Stranded on Mogo Mogo


Stranded on Mogo Mogo

(5 votes)

Written by Robert E. Baker

Friday, May 11 2007

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For Xmas I got two martini glasses and a couple of shirts. Once in a while I like a good martini and would always use a wine glass since we did not have martini glasses. They are nice looking and I christened them a bit too enthusiastically one night. Boo gave me a bar of soap with a cartoon character moose figure inside that of course he got when the soap was finished. We celebrated Christmas in El Valle but first went to the beach for several days. Pika, our dog, loves the beach and chases sand pipers and seagulls, jet skis, horses, etc. She played with other dogs too but, we think she is gay. I guess for dogs that's OK.

We took long walks down the beach, flew Bobby's new kite his godmother gave him. It was neat, about 3 feet across and 2 feet long, shaped like an airplane and made of pretty blue and green nylon. We got it up about 300 feet and it just glided in the breeze as we walked down the beach towards the new hotel that opened. With 500 foreign guests there was lots of activity around the hotel beach with wind surfers, jet skis, sailboats, etc., and Boo and I snuck into several of their pools, met several visitors from NY but most were from Canada, many from the French areas like Quebec.

The beach at Playa Blanca is about a mile long and all the houses are right on the water. Boo got an eye full of topless girls strolling down past the houses and it was amazing how all of a sudden with this new phenomenon the gardeners at each house suddenly found work to do at the end of each property fronting to the beach. Monica, Boo, and I befriended two young couples (not topless) and they stopped by El Valle several days later during the day trip tour there.

One day we drove to the fishing village to buy shrimp and as we were leaving I saw some native fishermen far in the distance pulling in their nets, so I four-wheeled it onto the sand and drove out to the shoreline. Boo was thrilled because he had never seen the car on the beach before. We then walked across a shallow river that emptied into the sea and helped pull in the nets, with their fresh catch jumping and flopping on the sand. It was a sunny day and we were throwing the small fish no one wanted to swooping seagulls and pelicans. Bobby had a ball. For dinner I sautéed the shrimp in coconut milk and served them with rice, etc. Boo ate 4 big ones. The next day we did more of the same and saw a black collard hawk sitting in a tree overlooking the ocean. After a few minutes he soared out and then dove down, snatching a small fish with his claws before flying away. Later, there was a short rain storm and then it cleared up to a lovely sunset with a kaleidoscope of blues, pink, and silver colors. The last day at the beach we were walking down by the hotel and we strolled over to one side where they had the jet skis to see if I could rent one.

There was a scraggly, skinny old man, who seemed to be in charge of the jets skis and wind surfers, foreign looking and very tanned, probably about my age (isn't that terrible), with sunglasses, 2-day old pants, faded T- shirt, and a cigarette dangling from his smiling mouth. As I approached him we looked at each other with a kind of déj� vu feeling, perhaps of past recognition. My failing memory finally clicked in. I remembered him from the Pearl Islands, Contadora to be exact, an island about 80 miles away where I had been shipwrecked about 10 years earlier. His name was Salvatore (Italian) and I remembered him fondly. He rescued us. Actually, a friend and I had gone diving out by the Pearl Islands in a 10 foot Zodiac. It was going to be just a "guy" thing for a good day of hard core diving and fishing. Monica and my friend's new "date" were supposed to fly over but at the last minute Ramon insisted on taking his date with us. She was a young girl visiting from France and working with Christian Dior in Panama for the summer. I tried to talk him out of it but she assured him that she loved the ocean, was very outdoorsy, etc., (right) and he assured me that she would do well and blend right in. OK.

It turned out that this pretty 19 year old girl, was lily white like she had never been outdoors, easily got quite seasick, hardly knew how to swim and we had to stop the boat several times so she could be sick over the side without bouncing up and down. Unfortunately, we had packed lightly for the anticipated short trip and were using the morning sun to navigate. By the time she was feeling better it was almost noon and the sun was right above us which then lost our direction- We had drifted around too long so she could barf her heart out. To make a long story short, we continued on, but due to the lack of a compass we ended up off course by about 30 miles south of where we were headed. Nonetheless, we did some good diving and I got two fish, while "what's her name" got sick two more times, borrowed my shirt to protect herself from the sun (all I had left was my wet bathing suit because Monica had flown over with all my clothes, as the little French fry should have done).

Stopping each time she got sick delayed us by about two hours so that when we finally had the beautiful island of Contadora in sight, the sun was setting and a stiff 20 knot afternoon wind had kicked up against us. I was sun burned and dreaming of getting to Contadora, now only about 5 miles away, greeting Monica with a big kiss and enjoying a couple of drinks, a warm meal, and a nice evening with good friends. It did not work out that way. The Gods were against us, probably French Gods. It was about 6:30 PM and the fading sun was bending down towards the horizon when our outboard motor puttered, coughed, and lurched to a stop.

