By Monday, 1 July 2024, after our week in Türkiye, where we had attended a variety of medical appointments, we were settled back in Newcastle and back into our routine of visiting Elaine’s dad at the Lodge.
It’s fair to say the doctors hadn’t quite got the timing of Elaine dad’s prognosis right, having given him a life expectancy of 3-4 weeks after he’d been discharged from hospital; it had been 4 weeks on Saturday, 29 June 2024, but seeing him a week later, we didn’t think they were going to be too far off the mark; we could definitely see the further decline and progression. He was in good spirits though, looked very comfortable and still able to joke and laugh with us. It certainly helped that he was on much stronger medication by this point, which was keeping his pain levels under control. Regardless, we were as surprised as anyone that he was still this side of the grass and had even been selected as “Patient of the Month”. It was simply astonishing actually!
However, our visits became an emotional rollercoaster of not knowing what to expect as the days passed. Some visits he slept right through them, unable to surface at all, others he would ramble on about all sorts of things and others he was upset and anxious, but there were also times when he joked and laughed, retaining his sense of humour through it all. These were the best days, but regardless, we were happy to still have time with him as heartbreaking as it all was. He continued to eat everything we brought him as a treat although didn’t gain a single pound; everything he was eating was going straight through him as we’d been warned, but he enjoyed the treats and we were happy to oblige.
When our visits butted up against dinnertime and we had to leave, he always thanked us for coming and wanted affirmation that we’d be “back tomorrow” and indeed we were, although most days he’d forgotten we’d even been there the day before. His world revolved around the present and wanting to know when next he’d see us. This was true for Elaine’s mom and sister’s visits too and the odd occasion when Roy drove Elaine’s mom up for an additional surprise visit.
When not visiting Elaine’s dad we enjoyed walks along the waterfront, coffee morning outings and purchasing odds and ends we needed to bring back with us to Paw Paw. This included two trips to Kilkeel to the chandlery in the hopes of purchasing stainless bolts we needed. Unfortunately our first trip coincided with their stocktaking and the second proved fruitless as well, given that they didn’t have what we needed.
On Thursday, 4 July 2024, we had a wonderful visit reminiscing about old times and, in particular, Elaine’s dad’s love of golf and teaching Elaine and her brother and all the grandchildren how to play, all of whom still play to this day. Our trip down memory lane recalled his coaching days at a golf club in Cheshire when Elaine’s parents first arrived in England. It was amazing that in all the years Elaine had never known where or how his love of golf started; she found out during this visit. It was in Zambia, of all places, as he regaled us with tales of skipping out of work early to get in a game of golf.
By Friday, 5 July 2024, our time in Newcastle was drawing to a close and the exact situation we had hoped to avoid was upon us; we had to say our final goodbye to Elaine’s dad and await the news of his passing from a distance. Except we didn’t actually tell him we were leaving because we simply didn’t have the heart, given the state we found him in after arriving for our afternoon visit that day.
He’d clearly been waiting anxiously for someone to visit and the minute we walked into his room we could see how upset he was; unexpectedly he was totally lucid and had figured our where he was, making it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to stay, asking us to help get him home. He also wanted to know why he was stuck in this “matchbox”, (aka his cot), and why he couldn’t move, explaining that he felt he was in a prison and needed to be able to get up and go for a walk.
Unable to calm him down by explaining how ill he was, reminding him he’d been in hospital, how he had contracted multiple infections, including COVID-19 and had had a stroke and that he could no longer walk, nothing pacified him. In an attempt to help his recollection of what had occurred Elaine asked him if he remembered Keenan, Brooke and the grandchildren visiting; “Of course!” he replied. That she then explained as the correlation with him being in the Ulster Hospital in Belfast. Elaine got the same answer when she asked if he remembered her brother visiting; that she correlated with the time he was in the Down Hospital in Downpatrick. By now he wanted to know how long we’d been visiting him; it was approaching six weeks. Trying to do the mental arithmetic he wanted to know how long he’d been ill; “Approaching three months”, Elaine replied. Flabbergasted he exclaimed that that was impossible and that someone must be sedating him. Regardless, no matter what Elaine told him he wanted to go home and he wanted us to help him. Heartbroken and destroyed at having to tell him that wasn’t possible, Elaine eventually requested the experience of the on duty staff nurse, who had not expected his lucidity either, but certainly helped manage the situation.
