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!