For the next 15 minutes Ramon and I took turns trying to re-start it as the winds pushed us farther south and the sun lowered into the dark blue ocean. The light was fading fast and we did not have much time so we quickly put on the kicker and it wouldn't start either. Plenty of gas but two dead engines and we were drifting to who knows where. Decision time. "Lost at sea" was not part of the equation. We could see a deserted island about 3,000 yards off and it was the last island in sight as we drifted past it so Ramon and I improvised harnesses out of the anchor line, put on our flippers and goggles, jumped in and started swimming, slowly pulling the Zodiac and the poor sick princess who was helpless and hopeless. She sat there looking around, probably too afraid to speak. Just as well.

We had gone about 500 yards when Ramon swam over and grabbed me, quickly signaling that I should surface and get in the boat. We did, so wassup? He had seen a large black fin shark that he said swam up right next to me. He thought it was going to bite me. Great! Are we having fun yet? Glad I did not see it or I probably would not have suggested that we better go back into the water or risk waking up the next day as castaways in the middle of the ocean with no radio, no water left, and two dead fish and a helpless French fry.

We decided to take the risk and both dove back in, swimming hard and long until we reached the lonely island in total darkness except for a few stars and partial moon. We made our way to a small beach where we then secured the Zodiac without disturbing the princess and looked around by starlight for firewood. I had brought an emergency kit with 3 flares, the only smart thing I did that day. We used two flares to try to signal a plane which we could hear but could not see and the last one I used to light the fire, a big fire made out of a fallen tree that had washed up to shore. The helpless French princess sweetly put my shirt on a log next to the fire to dry it out and of course the wind blew into the fire and burned it to death.

I suddenly realized that after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the French went down hill fast. No T-shirt and that left me with just a wet bathing suit and lots of mosquitoes to fight. I took one of the fish I had harpooned and roasted him on the blazing fire, then climbed halfway up a coconut tree that was glimmering in the firelight, shot off 3 coconuts with my spear gun and tore into them with my diving knife. The husk is quite tough and opening one with a diving knife is very difficult, but when you are thirsty you'll do it.

Meanwhile, Monica was frantic. We were due in at 4 PM. By 9 PM she had made several phone calls to emergency services, all at no avail and then went down to the small marina on Contadora to beg for rescue boats to begin a search. That's when she met Salvatore, the Italian man who was in charge of the marina and after she told him 3 people were lost in a Zodiac he told her that first of all with the strong winds we were probably lost or dead or in Tahiti by now, and that secondly, he would not send out any boats at night because it was pointless. Smart man.

Back at fantasy island with Ramon and the helpless princess, after my shirt had burned, they ate the rest of my fish and then wanted some coconut milk . Ramon even asked me if I had a glass to pour it into because the princess did not want to drink it out of the husk. At this point I thought she had lost her mind. Perhaps too much sun. There was a stiff breeze and in our wet bathing suits we all got chilled. The only difference was that from somewhere they both pulled out nylon windbreakers and cuddled up in the sand like two mating turtles. Where did the windbreakers come from ?

I had no T-shirt thanks to Little Miss Muffit. With the unrelenting wind I got chilled and would get close to the fire, then the wind would shift and I would sizzle and burn, then move away and get eaten alive again by the plentiful mosquitoes. This was not a user-friendly island. The entire night passed in similar fashion with little to no sleep for my cold and weary bones. Couldn't wait for dawn and as soon as I could see I scoured the high tide line, again getting eaten alive by sand flies and mosquitoes while picking up pieces of drift wood, broken branches, old coconuts, garbage, etc., and made a very large SOS on the beach which had a good angle as the sand reached down to the shoreline. Ramon, the male turtle, woke up and helped me and when I suggested the princess turtle pitch in and help he told me the mosquitoes bothered her too much. Such is love on a deserted island!

Meanwhile, back at Contadora, Monica was knocking on Salvatore's door at the same early hour and he generously sent out 3 boats (Little did we know that I would end up paying for them). About four hours later one of them saw the SOS from a mile away and the rescue was on. We were finally towed in to Contadora at noon and arrived tired but happy to the throngs of a cheering crowd. Monica looked real good! I had a sandwich and a drink and went to bed.

Salvatore is a nice fellow and now we were standing on the beach in Playa Blanca ten years later and had fun reminiscing. The deserted island was called Mogo-Mogo and was later used to film the last Panama CBS SURVIVOR episode. Needless to say the French fry did not join us on the return trip two days later after the engines were fixed. On the way back I raised a sail, but after a nice dance he got away.