Deciding not to upset Elaine’s mom at this juncture, Elaine called her sister instead who drove up immediately. We’d concluded that having someone stay with him who’d been through the entire ordeal with him and could possibly help fill in the blanks was preferable to leaving him on his own at this point, especially with Elaine and Roy’s imminent departure.
While the staff nurse had managed to pacify him and the presence of Elaine’s sister calmed him, we decided to say goodbye just like every other day in the hope that he’d remembered our conversation the day before about us leaving on Saturday to return to Panama to sell Paw Paw and that we’d be back as soon as we could. This, however, evaporated when he wanted to know: “Will you be back tomorrow?” All Elaine could muster was: “We’re not sure, we have a few matters to deal with, but we’ll be back as soon as we can”. With that, we walked out of his room, waving and blowing him kisses. Needless to say, tears were tripping Elaine before she even got to the car and she cried at the drop of a hat all the way back to Panama. It was simply awful! Goodbyes to Elaine’s mom and sister which swiftly followed weren’t much better, but the knowledge that we were off to view houses before returning to Panama to sell Paw Paw helped ease the pain; we were returning to Ireland as soon as we could and looking for our new home.
By 11 July 2024 we were back at Dublin airport for our return journey to Panama via Atlanta, but not before we’d replaced our Hyundai Kona electric vehicle for a Volkswagen ID-4 and completed another road trip to the counties we’d narrowed down in our research and to view houses where we’d prearranged appointments with the relevant realtors.
Before collecting our replacement electric vehicle though, we inadvertently had a walking tour of Dublin city centre, trailing our suitcases behind us because of the unavailability of a taxi to Stephens Green from Docklands, the latter where we’d returned the Kona. Thankfully it wasn’t raining, although noticeably chillier. It was, however, the state of the city centre that caught our attention; grubby and littered, a far cry from the beautiful city we last visited in 1998.
After a coffee and baked delight at Stephens Green, it was close to 1400 by the time we’d found the hired car and we were heading out of the city for our first port-of-call, the beautiful village and surroundings of Cong in County Galway, where the Quite Man was filmed, starring one of Elaine’s dad’s favourite actors, John Wayne, before continuing on to our hotel for the night in Claregalway, a rather nondescript little place that was not quite the quaint village we’d read about online, but we enjoyed a delicious meal at the hotel’s restaurant before retiring for the night.
The next morning we were up early for our two hour drive to Carrick-on-Shannon where we were meeting the realtors of a few properties we were interested in, all completely different in terms of style, age and setting, but provided options worth considering.
Our accommodation for the night was the Bush Hotel in the centre of Carrick-on-Shannon, where we enjoyed another tasty meal at one of the local restaurants and had the opportunity to explore the picturesque town centre and riverfront boardwalk.
Our trip to view a house in County Sligo on Monday, 8 July 2024, was a huge disappointment, but the countryside and coastline was stunning, adding another option to our search area, before returning to one of our favourite areas, County Donegal, and driving through Ballyshannon, another little town we’d wanted to see before settling in at the Mill Park Hotel once again.
Opting for an evening stroll, followed by dinner in the familiar setting of the hotel, we had a lot to mull over before our last excursion back along the northern coast of Donegal Bay to revisit some areas like Killybegs, which we concluded was definitely too industrial for us and the house definitely didn’t have the sea view it was advertised as having. Additionally, Andara wasn’t quite the picturesque little village Roy had remembered. Our travels also took us back to view houses in other areas we’d previously liked, including Creevy and Portnoo, but, more importantly, to explore slightly further afield, going as far as Kilcar and Dungloe, the latter on the western coast of the county.
