Week One on Jinja Island

The Set-up

Your first question might be, “How did you end up island-sitting in Panama?”

Well, for several months of 2012 I went job-hunting and traveling around New Zealand (I also hopped over to Melbourne and Tasmania for a bit). The job-hunting was a bust, but it was a great trip and I still keep in touch with many people that I met over there (a wonderful function of the oft-maligned Facebook).

One such person was Graham Hughes. Graham and I met serendipitously while standing in line together at the Auckland Seafood Festival (I blogged about it on January 30, 2012). He was obviously a character, and I discovered that he was also something of an adventurer, being 194 countries deep into visiting every country in the world without the benefit of air travel. Though our face-to-face meeting was brief, I friended him on Facebook to follow his remaining travels and we have remained “virtual friends” since that time.

Graham completed his quest successfully, though not without some hang-ups, and was certified by Guinness World Records to be the first person to ever complete this feat. This obviously gained him some degree of notoriety – you might have even seem him on TV or profiled in a magazine or newspaper. Due to this notoriety, he was cast on a UK reality program of some sort, which he won. The prize was a year on your own private island, in Panama. After that year Graham decided to buy said island, and stay a while longer. That, of course, is the short version. For more detail, please visit Graham’s website, or just Google him!

Cut to me. Summer 2016 is approaching, and along with it my 40^th birthday. For my 30^th birthday I took several weeks off of work and backpacked through southern Mexico and Central America with my buddy Mike Wigal, with a side-trip to Cuba (at the time I was with SCAD as an international admission rep, where I accrued lots of extra time off during recruiting season).

I was looking to do something equally memorable for my 40^th birthday, and I’d been considering a similar backpacking trip, or maybe a more thorough exploration of Cuba, or even a trip as far as Beirut, taking advantage of some friends living there (hello, Jesse and PePe – sorry I didn’t make it!).

Then appears a Facebook post from Graham Hughes stating that he needed to return to the UK for a few months and was looking for people that might be willing and able to watch his island for a bit. Perfect timing. That’s why I’m here. I won’t be watching the island for his entire break, but for the first two months of it. After that I hand it off to other friends of his.

Arrival & Orientation

I flew out of Savannah on the afternoon of August 18^th, a Saturday, transferred in Atlanta, and arrived at Tocumen International Airport of Panama City, Panama late in the evening. I then took a cab to the Albrook Inn, very close to the Albrook Airport where domestic flights are based. On Sunday I woke up at 6am and took a quick cab to catch my 6:30am shuttle flight to Bocas Town. 

The flight arrived in Bocas Town at 7:30am and Graham was not there to meet me. That was ok – though he had planned on it, I had not. Graham had told me that there was a big party the night before. No worries. The little airport is immediately adjacent to town, and I packed light, so I walked into town to find coffee and wifi. 

I didn’t have to look long at all, settling in at “Be Nice Café”. After a simple breakfast Graham and I got in touch via Facebook messenger and met up. My orientation began. Graham walked me around town, businesses being clustered along just a few main streets, showing me where I could find all the essentials, and where were good places to hang out when in town. We also met up with Cole, a friend of Graham’s visiting from California.

Leaving Bocas Town, the three of us hopped in Graham’s boat (more on this darling later), which was tied up behind the Brisa Hotel (where he and Cole had spent the night) and headed out into Almirante Bay. Rather than head straight across the bay towards the mainland and Jinja Island, we skirted Isla Solarte and stopped in at the Blue Coconut. 

The Blue Cocount is one of the Bocas area’s many dock-bars, built out over the water, but of particular note because there is nothing else around it and thus has wonderful waters for swimming and snorkeling. It is also the closest bar to Jinja Island, thus Graham calls it his “local”. After a few drinks, a bite to eat, a swim, and some socializing with the other patrons, we moved on to Jinja. 

Graham gave me a basic tour of the island, house, and other structures while Cole got his things together for his departure the next day. It was decided that since Cole was calling a water taxi anyway, Game Seven of the NBA finals was showing, as well as the now infamous “Battle of the Bastards” on Game of Thrones, AND I needed to buy a local phone, that we would all just go back in on the taxi and make a night of it. 

We spent the evening at the heavily 80s-themed, American-run Toro Loco. While Game Seven played, GoT was being pirated using the bar’s wifi (you can’t sign in to HBOGO from here, otherwise we would have!). We checked back into a triple at the Brisa, watched “The Battle of the Bastards” and hit the sack.

The next morning we had breakfast at The Blended Bus (a stationary food truck – ha) and said goodbye to Cole as he hopped onto a water-shuttle to the mainland and then Costa Rica to continue his travels. Graham and I did the necessary errands, including providing me with a local burner phone, and hopped on a water taxi back to Jinja.

