My lovely daughter, Sarah, and her two-year-old moon child, Ayden, came to visit me in Panama. We were so thrilled to have them and wanted to show them the islands, so we put everybody in the panga and headed out into the blue. After skirting the main island, we pulled into a little glassy cove called Saigon Bay.
Saigon Bay is rimmed with houses—some built on docks not anchored to land, but rather to mangroves and accessible only by boat. The water is clear and shallow and starfish are abundant.
We putted along for a while, dipping our fingers in the warm Caribbean and peering at the seagrass and life below, until, after some begging on my part, Lee shut off the motor so we could just drift.
Everything was peaceful but for the two dogs barking in the distance.
Little Ayden leaned over the side and tried to grab the starfish. I opened a bottle of water and sipped a little while dragging my other hand in the sea, just letting the liquid run though my fingers.
We only floated for a couple of minutes. There was more current than we expected and the dogs’ barking was incessant and a little annoying. So, Lee turned the key to start the engine.
Nothing.
That’s the moment you take everything in to see just what you are up against.
The dogs were on the deck of one of those only-accessible-by-water houses and no one appeared to be home. They were very big dogs. Very big pit bulls. The water was shallow—shallow enough to stand in—but spiny, black sea urchins dotted the sea floor. (Funny how you notice starfish when everything is calm and lovely and you notice sea urchins when you feel yourself slipping into trouble.)
We had no paddle in the boat. We lost it a week earlier and had not taken the time to replace it.
We had a small anchor we'd just purchased at an impromptu boat lawn-sale.
We had my two-year-old grandson on board.
Lee began getting a little desperate in his attempts to start the motor as we drifted rather rapidly toward the dogs. The current was playing that trick on you where it drags you in the only direction you really don’t want to go.
I threw the anchor, but all it did was drag on the sea floor. I pulled it in and threw it again and again, jerking it hard each time trying to get it to set with no avail.
Sarah held Ayden.
The dogs, seeing us drifting ever closer, began to get themselves in a real tizzy. Slobber was visibly noticeable.
When things get really bad, I slip into this weird calm. My thinking gets really clear and my movement gets very fluid. It became obvious we were going to hit the deck and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
No one was home to prevent the slathering monsters from having their way with us.
Bump...
The fiberglass boat hit the wooden deck. A sickening feeling hit my stomach.
I remained as calm as possible, knowing any sign of fear or aggression would only inflame the dogs.
The pit bull closest to us was massive. His coat dirty white was marred with dark brown spots. He was beside himself, pacing on the dock just inches from the boat. Lee could not risk using his hand to push us away. So he desperately looked for anything long-handled he could use to push us back out into open water. The only thing he could find was a machete.
Normally you wouldn’t carry a machete in your boat, but this was Panama. And in Panama, a machete can come in handy for a variety of things such as cutting a path through the jungle, chopping off coconut tops to get at the sweet water inside or, in this case, pushing your boat away from the dock to avoid being eaten by pit bulls.
Unfortunately, the pit bulls were familiar with machetes.
They went berserk.
Lee quickly stashed the machete out of sight so he wouldn’t antagonize the dogs further, and he did the only other thing he could think of. He jumped in the water.
It seemed to distract the huge white dog a little.
Lee struggled through the sea urchin forest to the bow of the boat. I would love to say he ran, but it is impossible to run in chest deep water. I threw him the bow-line and he pulled us away from the dock just as the slobber-flinging dog had regained his composure and was trying to figure out how to jump in the boat, now that Lee was not in his way.
In slow motion, like a scene from a movie, Lee pulled us from danger.
Sarah was in shock, holding Ayden tight, her eyes bright with fear.
A half-built home stood on stilts in the water next door. It was accessible only by boat, or by swimming if the dogs chose to take the plunge. Thankfully, they seemed afraid of the water. We tied off to the unfinished house and took a minute to take stock of the situation.
"It’s OK, Sarah,” I said to my daughter who was still wide-eyed and barely moving. “We may still be in a bit of a pickle, but we are out of danger now."
I had phone numbers of water-taxi guys that could come get us if we could not get the engine started. But Lee, with a moment of relative calm to take a look at the problem, was soon able to get the motor started.
As we sailed away across the open bay, Sarah, with Ayden safely in her lap, said the most unexpected thing to me.
"So, Mom, when are you going to write your book?"