Again, we were presented with a mix bag of disappointment and delight at the houses we looked at. All in all our exploration and potential options offered completely different lifestyles, providing plenty of food for thought and a lot to digest, particularly the buying and selling process in Ireland and the various methods revealed through information received from the realtors and through our own research.
Out and about in County Donegal, though, we couldn’t help but notice the teddy bears hanging off fences and gates everywhere. Later research revealed that this was associated with Sandra’s Run, an annual event held in memory of Sandra Boyle, who sadly passed away from leukaemia just before her 18th birthday in 1991. With 400 bikers hitting the roads, the locals had, once again, come out in force to support the event by placing hundreds of teddies along the route to show their support and to wish them well.
On our second night in Donegal town, we opted to walk into the town centre for dinner to help clear our heads and enjoy a chat to Keenan, who was on a stopover in Hawaii, before returning to the hotel for a nightcap.
Armed with plenty of new information and having determined our final list of areas in which we would consider living, our first priority was getting back to Panama to meet the various potential buyers who were flying in to view the yacht. These arrangements had been made to coincide with our return date, but also to allow some time to get a few yacht projects completed ahead of time, given that we were returning with a few parts we needed or had arranged the delivery of others for our return.
By the evening of Wednesday, 10 July 2024, we had returned the hired car and settled into the hotel we’d booked for the night in Dublin, given our early morning departure to Atlanta and then onto Panama City. Dinner at a nearby restaurant followed by an evening stroll through a nearby park sealed the day and our time in Ireland. On this return leg, however, we were able to catch a connecting flight to Bocas del Toro from Panama City without having to spend yet another night in a hotel, but, regardless, we had to spend the night in Atlanta. Thankfully though, the only hiccup was getting to our hotel in Atlanta, given that there was only a handful of buses running to the hotel shuttle terminus for all the international flights arriving in Atlanta, resulting in Roy having to stand in the queue for nearly two hours before it was our turn to board a bus; process engineering at its finest! The rest of the journey was uneventful. It definitely helped matters that the wheelchair assistance, although unavailable for our arrival in Atlanta, was available for our departure and allowed us to skip the mile-long queues for Immigration and Security; a godsend actually. That said, we would have saved ourselves the two hour wait for the transfer bus the afternoon before had the wheelchair assistance materialised on our arrival in Atlanta. Our stay was exacerbated by the fact that the hotel we’d chosen for the night didn’t have a restaurant, so, as tired as we were, we had to walk another mile to the closest restaurant for dinner. We did, however, have a good night’s sleep, which made the stopover worthwhile.
By 1800 on Thursday, 11 July 2024, after catching a water taxi from Bocas town we were back onboard Paw Paw, delighted that we’d chosen the Bocas del Toro archipelago for the hurricane season over staying in Grenada, especially considering Hurricane Beryl that barrelled through Carricou and the Grenadine islands while we were in Ireland, leaving a path of destruction, flattening homes, devastating agriculture and wrecking numerous yachts in its wake, shocking meteorologists at how fast it intensified in taking just 42 hours to go from a tropical depression to a major hurricane,
just a few short weeks after we’d been in the Windward Islands.
Fortunately we’d stopped at one of the little grocery stores in Bocas town for a few essentials, so a light bite to eat, a shower and our beds followed in quick succession. It was hard to believe we were back in Bocas del Toro, though, after everything we’d dealt with over the preceding weeks, including the traumatic goodbyes, only to be playing the waiting game once again, but we will remain forever grateful for the precious time we got to spend with Elaine’s dad, for time with family and that Elaine’s surgery had been a huge success, changing her world on so many levels.
