I read a lot while I was on this trip but the great thing about it was I didn't even have to bring the books with me. Mat had a great selection and I found 2 books that fit my mood perfectly.

During our time in Boquete while the wind and rain lashed us and we got to see the high hillsides were coffee grows, I was reading a book called The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It was absolutely wonderful. The story was rich and funny and layered and suspenseful, and more than anything it celebrated the incredible power of books and stories. It was exactly what I wanted and I'm so happy to have found this book.

After that, as I lounged on a hammock in between palm trees, I polished off Labyrinth by Kate Mosse. This was another great read, in the vein of Pillars of the Earth.

That is true relaxation for me. A beer close at hand. A gentle breeze. A hot sun beating down just outside the shadow of the palm tree. A hammock. And in my hand a big, fat, huge book where most of the pages are still all piled up in my right hand. But then again, on the other hand, there's nothing in the world like the final pages of a perfect story. I'll take both and either.

As soon as I get one I like, it's a race to the finish for me. I need to know what happens next and I cannot rest, cannot sleep, don't even like eat, if there are still pages to go. Out on that island, lazy in the tree with Lu nearby and friends all around doing the same, it is the most powerfully relaxing and rejuvenating experience I can imagine.

I look around and see beauty, I read the words and fall into the tale, and then when I come up for air and realize the only next things are lunch and maybe a swim, it's pretty much perfection for me.

Or, at least, it is as close to perfection I can get these days. And I took every second of that while I was out there adrift and I tried so hard to enjoy it even though I missed my son so much. For a while lost in the pages, it worked. For a time I was perfectly transported.

The Panama Adventures continue on Freshly Roasted.

This portion is actually a prequel and it is called The Tale of the Emerald Coffee! I warn you now, fear the bajareque. It will soak you and make you dry at the very same time, out of skies of the clearest blue!! There is no escape! You have been warned!!

Arriving at Isle of the Pelicans was glorious. Drunky tumbled over the top of the boat. I hopped out onto sharp shells and then stumbled into the surf. But we had made it! We were there but there were Others on the island waiting for us.

Apparently, they had been waiting for 30 hours. One guy should have been picked up in the early morning of the day before, but no one showed. And cellphones stopped working because of the crazy winds and fierce weather.

"Three days. Rain rain rain, all day," one of them said in a thick Australian accent. She was older and smoking Mat's cigarettes like it was her last one ever. She thought they were going to die there. They had erected flags and poles and were considering making a swim for other islands in the distance. "It was crazy," the other guy said, a slightly wild look in his eye. "We didn't know, so what were we supposed to do? Swim, I thought. I can swim and get us help!" he told me, stubbing out another bummed butt.

I just wanted them to get the fuck off my island! I walked away laughing and found the bathroom a few steps away from our perfect little hut. The bathroom was a regular old toilet seat, a currogated metal door and bamboo walls lashed tight to a square concrete foundation. A white PVC pipe extended from the back of the tiny structure over some coral and vanished into the depths of the nearby ocean.

Our hut was spacious with the same walls of tightly lashed bamboo that we saw on the other islands. A large bedframe with a slightly grungy mattress stood in the center of the hut. The roof was corrugated metal and made quite a stir when the lashing rains and winds attacked it, late in the night. They gave us nice clean sheets, though, and we brought sleeping bag inserts with us so it was all good.

I dropped our shit and then strolled back to the beach. Some guys were there fixing the solar panel, as that had stopped working, too. And the other people on their way out were finally getting gone. I grabbed a book and hit the hammock. The hammock grotto was divine.

The Others were gone, the beers were slightly cool. The rain held off until we were fast asleep hours later and all morning and afternoon it got slightly lighter and slightly brighter. There were huge conch shells all over the beach and as the sun set on our first day stranded, pelicans arrived and started dive bombing the ocean, searching for food.

By the way, I'm not sure if you know this, but there's a funny thing about a pelican. You see, its beak it can hold more than it's belly can. How about that?

Even if things get heavy, we'll all float on.

The sea was angry that day, like... well, like 20 foot gray waves with white caps and huge charcoal clouds all smashed up against the mountains to our right. Far, far, far to our right. Miles of angry, old-man soupy ocean separated our small boat from that distant shore. Fixing on the mountains seemed to prevent sea-sickness, although that wasn't out of the question down the line.

At half-speed Ricardo zagged and zigged through the waves, cracking over the top of some and riding the swell of others. It was eight-thirty in the morning, the wind blew water over the big dingy's walls and we were soaked through and through. The water wasn't terribly cold, but the wind was fierce and no shirt was better than a wet shirt.

The rain had followed us from Boquete. Or rather the rain and wind were here and there, hanging around the whole Panamania region, and we just smacked into it a few times on our journeys.

Up in the mountains of Boquete it's called bajareque and as we traveled in and out of the micro-climates on the way to the coffee farm we saw several extremely intense rainbows. Saw sideways rain blowing hard under gorgeous blue skies. Also saw trees down, powerlines in the road and the entire area lost cellphone service. Everyone has cellphones in Panama, obviously, but the weather won where we were.

It was definitely winning out there in the ocean. Finally after a few muttered "this is effed up!" over big waves and then a couple of "what the fucks!?" as I thudded against the wooden plank seat, I had to ask my buddy Mat if this was as nutty as it seemed or if I was just freakin out.

"We're fine. He's just taking it slow because of the waves. We're almost to where he lives and then it's like 40 minutes across the island where we'll stay. But yeah, this is just about as bad as I've seen it. Last time it was dark, though," he said with a glint and a smirk.

I laughed nervously, remembering that we were heading back home at 4am a few days from then. If we lasted that long. The Modest Mouse lyrics were a unintentional mantra I clung to like a like... yeah should have definitely put that on. Anyway, he wasn't going to capsize, but maybe on the way back... which would leave us stranded where no one knew where we were, well except a few people like Lu's brother and sister-in-law, Mat's girlfriend, several other friends that have been there and loved it... and... THUD! My overly anxious and stupidly agitated thoughts rocked back to the present as the Balboa case slid off the pile of bags and cooler full of food.

I sprung into action gathering up the beers making sure none of them slipped out of sight towards Drunky nearly keeled over up in the fore of the boat. He was still recovering from the festival the night before. We picked him up on the first island we stopped at and he was all smiles at first. Now an hour and a half in, he looked like he was going to yak any moment and I was certain it was going to fly right back into the boat on the wind, into me, into Lu. Ew. He lived on these islands! He was from here! We were effed! Later on I even learned his name was El Capi-tan!

But there was a solution in my hand. Suddenly it was all so obvious. Even Lu reached out to take a can from me, and smiling, Mat and Lu and I, we toasted warm, frothy beers and we rode the waves all the way to pelicans and hammocks and palm trees and fun.

Pics to come!