Plotie Puts on Shoes

As poor NotThat's Kansas Jayhawks were getting bounced from the tournament again, and our sympathies are indeed with him, The Great Plotnik and Ducknik, along with Captain Cuervo (aka Cap'n Crow, but now we're in a Spanish speaking country and "cuervo" means "crow" so that's that) and Helmsman Finch, sat in the cabin of Alliance, talking little, saying much. This business of slowing down to an absolute standstill, watching other boats and their goings-on or imagined goings-on, looking carefully with binoculars, commenting occasionally, or not at all, while the stars start twinkling and the only thing on the horizon is dinner at Susie's on the canal, is an easy life to get used to.

Alliance actually moved today, for the first time in five days, to get closer to town, so the dinghy ride to and from the restaurant later at night would be easier and less choppy. Plottie feels like he hasn't moved in five days either, except to snorkel around the reefs and play his wonderful little Chinese guitar, explore the mangroves, watch herons and pelicans and egrets and the occasional jumping ray.

Dinner at Susie's was actually not all that spectacular, but getting there and back was. Plotnik decided to dress for dinner, which meant putting on shoes for the first time in ten days (though he didn't have to change out of his shorts). They got into the dinghy (which is a rubber raft with a motor tied to the rear of the boat that you use to go to shore from the big boat which remains at anchor) in the darkness (dinner was scheduled for eight pm, second seating), so Captain Cuervo had to veer and steer through the other sail and power boats, all trailing smaller dinghies behind them on tether ropes, all of them invisible to Plotnik until they were being dodged and left behind. Cuervo turned to head through the canal. On the banks of the canal, past the drawbridge, is Susie's, a restaurant with gourmet promise, run by an ex-Four Star chef from San Juan, and her place has room to tie up your dinghies outside, like a horse tied to a railing in the old days, as long as you can manage to hoist yourself out of the boat and onto a dock, only a hundred feet or so from the reserved outside table.

The boat ride, under the Big Dipper, was spectacular. Dinner was good, service not so hot. The bar was next to the table, and seated at the bar were two young couples. One of the two women couldn't stop talking, which consisted of swearing and complaining in that order. I mean -- what in the world do you have to complain about? A semitropical island surrounded by blue green water on a gorgeous, warm evening where they're bringing you food and drinks and you're young and pretty and don't you see the world is your f-ing oyster?

The ride back home was even prettier. Plotnik asks himself how does he manage to live all year without being on the water, which he loves so much, instead opting to sit in his little cave in the fog where he does "Stuff," which could also be desciribed as "nothing, disguised as something," which is in sharp contrast to doing "nothing, which really is nothing?"

Well, you see lots of people on these islands who are doing nothing, mostly shaggy ex-hippie types with hair caked in salt, motoring their boat with their dog in the front, heading from Cape Nothing over to Nothing Bay. Maybe they're sitting at the bar. They have a tattoo on one arm that says "Nada" and another one on the other arm that says "See Other Arm For Tomorrow's Plan." That doesn't look like very much fun either.

So you move In and out, one world to the other, get the best out of each one you're privileged to. Right? But it's what you do with the rest of the time that matters.