Though mainland Panama is easily visible from Jinja Island due to its mountains, two more bays lie in-between. We cranked up Graham’s boat again so that he could give me a cursory tour of these more rustic environs, ringed with various small native settlements and expat homesteads. Jinja Island actually sits at the mouth of the pass to Dolphin Bay that tour boats from Bocas typically use (map to come), and we used this twisting waterway to enter it ourselves. 

Across Dolphin Bay is another pass into a smaller bay which abuts the mainland. This area is known as Tierra Oscura, not for any sinister reason, but because the soil here is darker and good for farming. On the mainland side we eased the boat to a stop at a dockside mechanic shop in a local village built amongst the mangroves. Mario, Graham’s marine mechanic of choice and habit, came out to see what he could do to get the motor running smoother. After a bit of fiddling, Mario said that he’d come out to Jinja on Wednesday with spare parts and see what more might be done. 

Graham and I filled up the spare gas tank at the equivalent of an Old West mercantile store, also built on stilts amongst the mangroves, and carried on. On the way out we stopped at a family farm on Cristobal Island where the owners also run a dockside restaurant called “Valle de las Ranas” – Valley of the Frogs. Half the names around here are frog-related. We had fish tacos, fresh as can be, with the local hot sauce that caught me a bit off-guard, but luckily I had enough cold beer to stop the coughing.

We returned to Jinja Island. That evening and the next morning, Graham finished running me through the various issues I’d have to deal with and tasks I’d be expected to perform. Here’s a list of those, which may be incomplete, and which I will go into more detail about in subsequent posts.

Off-Grid Island Issues:

• Boat/Transit
• Food
• Water
• Power
• Internet
• Waste
• Bugs
• Guests
• Locals

Daily/Weekly To-Do List:

• Feed Campesino, the dog, and actual owner of Jinja Island
• Feed the chickens
• Keep the chickens out of the house
• Look for/Fight termites
• Tend to solar panels and batteries
• Tend to water collection system
• Nail down new/replacement boards on main dock and walks
• Repair loose/broken boards on walks
• Clear vegetation from paths and secondary docks
• Clean up trash (Campesino’s pastime is spreading it) and plant debris
• Come up with morning trivia for the Bocas Emergency Network (BEN) radio show
• Other improvements and projects as necessary or the inspiration strikes

Graham's Farewell, My Watch Begins

On Tuesday morning we called in a water-taxi (hereafter known as a lancha) piloted by Ariel, Graham’s favorite and most relied-upon ride, rather than risk Graham’s vessel when there was an international flight at stake. In Bocas Town we had a couple of farewell beers at Toro Loco and then I walked Graham to the little airport. 

Afterward I stuck around town for awhile, had lunch back at Toro Loco, hung out on the back deck at Selina (the most dominant backpacker hostel in town), and gathering more groceries and supplies. When I couldn’t think of anything else to busy myself with I went to the dock to catch another lancha back to Jinja Island. My solo stay had begun.

From that Tuesday evening when I was dropped off until Friday afternoon when I called for another lancha, I saw only one other person, briefly. Two days in a row, I never even put a shirt on. I got a lot of reading done, most of it laying in the hammock on the boat dock, enjoying the breeze coming in off Almirante Bay. I decided then that taking only one trip per week to Bocas Town would probably not be any hardship at all.

The one person that I did see was a local named Ricardo who lives on nearby Isla Cristobal. He stopped by unannounced and unheard, because he’d paddled up in a small dugout canoe rather than in something with an outboard motor. He said that he sometimes did work for Graham. I told him to come back on Monday and I’d have some things for him to do. All this in Spanish, which is coming back, though my verb tenses are still atrocious.

On Friday afternoon I rode into Bocas Town in Ariel’s lancha after feeding Campesino a double-portion, just in case. I had my list of things to do, and a few people to see that Graham had suggested I say hello to. I spent most of my fun-time at Toro Loco and Selina, but also stopped in at the Grey Lady of backpacker hostels in Bocas, Mondo Taitu for a couple of drinks. Pool was played, people were met, and alcohol was consumed. I finally made my way to the Brisa Hotel and checked into a single room with AC (ah, glorious AC) for the night. The next morning it was the Blended Bus for coffee and breakfast, Serina for more coffee, errands, lunch at Toro Loco (and futbol), and then a lancha back to Jinja. 

In the Next Post...

I promise that next time in Bocas Town I’ll hit some new spots, and hopefully make it over to Isla Carenero, which basically acts as the eastern half of town. Also, I'll describe the physical layout of Jinja Island with some visual aids, and detail Graham's future plans for the island.