I looked at the weld too often and for the first time got welder’s flash. I woke up in the middle of the night and could not open my eyes. it felt like I had acid in them. I knew exactly what it was and felt my way around for a cold bottle of water to put on my eyes, and pain pill. I slept till 11:00 am.
It doesn’t look like I can post my movie this week. My flip camera has taken it’s last flip. I’m borrowing a friends camera but I need to go to Panama city to get a mini – mini fire wire cable so it looks I wont be able to post till next week. I really do hate electronics. You know I used to be a filmmaker and so much prefer shooting real film, and taking real pictures with mechanical cameras. My film cameras never broke but the cost of film and processing is prohibitive. It’s always something :(
Anyway, I’m off to rest my eyes. From what I’ve read on the internet it will take me a few days to recover from the welder’s flash. Life is pretty damn grand though and if I don’t do any other stupid things I’ll be up to normal, well, I’m not really normal, but I’ll be back to my old self in a few days.
Peace, Love, and welder’s masks
Sail far and live slowly!
– Alex