A few hours in Costa Rica

Beautiful day - not too hot, not humid. Sunny and very bright.

Dylan and I walked around Puntarenas, taking in the sights. Alas, the one Internet Cafe that we knew about was closed, so that hoped-for activity was off the schedule.

We walked over to the busy beach, to a basketball court. Dylan wanted to play with his hacky-sack and I wanted to go swimming. I stowed my sandals, shirt and glasses inside my trusty backpack, placed it on the bench next to Dylan's backpack and headed for the beach.

Immediately I wished I had kept my sandals, since the sand was HOT. I danced over to the water and spent a blissful 10 or 15 minutes, keeping my eye on Dylan, a couple of hundred feet away. The water was glorious.

After a bit, I noticed Dylan waving to me. Without my glasses, I couldn't see anything specific, but I left the water and headed toward him. He held up his backpack - just his backpack.

Apparently, we were being watched, and some guy on a bike waited for Dylan to be inattentive and swooped by and grabbed my backpack. He was gone in a flash.

Cell phone, wallet (with about $100 cash, credit and ATM cards, and driver's license), camera (with lots of Panama canal photos that you'll never see), binoculars, my comfortable Keene's sandals and my bifocals.

Dylan was devastated, obviously.

I walked back to the ship and reported everything. The best news was that my passport was safely back on-board. They let me retrieve it, and I left the ship again, where I met the police, who escorted me to the local station, where I sat for an hour, while the voluminous paperwork was prepared.

The ship security folks told me that, had my passport been stolen, I would have had to remain in Costa Rica for at least three days, while the American authorities were alerted.

Credit card and cell phone accounts are disabled, and Karen has a spare credit card.

Could be worse. How do I console my son? I suppose it doesn't help that this will make a great story someday, when we can look back and laugh about it.

The ship departs Costa Rica in another hour. Adios!