Saturday - D5P3

For the most part, my trip back to Bocas was fairly uneventful. Prior to leaving we discussed whether there was anything else we needed which, of course, we did so another short list was created. Suffice it to say, elbows were writ large on the top of this list. The boat was on time (if anything, I was not ready and Ambrosio "encouraged" me to get going) and the afternoon water was calm so, again, we made good time.

The one thing that absolutely deserves mention in these pages is the fact that at Richards I was helped by an absolute angel. Richard himself is a nice enough guy but he tends to multitask a bit much. Like he will stop in the middle of working on your order to field a phone call or two, work on someone else'
order, or just stop and chat with people hanging around in the store. He may also need to make several trips into the cavernous back of the store where things are kept in what seems to be the absolute working definition of chaos. In what would start to be a string of miracles, instead of Richard, Howard took up my case. I explained to him what had happened and he stepped out from behind the counter, went up to the soda vending machine and bought me a Coke. Just like that. Out of the blue. This absolute saint did the one thing I needed most in that moment. Howard, I really hope you have some idea of how much your gesture meant to me. He filled my order, including 20 PVC elbows and walked down to the dock with me. He got on board the boat with me and directed my boatman to the correct dock where the zinc had been dropped off earlier in the day. Realizing that Elizabeth and I had taken off from a different dock and that we had not missed three large pieces of tin in front of our eyes made me feel a bit better.

But not as good as that Coke.