Persona Non Grata
April 2016 - Part 2Fidel was good enough to agree to look after the place and feed Campo and the chickens while I was away. He's currently doing a building…
Beyond The Valley of the Frogs
April 2016 - Part 1By the end of my second year as custodian of Jinja Island, I had managed, by accident or design, to generate a bit of a buzz…
If the World Ends
March 2016The next morning I was back in Bocas. Fidel had been good enough to drop in on Campesino and the chickens in my absence, make sure they had enough…
Take Me Down To Panama City
February 2016Having a friend stay on Jinja for a prolonged period was a breath of fresh air. It's not that I found living on the island lonely, or that I…
Floating In a Most Peculiar Way
January 20162016 began, as all years should, with fireworks and copious amounts of alcohol. We took in Toro Loco, Mondo Taitu and ended up at The Bookstore. Revellers! Shazia and…
A Christmas Coral
December 2015I don't know if you know this, but I'm a *bit* of a Star Wars fan.Having missed my opportunity to see Mad Max: Fury Road on IMAX when I…
A Break In The Clouds
November 2015While I was working on making the island just that little bit more comfortable so I could justify charging people to stay, I hosted my first two AirBnB guests,…
Off The Rails
October 2015As October rolled around I had to get my head into gear, make the Jinja Island house good enough for people to live in and get a publisher for…
The Panama Good Times
September 2015Now that I was a bona-fide island owner, it was time to rubber-stamp my credentials. First things first: get myself a drivers licence so I could drive my boat…
Stairway To Heaven
August 2015Crazy as this might sound, I had spent most of my first year on Jinja sleeping on the couch, for one damn good reason - if I fell off…