On Sunday night, a storm sank The Floating Bar in Bocas del Toro, Panama.

The crew saved the most important electronics. Much else was lost. And now the bar — a floating building, a gathering place, a livelihood for the people who run it — sits on the bottom waiting to be brought back up.

This has happened before — the bar has sunk before, and been refloated. Our full goal is $15,000: refloat the bar, repair what's broken, stabilize it, and reopen. You'll see the page start at $5,500 — GoFundMe's adaptive goal starts with an achievable target and rises automatically as donations come in, so early progress builds momentum. We keep every dollar donated, and the goal keeps climbing toward the full $15,000.

Here's the part we didn't plan: The Floating Bar is the founding sponsor of Sinking Man, a weeklong floating city coming to Bocas del Toro in November 2027 that ends by sinking large-scale art as a permanent living reef. We spend our days planning how to sink things on purpose, carefully, for the ocean. Sunday night the sea did it for us, uninvited.

So this is practice, in reverse. The same skills — rigging, lift, stabilization, patience with the water — that will one day lower art to the seafloor are the skills that will bring this bar back up. If you've ever wanted to see a floating city rise, start here: help us raise one building first.

Every dollar goes to the refloat and the reopening. There is no insurance for a floating structure in Bocas — it isn't possible to get here — so this campaign is how the bar comes back. Photos and video of the recovery are on this page, and we'll post updates as the bar comes back up.

Another way to help: our merch store is live at bocasfloatingbar.com. Every purchase right now is support, too.

Thank you — from the crew, from Bocas, and from the city that hasn't floated yet.

— Aaron Evans, The Floating Bar