It didn’t take long for our life in the Red Frog Beach Island Marina to become another whirlpool of unpacking, stowing, sorting out laundry, cleaning, polishing, fixing, replacing, etc, as well as checking the engines, generator and all the electronics to make sure everything was still working as intended. Fortunately the interior of Paw Paw had stayed clean from our earlier efforts following our initial arrival in Panama, but the exterior was in desperate need of another good clean. We, however, had barely finished getting the outside sparkling, with help on the decks and topsides from Mother Nature as it poured down for a few hours, when the inside was turned upside down and looked like a bomb had hit Paw Paw as Roy replaced the hot-water heater on the starboard side, replaced the wooden steps on the swim ladder and handles on the transom seat, but not before those were varnished and dried, checked the watermaker area to make sure everything was in order there, packed away the spare fenders, removed our ever so fancy passerelle, since we wouldn’t be needing that anytime soon and finished a number of other bits and bobs that needed doing, all in preparation for the viewings we’d arranged. It didn’t help matters that the cockpit was a soggy mess too because we hadn’t put the side skirts down to prevent a tripping hazard for Roy as he went about his business to get all the yachts tasks completed.
By Friday, 19 July 2024, everything was ready and Paw Paw looked like our home again with everything back in place and the new saloon throw cushion making a vast difference as the finishing touches. All we had to do now was sit back and show her off.
In between all this mayhem we’ve enjoyed settling into life in the Bocas del Toro archipelago. This includes trips in the complementary water taxi to Bocas town to enjoy a morning coffee and a baked delight or a freshly squeezed fruit juice at one of the many cafés and to run our errands. We also enjoy early morning walks through the rainforest or a mid-morning walk over to the windward side of the island where we enjoy a morning coffee at one of the restaurants on the beach. Evening sundowners on the beach with new found friends or a swim and a meal at the La Rosa Beach Club have entertained us as well.
Besides that, we’ve enjoyed time with family and friends on video calls and Zoom Family Get-togethers, the latter so Elaine’s dad can “see” us all. “Seeing” the grandchildren is always a highlight, but it’s hard to believe they’re all back at school for their new school year and, fortunately, they all like their new teachers; definitely a good start! Brayden had already got an acknowledgment certificate, so he was off to a flying start, but seeing the twins looking like toothless wanderers with their missing teeth brings home how time waits for no man; they’re growing up far too quickly before our eyes!
Finding our way around Bocas town has revealed a number of treasure troves, including the best place to buy our meat, the best place to purchase our fresh fruit and vegetables, the best place to get our staples and a fabulous 3-storey shop carrying at least one of everything you can think of in the way of household goods and furnishings, as well as a slightly different variety of groceries; definitely a “go-to” shop.
The weather has been cooler than we expected, with daytime temperatures never exceeding 30C, but on certain days the humidity makes it feel hotter. As a result our air-conditioners have been working to keep us cool on occasion, especially when there isn’t the slightest breeze. It is the overnight and early morning thunderstorms that are worthy of note, however, reminding us of life on the Highveld in South Africa as the night skies light up and the thunder rumbles through. Thankfully the majority of the storms are in the distance from where we are nestled amongst the mangroves on the leeward side of Isla Bastimentos. A lesson definitely learnt, however, was not to leave the dinghy off the davits and floating in the water for any length of time, unless we want to spend a great deal of time bailing out the rain water.
It is the constant progression of these downpours though, that turn the streets in Bocas town into a muddy mess, exacerbated by the ongoing roadworks trying to fix the roads, that sadly give the town a tatty feel at first glance. A closer look, however, reveals numerous clean, well stocked shops alongside numerous cafés and restaurants, most on stilts over the waters edge. But, with all this rain, there are actually water restrictions here; very bizarre!
