On the days in between Marcos' help, I caught up on emails, writing obligations, and other internet necessities at the TGIFridays on the opposite end of the Causeway. They offered free wireless internet and an unbeatable three-course $14.95 lunch special. When I'd accumulated enough hours there to start getting paid overtime, the servers and I began to share equal amounts of pity for one other. While they whispered about the disheveled and lonely gringa on the computer, I withheld how ridiculous they looked in those dignity-robbing outfits.

When I couldn't take another B-52's song, I'd kick my way towards Playita on my skateboard under the orange streetlights of the causeway, finding stairs to bump down or anything my mind could mold into part of a wave. These rides are some of my favorite memories of the city--rolling along with the cool north wind in my face. The lights of the city skyline winked at me on one side while the arches of the Bridge of the Americas glowed on the other. Panamanians jogged or bicycled by in both directions. I imagined myself flying along the division between North and South America--free as a fallen leaf tumbling on the wind.

With Marcos to help, I figured I could have the projects done in half the time. My new crew, Kemi Vernon and Mckenzie Clark had already arrived, but I'd sent them off to surf Panama by land while I worked on Swell. Marcos was busy for a few days, so in the meantime I dove into a daunting inventory and reorganization of canned food and boat supplies so that I would know exactly what I needed to buy to stock the boat for the South Pacific. In the meantime, the first south swell of the season had arrived and I pictured the girls paddling down the face of a Santa Catalina nugget while I made tally marks for cans of corn and tuna on a master inventory list. I tried desperately not to think about it, but more than a few times a day, my eye would twitch and my skin would leap at the vision of that wave. I stayed mentally afloat by stand-up paddling on the longboard and hurling myself into a one-foot rock-cluttered spit of whitewash on the south side of the bay. I also treated myself to fresh juice from my newly purchased juicer and indulged in assorted goodies like blueberry jam and cheesecake from the amazingly Americanized markets.

The first day Marcos came over to help I was curled in a pathetic heap on the cabin floor, battling exhaustion and a nasty cold. With the explosion of projects, there was nowhere else to sleep. He quickly returned with chicken noodle soup and ideas about our impending venture. By the next morning I felt better and we dove head first into the list. As we changed the oil in my main engine after a basic engine overhaul, Marcos suddenly looked up at me like he'd seen a ghost.

"Your motor mount," he gasped. "It's broken!"

"No." I shook my head stubbornly. "It can't be." But I shoved my hand into the darkness and felt the jagged sharpness of the severed mount. The one on the other side was the same. I couldn't believe it. Thankfully, due to the configuration of my motor, the universal joint of the v-drive had absorbed the motor's 2" drop when the mounts had broken, so there was no damage to the drive shaft. It did slightly damage my moral, though. I knew that this meant a whole new project, a major one, and I fretted about my schedule and the girls who were waiting. This would tack on an extra week, maybe two, to our already delayed departure. Surfing floated even farther from my grasp.

Over the next two weeks, Marcos helped me aboard Swell when his other jobs allowed. We worked together well-both full of energy but always taking care to do things correctly. He was patient, intelligent, and resourceful. When we'd hit a project roadblock, I'd often dramatically lose hope while he'd offer up a flurry of solutions. Like when the man at the Yanmar store quoted me $350 dollars and 15-20 days for new motor mounts to be shipped in, he introduced me to Olly, the eccentric German welder who'd been on his sailboat in Panama for 8 years. Olly reinforced and rewelded my broken motor mounts for $80 and had them done in 4 days. Marcos knew the city inside and out, too, which removed an entire element of challenge to finding parts and supplies. His mom fortified us with marvelous Colombian cuisine in the evenings while Gary spouted tales and complimented his beloved wife from his prone position in the hammock aboard Plan B. By the time we finished two weeks later, Marcos had helped me far more than the worth of the outboard. One night aboard Plan B, I was talking to Mabis while she prepared dinner in the galley. "I would probably still be on the first project if it wasn't for him," I told her.

"We all need an angel sometimes," she said. "For now, Marcos is your angel."

She couldn't have been more right. Marcos was my Panama City angel. Not once did he ever expect anything in return for his kindness, either. As we neared the completion of the projects, I asked him why he'd done all of this for me. He replied casually, "I want to help you towards your dream. I dream of sailing to the South Pacific too one day, but now is not my time. It's yours." Unlike many other men I'd encountered in the city, he wasn't begging to crew or get married. He was just a good person. We enjoyed working together, too. We exchanged repair tips and tool techniques, and generally came up with more evolved solutions than either of us originally thought up. His polite and patient manner and wicked integrity dispelled any stereotypes of Latin machismo. I can't say enough good things about Marcos-his generosity and support were more than I could have asked for from a family member, nonetheless a perfect stranger. I know that what he did for me will come back to him some other beneficial form.

Oil from the BP spill could spread from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic and up the East Coast much quicker than many expect, reaching eastern Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina by October.

A new study by researchers at the University of Hawaii's School of Ocean and Earth Science used various computer models to develop an animated track of oil from the Deepwater Horizon gusher, which began April 20, over the course of a year.


The study follows the dispersal of millions of "buoyant particles" using flow data from high-resolution ocean model simulation. The model does not include such effects as oil coagulation, formation of tar balls or chemical and microbial degradation.

