Be Humble. Sit Down [#31]

On Day 3 of our required 14-day quarantine, a catamaran arrived from Guatemala (easily a 700-mile sail). They anchored next to us and we smiled in solidarity as the crew, visibly exhausted, finally sat down to enjoy cold drinks on their deck.

Not two hours later, the Bocas Port Authority boat (the same panga that, a few days prior, had welcomed us upon our own arrival, reminded us of the quarantine rules, and offered to deliver anything we needed) motored out to see the new cat.

Here comes their “Welcome to Bocas” greeting, we thought. They’ve earned it.

Incorrect.

In a nutshell, the cat was forced to leave. After what grew into a heated exchange between the boat’s captain and the inspector, an Aero Naval boat (essentially, Panama’s Navy), lined with officers toting machine guns, joined the chaos.

That poor crew — out of provisions, diesel, and certainly energy — was forcefully escorted back out to sea.

It should be noted that this move was wholly illegal and violated not only the current maritime border regulations in place in Panama at the time, but also international maritime law — let alone the rules of basic human decency.

To say we were mortified for this crew and terrified about what this act of bullying meant for our own fate, would be a gross understatement. We hid inside Ruby Vi’s salon and crossed our fingers we wouldn’t be next.

Be humble. Sit down.

“You have four hours to leave Panama. The Port Captain says Bocas is closed.”

He delivered the same message to two other boats quarantined in our designated anchorage.

A long story short — none of us gave up our seats. This impromptu show was shaping up to be a terrible one, but we couldn’t bear the idea of leaving the relative safety of the theater only to take our chances in the hurricane-y wilds outside.

After a brief moment of shared panic, we enlisted the help of Bocas Marina and a longtime resident cruiser who went to bat for us. We called a friend in D.C. who also got right to work on our behalf. We each called our embassy (but were disappointed when ours proved entirely worthless, lacking the ability to even obtain accurate information from the Panamanian government, let alone offer any guidance to help us out of our obvious predicament).

By Day 7, Monday, the lunacy had subsided. Calls from higher-ups in Panama City had been made to the Port Captain; she’d apparently simmered down.

It seemed our arrival in Bocas would, if no longer be welcomed, at least be (begrudgingly) permitted.

Two things became clear: 1) We weren’t just in a new country, we were in a new world — a world where Logic and Reason would not be tolerated on stage; 2) the Port Captain was proving to be the special kind of batshit-crazy political appointee we thought only existed in the States — she was new, insecure, power hungry, and oblivious.

And, despite the fact that she seemed hot to trot, she was a clear recipe for disaster on stage.

We are guests in the this country, we repeated to ourselves. 
Be humble. Sit down.

On Day 16, the Port Authority boat came back. The inspector mixed up our days and failed to schedule the doctor to come out to clear us from quarantine. Now (at 10:00 a.m.), the doctor was “very very busy” and couldn’t possibly make it to us before the day’s end.

We’d have to wait another day aboard good ol’ Ruby Vi before our Panamanian check-in process could officially begin. Quarantine Day 17, here we come.

We are guests in this country. 
Be humble. Sit down.

On Day 17 at anchor (and Day 22 without stepping foot on land), we were finally cleared to go to shore. We dinghy-ed around the bend to the Port Authority office and waltzed in. Face to face with the Port Captain, we greeted her with organized documents in-hand, big smiles (beneath our required anti-COVID face masks), and our best Spanish (which, admittedly, was still pretty crappy).

In an instant, she deemed us entirely unworthy — our tidy stack of paperwork, our smiles, our Spanglish.

Oh hell no, she seemed to holler in our faces.

We thought we’d already survived this dance off when we made it past Day 4 in the quarantine anchorage, but we were wrong. First, this show had never been a dance off — this was always a solo performance. Second, we were never invited on stage — our role was strictly audience only.

Be humble. Sit down.

In her small messy office, before her captive spectators, Captain Spazzy continued to show off her awkward moves — clearly not feeling the Kendrick Lamar hook I was trying to lay down for her.

Instead, yelling at us in Spanish and grinding to her own funky tune, she finally dropped what we can only assume is her signature move — the one where she charges her disappointed audience $300 “for not telling her we were coming.”

What was happening? John and I looked at each other with shared bewilderment.

Be humble, Molly. Sit down, Molly.

I’m not a dancer.

Slightly embarrassing middle and high school memories aside, you’d be hard-pressed to find me willingly at the center of dance circle. But I do love dance music and I especially love watching good dancers do their thing. I can even appreciate bad dancers with the confidence to own the spotlight now and again.

But this disturbing masquerade with its graceless self-proclaimed leading lady that suddenly came with a $300 ticket price?

Um, no thank you.

I’m not gonna lie, we would’ve paid a bogus $20 fine. We would’ve paid a $30 fine. But THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a “crime” we didn’t even commit? Hard no.

Prior to leaving Jamaica, we did tell people we were coming. For starters, we made detailed arrangements with the marina, as required and requested by the Bocas Port Authority. What’s more, you know who else we told? We told HER — Captain Extortion herself.

I was beginning to think I really should’ve listened to more than four words of Mr. Lamar’s song.

Because maybe, if I’d dug deeper, he would’ve had some spectacular insights about what to do when humility has taken its toll and your butt is decidedly sore from all the sitting.

I will say it again — I am not a dancer. But, in the moment when John showed Captain Cuckoo the WhatsApp correspondence he’d initiated with her a month prior to our arrival, it was all I could do not to moonwalk right across her disaster of a desk.

We are guests in this country. 
Be humble, Molly. Sit down, Molly.

And, for the love of all that is holy -- Do. Not. Dance.

Fortunately, not-dancing worked.

As she stared at John’s WhatsApp Screen of Truth, her soundtrack of Spanish swear words ran out of songs.

Captain Corruption clumsily chasséd her way back to her office chair. We’d survived another act of this bizarre Way-Off-Broadway show. Cue the applause.

As guests in other countries, we are rule followers; we are always kind; we always assume the burden of responsibility (for everything) falls to us. We always have our documents in order; we apologize in advance for our shortcomings. We are markedly deferent. Always.

For John and me, across seven continents and two decades of travel together, this strategy has always worked.

Until Panama.

Around the world, we’ve seen a fair number of off-the-wall shows and been fascinated by a host of their wacky stars’ performances. But Captain Shakedown’s recital was next level.

As our home country struggles to simultaneously slay and save itself, we are watching from afar. Aghast. In the States, we embody white privilege. In Panama, we’re outsiders; we are foreigners whose presence is not welcome. We’re unwanted refugees required to buy tickets to a show we’re not even sure we’ll be allowed to finish watching.

In theory, we have rights, but in practice, all we have is luck and connections.

Be humble. Sit down.

Aboard Ruby Vi, we’re navigating the rules of humility, of silence, of standing up to (relative) injustice, and of sitting patiently (even when our sore buns beg for reprieve).

At a glance, it seems unlikely that a Grammy winning, Compton-reared, five-foot-six-inch male rapper would craft the kind of sticky lyric that could help a zero-awards-winning, Olympia-raised, five-foot-nine-inch female semi-blogger survive the bedlam of Boat Life in Pandemic-Panama.

But he did.

I can only imagine the world we’d live in if we all rocked out to a track that reminded us to be humble, to sit down — even once in a while…

Eventually, a new lyric will replace this one that’s been rattling around in my head. They come and go. But I’m keeping Kendrick cued up — just in case Captain Crook wants to dance to a different groove.

When she does, if we haven’t yet been kicked out of her audience, we’ll be humbly applauding from our assigned seats.