Our trips into town are usually made to coincide with the constant collection of our shipped items from Miami, using a fabulous service called Red ‘n Blue. There’s nothing we haven’t been able to get delivered, including a new anchor light, new grommets for the trampoline and the new hot-water tank; a godsend as we complete our hurricane season To Do List, which seems to have come around far too quickly this year somehow. Detailed cleaning activities have included cleaning the fridge and freezer, all the blinds, the bilges and under the floorboards. Other activities we’ve completed since the viewings have included checking and servicing all the hatches, removing and replacing all the grommets on the trampoline, but not before actually untying the trampoline, a mission in itself so as not to have the whole lot end up in the water. Getting it back in place was certainly not the easiest of jobs either, but no worse than getting all the old grommets off to begin with.
Less strenuous activities have included sorting out what needs to be packed and clearing out as we progress, sorting out all the yacht documentation and system manuals, etc and bagging and labelling all the spares so as not to confuse any future owner. Paw Paw’s waterline is the highest it’s been in ten years!
As the end of July approached and the uncertainty in our lives continues, we content ourselves with the fact that we have no other choice, but to live each day as it comes, while we await the ending of this chapter of our lives and the start of the next, taking comfort in the fact that some day we will enjoy some Irish culture like Garland Sunday, celebrated on 28 July 2024 this year, also known as Bilberry Sunday or Reek Sunday.
In Ireland of the past, July was a month marked by scarcity of food before the harvest and people looked forward to the end of "Hungry July", anticipating the harvest to come and celebrating accordingly.
Like most old Irish pagan festivals, it was co-opted as a Christian one, yet had been celebrated long ago in prehistory. Its origins are in the pagan festival of Lughnasadh, named after the god Lugh and one of the four major seasonal festivals, along with Samhain, Imbolc and Bealtaine. While Lá Lughnasa occurs on 1st August every year, Garland Sunday celebrations occur on the last Sunday in July.
It is an annual day of pilgrimage for the climb of Croagh Patrick, County Mayo, known as Ireland's holiest mountain. It is where St Patrick is said to have spent 40 days and nights fasting. To honour him, pilgrims ascend the mountain on this day, praying for special intentions or as an act of penance. Many of them climb barefoot, performing circuits of certain sites on the mountain before attending Mass in a modern, purpose-built church on the summit.
In some parts of the country, the day is known as Domhnach Chrom Dubh (Crom Dubh's Sunday). Crom Dubh, the Dark Stooped One, was an old tyrannical god with evil powers who opposed the youthful and strong sun-like god Lugh. It is believed that Lugh fought and defeated the older god Crom Dubh to take back the harvest. Traditionally, Lughnasa was also marked by games held in honour of Lugh's mother, Tailtiu.
Many other sites across the country are also associated with this day such as Keshcorran Hill in County Sligo, Mount Brandon in County Kerry, Slieve Donard in County Down and Máméan in County Galway.
The end of the hungry season was also marked by a little feasting; a time to serve the first official meal of the season, potatoes served with meat and barmbracks, the latter made with bilberries (blueberries), also known as whortleberries, whinberries, blaeberries or heatherberries and used in ancient times for cooking, medicine and as a purple dye.
In modern times it is a day not only for pilgrimages to such holy sites, but also outdoor gatherings for leisure, often near water and mostly on hills. The gatherings include sport and fairs, with stalls full of harvest treats.
It’s fair to say, while we look forward to enjoying these traditions, we definitely have concerns over the illegal immigration issues the country is facing at the moment. According to IPAs (International Protection Applicants) statistics, 10,604 people applied for asylum in Ireland since January this year; a 93.9% increase on the figure for the same period in 2023, with the highest number of applications coming from Nigeria, Jordan, Pakistan, Somalia and Bangladesh, all countries we fail to see as countries that are considered “unsafe” per se, since none are war torn and none have citizens who are suffering widespread persecution, with a few exceptions; something is horribly amiss, but we hope the government gets the situation under control sooner rather than later, given the numerous ramifications associated with such an accelerated influx!
On a positive note, Roy also achieved a major milestone by the end of July 2024; he had walked 2,661,552 steps in the past year, equivalent to 2,102.6 Km. Quite an achievement and testament to our sailing lifestyle where we walk just about everywhere when we’re not sailing!
