By: Capt. Tim Ramsey
Greetings from Panama. The country, not the place in the Panhandle.
I think I hit some sort of imaginary wall I took sixty years to reach. Past that wall, there is a strange new world waiting. Here are a few reasons why I think this.
I’m not exactly surrounded by family. Son lives in St. Pete, wife goes back and forth to Panama taking her turn caring for her mother, my mother lives in a retirement home and my brother is insufferable. I realize the dream of being surrounded by family doesn’t exist. Well, at least not here.
Time to go fishing? Hmm. Body says nope. Knee pain, hip pain, stye in the eye so big I think it can talk. Weird spot on my face caused a friend to casually blurt “that looks like skin cancer,” and a generally bad disposition when thinking about trailering the boat and fishing by myself. Push through the wall, Tim, push through.
Time to get my trailer serviced. Surprise, my trailer guy went out of business. Great. Not really. I find a new trailer guy. Another surprise, I need four new bearings, four new tires, one new relay, one new light, new bunks, and four complete sets of brakes. Then he says, “you might want to consider changing out those torsion axles.” What fun. Not really. Oh, and since I blew off the doctor for the stye in the eye, here’s one in the other eye.
Nice and comfy in my little two-unit beachfront condo? No so fast. My hometown’s favorite pro football player just bought the house next door (where I grew up. Long story), bought the unit under me, and wants to buy mine. The realtors married to old friends of mine are bothering me day and night. Too bad I don’t want to sell. Here’s a thought; I wrote six fiction novels and two books of fishing stories. He can help me sell them and maybe we’ll talk. Plus, I can’t get the disturbing sight of the TV commercial with him sitting on the floor in pajamas holding a hose shooting cinnamon powder out of my head. It haunts me. Not in a good way.
Bought a new standup paddle board for my 60th birthday. Sure, the reason I’m so shaky on it couldn’t possibly be my 60-year-old knees with 30 years of US Army on them. No. It’s because the board is an inflatable, not a regular board. At least that’s what I tell myself. Thought that Keto diet would shred a sixty-year-old? Think again. I leveled off at two hundred pounds and that’s it.
In the strange new world called Collier County, it is overcrowded, traffic is absurd (thanks to poor planning and management, not COVID), real estate prices (although forecasted to decrease) have gone plaid like in the movie Spaceballs. I mean completely absurd. Nothing good for less than $900K on Goodland? Hello? Goodland? My condo fees in Lely jumped up by 36% and the condo commandos don’t allow barbecue grills unless they are electric. What self-respecting carnivore has an electric barbecue grill? Push through the wall, Tim, push through.
Here’s a new one. One night back in March. Artillery fire lighting the night sky. No. Not really. Dinner at Longhorn Steak House. Sudden flashes of light in my right eye scared the scat out of me. The next day I tried to get a PC appointment at the VA. That’s Primary Care, not Politically Correct. They said May 15th. Tried to make an eye appointment. They said June 3rd. Not wanting to wait, I went to the walk-in clinic to see my primary Tricare doctor. He said they didn’t do eyes. Yep. Zero excrement. Like I didn’t know that. Then Tricare said I didn’t need a referral, so I made an eye appointment myself. Eye doctor said nothing was wrong but sent me to a retina specialist, who told me nothing was wrong, but scheduled another appointment a month later where again, said nothing was wrong. I asked why I saw the flashes of light, and he replied, “your retina was ‘probably’ detached, but isn’t now.” I asked if a retina could re-attach itself and he said no. What fresh hell is this? Flummoxed by the strange new world of the retina doctor, I said, “so, you’re telling me my retina might have been detached, and a retina can’t re-attach by itself, but now you don’t see any detachment although your diagnosis is retinal detachment but a retina can’t reattach by itself?” The retina specialist answered me in the affirmative. Good thing I was at the eye doctor because his answer made me go cross-eyed.
Fast-forward to the middle of May. Standing on the beach in South Jersey by myself, contemplating my return to Naples, I decided to skip the crowds and chaos of the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend at the Jersey Shore, the heeby jeebies my mother’s retirement home in Naples gives me, or her drama with my aforementioned insufferable brother and go to Panama to see my wife, the “First Lady of Fishing.”
At the time of this writing, I’m in Panama surrounded by family, my eyes and knees feel great, there is absolutely no drama, and we’ve been fishing in the Panama Canal and Lake Gatun for snook, peacock bass, and huge jacks. And I am writing on a frustratingly temperamental IPAD that I think either has gremlins or is possessed by the devil.
I’m asking myself why I still live in the states? Skip the $3 avocados, they grow wild in the field next to the house. Nothing like a fishing spot with wild mango trees on the bank and three trees in the yard. Pharmacy gave me prescription eye drops that cleared them right up. Three pounds of beef jerky for ten bucks? I’ll take it. What is this colorful little bird that lands on the table every time I sit outside? Why does PriceMart look exactly like Costco? Why do people over 60 get a 20% discount on practically everything? Panama is beautiful, the healthcare is high quality and cheap, the views off the balcony are amazing, the snook are massive, and being around my wife’s huge side of the family is incredible.
Now I am looking into the rules, requirements, and logistics involved in possibly shipping my boat to Panama so I can be the first fisherman to run a Skeeter in Gatun. I have an idea that my SIMRAD Structure Scan will show me there are better snook spots than just trolling the edge of the ship channel near the Culebra Cut. More to follow. See you out there!