one fish, two fish, dead fish, blue fish

Hey guys, I'm coming to you from the comfort of the hammock once again. The weather isn't perfect today, but it's still pretty damn nice. We've some clouds rolling in off the mountains to the south and it's keeping the temperature in the lower 80's. It'll probably rain tonight, and the circle of life will march on.

I'm a little sunburned today because Juan, Josh and I went spearfishing for about 4 hours yesterday. We started off at the restaurant-dove in right of the dock. Unfortunately, it was mostly a snorkeling expedition. I didn't even get to shoot at anything. I did watch Juan in action though. He's a spearfishing ninja. He can hold his breath for days. He's like Kevin Costner in Waterworld, but without the gills and a much better actor.

So, after that we moved on to spot 2: a shrimp boat that's tied up to a pier on the other side of the island. The water is clearer there, but it's also quite a bit shallower. We were there for about six seconds when Juan caught his first fish. He tossed the fish on the bank and went back to end the lives of even more fish. We were there for about an hour, Juan caught a few more fish, and I realized how much I suck at shooting a speargun. On the plus side, I did sheck out some HUGE starfish.

We ended the day at our dock behind the house, or is it the front? Anyway, we were trying to kill this decent sized fish that likes to hang out around the house. He was good though, crafty and quick. Even Juan came up empty handed. We ended up getting a few smaller sized fish that I'm gonna take into work today and get fried up for me. Life is good.

So my fishing experiences have lit a fire in me. Tomorrow I'm going to town to buy a speargun and I'm going to spend all my free time snorkeling, looking at fish and killing the big ones. Also, eating and sleeping. I want to become the guy from the dos equis commercials, you know, the most interesting man in the world? I can see it now..."He once caught a great white shark with nothing more than a spear gun and a grudge." I'll either have a great story to tell or an awesome obituary.

So life continues to be extremely difficult down here. I'm thinking about spending the next few days getting my scuba certification. It's something that I've always wanted to do and now's the time to carpe the day.

This place is absolutely full of insane characters. Every single day I meet someone that just amazes me and has hilarious stories. I wish I could bottle this stuff. Caveat: The prostitution here is pretty insane. By here, I mean in panama, not in bocas. But a lot of the old locals talk candidly about how they pay $150 to have girls flown here. It's a little awkward. And by a little, I mean extremely. I laugh it off, and sometimes, genuinely funny stories result, but I swear to god if another 80 year old man tells me about the last weekend he spent with "mya" i'm going spearfishing. For human, the most dangerous game.

It's hard to get too mad though, with the view that I wake up to every day. When I buy my speargun, I'll take some pictures of it and my first haul of fish. Until then, I'll just keep on keeping on.

adios