People are strange

Jim Morrison said it best. “People are strange, when your a stranger, faces look ugly, when your alone”

Venus is in retrograde around here and there is some weird energy floating around.

A boat in the anchorage was robbed at gunpoint two nights ago. It was an “expensive” looking cabin cruiser and It’s kind of put people on edge. Nothing like this has happened around here for a few years. No one was hurt, but it really has set the cruisers on edge.

Something I often have to deal with is racism against Americans and I saw some “ugly” faces last night.

There is a big black wooden boat here in the anchorage under an American flag. The boat is an old (maybe 1940’s) wooden motor yacht. The owner put a few masts on it to look like a sailboat in order to take backpackers back and forth from here to Colombia on a “Sailing” Adventure. The boat is big, about 65 feet and they were taking 15 or so passengers at a time and made roughly $6000 for a 200 mile trip. That’s $12,000 for a round trip from here to Cartagena and back and about 24k a month potential, not bad eah? The boat is in bad repair and anyone taking kids to sea in it would certainly hear from me, its just unethical not to mention dangerous. The boat isn’t worth much and needs a good infusion of money if it were to go back into business. Anyway the American owner sold 50% of the potential “Business” to a couple of older French women site unseen. They knew the owner and considered him a friend. They sent him 60k for half of the business and only have a receipt for their investment. Well needless to say they freaked out when they showed up last week and saw the boat. They wanted their money back and are just realizing they are a bit screwed. What some people do for money, wow!   

Want to hear something funny, there is a rumor around here and some people think I’m an undercover CIA agent, I’m not kidding you! I was actually accused of this last night. Laughing and denying the accusation they said “well some other agency like the FBI, or DEA “We’re not stupid! I don’t trust you or Americans for that matter”. I did just buzz my hair and have that “agency” look i suppose. I think between the guy from Florida screwing the two French women and the piracy incident, people are a bit tweaked around here. The harsh bump of reality in a beautiful paradise. The reality is I had a few months where I was feeling down and not talking to people. I guess they started talking about me and making some assumptions. The rumor mill has been hard at work. If they only knew how far from the truth their accusations were.

Let me backtrack a bit. I live in an international community. Most cruisers here, and everywhere in the world except the Bahamas and the US Virgin Islands are not American, they are French, German, Swedish, English, Australian, Kiwi, Japanese, Dutch, Irish, Scottish and from many other countries.

When Sam and I were in the San Blas we were in a “German” anchorage (west lemons). Sam wanted to socialize and be part of the 15 or so people sitting around chatting. I saw it coming from a mile away, she didn’t. She walked up to the group and one guy immediately said “You need to speak German to sit here”, in all of her innocence she said “schizen”, no one laughed. It was an uncomfortable evening but it is what it is, I’m used to it. That being said the majority of my cruising friends are not American. Truthfully I don’t have enough money to hang out with “most” of the American cruisers. American cruising boats are usually older couples (65+), retired, and on large expensive yachts with generators (not nice to anchor next to) or large catamarans.  Nobody likes to anchor next to a boat that runs a generator all the time unless your running a generator yourself and cant hear it. I just tend to hang out with the sailors who live on little monetary means. We ride the bus together as opposed to buying cars or taking cabs, and that’s just the way it is. I think the “poorest” sailors tend to be French. I have allot of French cruising friends that would have stuck up for me last night but none of them were around.

Last night was really the first night I went out for beers in the few months I’ve been here. Hanz, the owner of the restaurant is an old friend and we laughed at the “CIA” accusations and made a bit of fun at their drunkenness.

I hate generalizing but the bottom line is the international cruising community doesn’t “tend” to like Americans right off the bat, and most American cruisers tend to hang out with other American cruisers. Most American boats tend to buy their way around as our (my) culture is very accustomed to hiring people to do things for them. If I’ve learned one thing cruising it’s not the people of any country who are bad or corrupt, its the governments. I got in so many fights when I was a boy during the cold war because of my Ukrainian and Russian background. I cant tell you how many fists I felt with the word “communist” attached to them as they collided with my face. Trust me, my family that lived in the former Soviet Union had no choice on being “communist” or not. I suppose its the middle-eastern kids getting the fists in the face these days. Such it the way of the world…, so sad. The weapons of mass distraction are hard at work.

I know, it easy to say F’m, but its not the right thing to do. I felt like punching the guy in the face who accused me of being a CIA agent. It’s not a good rap to have in country with so much drug trafficking around. The drug traffickers want nothing to do with the cruisers and just want to be unseen and allowed to do their business. I’m going to have a talk with this guy now that he is sober. I don’t think he’d like me accusing him of trafficking drugs would he? This is something I’m going to try and nip in the bud. The last thing I want is for people in Panama to think I’m some sort of undercover agent. Not so good for me.

People can be so ridiculous.

Anyway, I’m off to take a secret meeting with the KGB.

– Alex AKA “The black flag”

LOL

Peace, Love, and the system!

PS. I went by the guys boat and had a chat with him. I gave him copies of my films and told him that I was very offended by his comments and didn’t appreciate him starting such rumors about me. He’s a nice guy that just had too much to drink, he was apologetic and that silly bit of rumor is dealt with.

 

Cheers

Published in Alex Dorsey