Results were shocking even to researchers. After getting swept up by the Loop Current, the oil rounds Florida and stays reasonably close to the coast along the southeastern states. But by next April (see below image) it has traveled via the Florida Current and Gulf Stream as far north as Virginia before arcing out as as an unsightly but highly-diluted mass in the direction of Europe.

According to the simulation, a surprisingly high 20% of the particles make it into the Atlantic.

Principal researchers Axel Timmermann and Fabian Schloesser stress that the intent of the study was to show what might happen, not what will in fact happen. It's hoped the study will help guide research and mitigation efforts.

For example, the narrow Straits of Florida force the Florida Current into a thin channel, "creating a tight bottleneck for the spreading of oil into the Atlantic," states a University of Hawaii press release.

"As the animation suggests, a filtering system in the narrowest spot of the Florida Current could mitigate the spreading of the oil film into the North Atlantic."

In a story on the Consortium for Ocean Leadership website, Timmermann further explains: "If a decision was made to prevent or mitigate the spreading of the spill into the Atlantic, the narrow and deep section of the Florida Strait near West Palm Beach and Grand Bahama may be a good location to put efforts and resources."

The scientist added: "Controlling a section of about 30 miles is a lot different from cleaning up hundreds of miles of coastlines in eastern Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas."

The research was supported by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), NASA and NOAA through their sponsorship of the International Pacific Research Center in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Australia's Joel Parkinson, a perennial top-tier competitor on the ASP World Tour, suffered a severe foot injury Friday that is expected to prevent him from competing in the upcoming Billabong Pro at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa, and might sideline him indefinitely.

The reigning J-Bay champion, who is currently ranked eighth in the world, was surfing at Snapper Rocks in Australia and was injured after falling while tucked inside a heaving barrel.

"He tucked into a super-dredgy one and just disappeared inside, then showed up bobbing around in the whitewash. He was definitely in a lot of pain," said a report on Australia's Surfing Life website. "There were no rocks where he went down so he must have gotten mixed up with his board."

Surfing Life reported that Parkinson "was cut down to the bone around his ankle and calf area. He definitely wasn't walking."

Parko later Tweeted about the wound and even included this photo that revealed his nearly-severed heel. "Don't look at this photo if you don't like blood!" he warned his 11,563 followers. In an earlier Tweet the surfer acknowledged, "Yes I cut my heel off."

He seemed in good spirits, anyway. Here's hoping the wound is not as serious as it looks and that the personable athlete and family man, who finished last season ranked No. 2, is back on his feet and snapping stylish top-turns sooner rather than later.

The tour will miss his presence in the lineup at J-Bay.

Three mountain bikers and a pet dog are fortunate to be alive and nursing only minor wounds, having survived what appears to have been a dramatic encounter with a mother grizzly bear during their adventure this week on Alaska's popular Resurrection Pass Trail.

Tyler Nord was with his fiancee, Kimi Elliott, and longtime friend Kyle Eisenbach and his dog, Kobi. Their gripping ordeal serves to remind anyone entering grizzly country to carry pepper spray, because it can save lives, and to maintain as much composure as possible under the harrowing circumstances.

The three riders were six miles into the trail when they startled the grizzly and her two cubs. The bear, being a protective mother, charged the group but stopped and turned her attention to Kobi when the dog confronted the bear and began barking and growling.

The bear briefly chased Kobi, allowing the bikers to run back down the trail rolling their bikes by the handlebars but for some reason failing to hop onto them for a swifter exit.

That was when the scene turned ugly. The charging bear appeared behind them moments after they had begun to run. Elliott and Eisenbach bolted off the trail and into a clearing and the bear followed Elliott, who stopped and pressed her body against a tree.

"The bear was swatting at her as she stood by the tree," Nord explained in a story posted Thursday on the Alaska Dispatch website. "As soon as I realized the bear was chasing her, I ran back up the trail and around the shrubbery. I ran at mama yelling and screaming, at which point she decided I was the bigger threat.

"As mama started to run at me, I began quickly backpedaling towards the trail. In the process of backpedaling, I dropped the backpack with the bear spray. At this point, I managed to execute the classic horror-movie stumble, falling on my back in the trail. Mama was quite close when I fell, and as she jumped on me I managed to pull my knees up to my chest and kicked off as hard as I could. Thank goodness for adrenaline, because I was able to push her completely off of me."

The bear then turned on Eisenbach, allowing Nord to grab the bear spray from his backpack. Elliott was screaming the words "Fetal position," which is what victims of grizzly attacks are supposed to assume.

"While Mama was busy mauling Kyle, I grabbed the bear spray out of the backpack and ran at her again, since I had no idea how far bear spray is supposed to shoot," Nord continued. "When I was about five feet away she looked up at me and I unleashed the peppery cocktail. Mama took a few steps back, and I sprayed her in the face again. She paused, stared at me, and then ran off into the woods."

Soon afterward, Kobi emerged and Elliott shouted, "He's alive!"

Elliott's backpack and shirt were torn from the swiping of bear paws; Nord received bruises, scratches and a puncture wound on his thigh, and Eisenbach suffered scratches to the face and head and rash wounds to his back and shoulders.

The scars will remind the bikers of what happened and what might have been, and perhaps caused them to be better prepared for future rides into the wilderness. Said Nord: "We definitely had some guardian angels watching over us, and everybody made it out OK."

Top image of an adult grizzly bear courtesy of Steve Hillebrand / U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service