From Columbia to Panama - The Boat that Rocked

We were due at the docks about 5pm on Saturday to head onto the sailing boat for our first night. As the departure was delayed until Sunday, it was only going to be 2 of the crew on board that night, together with ourselves. All the other guests, although they had been offered the boat for the night if they wanted, were going to arrive the following day.

Unfortunately we managed to coincide our departure weekend with a freeze on the selling of alcohol. This was to ensure that people concentrated on voting in the current elections rather than getting drunk. However, we managed to find one sidestreet off licence that would sell us cans under the counter so to speak. In fact, it still ended up being over the counter and blatantly in front of a policeman who was also in there buying a beer!

After filling a rucksack with cans, twice, over Sat night and Sunday afternoon me and Tim were ready with a small day bag and 25 cans of beer each, some dodgy looking sun cream, a rubber-ring, a bottle of rum and gin respectively, some sea-sickness pills!

The only thing that would have scuppered our plans was if the shard of glass I trod on through my flip flop had been even half a mil further to the right, so that instead of leaving a little white scuff line along the whole edge of my big toe, it would have pierced right through it. But it didn't and with his pen knife, Tim managed to pull out the piece of glass that was now stuck fast in my flip flop,with an evil looking spike sticking out either edge. Lucky!

Practising rubber ring with drink in hand manouver before getting on board

Our bedroom aboard the Delfin Solo

Taking in the views above deck

We had chosen to put our lives in the hands of a Turkish couple who owned the boat and had been sailing around San Blas for the last 4 years. San Blas is an archipelago of around 378 islands and cays in the Caribbean, east of Panama and is the main reason for sailing from Columbia to Panama. Alongside our caption and his wife, was newly hired deckhand Cuorta from Argentina and one of the other guests, Virgil from France who also had some experience sailing, was going to also lend a hand.

By 6pm Sunday all the guests had arrived. So had the wind. In fact, conditions meant that the departure was to be delayed once more until the early hours of Monday morning. This gave us time, to head back to the mainland and grab a few pizzas together in a ‘getting to know you’ kind of way. We also had chance to show Sander from The Netherlands and Suzi from London where to buy beer, as the dry law had scuppered most other people’s alcohol purchasing plans that day. The remaining guests were made up of Karissa and Alison, travelling together from Canada and their friend Virgil, who has been travelling the world by bike now for 3 years. The bike came too.

The cockpit where we spent most of our time - Tim here with captain dickhead, crewhand Cuorta and Sander

It wasn’t long after getting back to the boat that I retired to bed, planning to re-awake when we set off. I slept through the setting off but shit me I woke with a start at 4am to the noise of everything being tossed about below deck. I tried to climb out of my cabin bed which was also below deck at the bow of the boat, but the amount the boat was rocking not only up and down but from side to side was too much and it hurtled me back into my room. I tried again and through the latch thought I could see people sitting out above deck but it was hard to see in the dark. I stabilised myself on the stairs that lead up onto the top deck. I was white as a sheet at this point and scared shitless as I had not counted on their being this much rocking! 

I shouted to Tim that we had to secure the stuff in our room as it was all about to start flying everywhere. As we ventured back towards our cabin room, the basket of fruit went flying from one side of the boat to the other, just missing the on-board cat, but now there were loads of lemons and oranges rolling around everywhere blocking the way to our room. After 10 minutes of trying to pick up rolling fruit in the dark on a boat that is rocking so hard you can’t stand up we got to our cabin and I very quickly took a sea-sickness pill. I remember laying there, feeling so ill, counting down the minutes until I felt some relief! I think, within 5 minutes I was asleep. They work by knocking you out it would seem!

The next day I woke up late, feeling extremely groggy from the pills. The boat was still rocking but not as much and by 4pm I felt OK enough to eat a bit of leftover lunch and have a beer. With sun setting around 6:30pm, my day was very short and by 8pm I was tucked up in my cabin bed once again. Well, lying on a sheet at least as it was very hot and there was so little airflow around the inside of the boat as all windows had to be closed below deck to stop big waves coming in. 

It was another rocky night and half the guests were up with bad stomachs for the majority of it. This was most likely attributed to being at sea, but it could have been all the cat litter flying about, or perhaps the state of the pretty unhygienic kitchen. Who knows? Anyway, I’m very grateful though as once again, pills knocked me out until about 4pm when it was time for left over lunch and a beer!

The difference today bought however, was land! It had taken so bloody long to get here. Partly due to too little wind and partly due to them breaking 2 sails in the process. But hooray for land! We even managed to fluke an arrival at the islands for sunset. We anchored up, ate some lentils in the dark and went to bed for a calmer night’s rest in shallower waters with the anticipation of desert island bliss tomorrow. The plan being a pre-breakfast swim across to the nearest island with my Pina Colada in tow!

Approaching land - our 4th evening on the boat

San Blas islands now in view

Our chosen island (I think, although they did all look quite similar from afar!)

I can’t remember the last time I woke up so excited. I poked my head up above deck and was surrounded by turquoise crystal clear sea and desert islands. I could even see one desert island that was so small it only had a single palm tree on it. Just like I used to draw as a kid! Within 10 minutes of waking, me and Tim were in the ocean. I had managed to squeeze myself into my kid’s rubber ring – this only worked when inflated for some reason – and it allowed me to swim using only one hand, leaving the other free to hold my bottle of cocktail. Tim swam at my side trying to keep afloat whilst holding up a dry bag that contained the essentials – drape, camera and my ciggies. I have never seen a beach like it. It was the stuff of dreams.

Post dip, palm tree and Pina Colada and it's not even 8am!

Life being all sweet

Then it was back for scrambled eggs on the boat, before returning to the island once again, for a tame morning of snorkelling and beach time. After some lunch on the beach it was time to sail off to a different island. This one held promises of a bar, some other boat revellers and a bit of a party.

Our first island by day

The essentials - drape, music, ciggies and rum!

Things didn’t quite go to plan though. The other boats that were due there didn’t show up immediately and in fact only one showed up later that night. In the meantime however, our boatload had arrived on the island and by then most of us were sufficiently tipsy with the exception of our captain and his wife who were well on their way to being completely battered. 

In fact, so battered that after hurling abuse at me and Tim for having rum on the boat during the day and not sharing it with him, the captain had to be carried off the island and was left in a heap on the deck of his own boat, for us to find later. Being unable to find any reason for the captain’s outburst, I asked his wife what his problem was. Her answer made no sense either, something about him being angry with her or something. I then had to try to comfort her as she looked close to breaking down whilst threatening she was going to leave him. Anyway, after a bit of dancing and more drinking, I think these thoughts soon left her and then it was back to the boat, attempt to move the captain to somewhere he wouldn’t be trodden on and then warm up the spaghetti that had been previously made for tonight’s failed dinner. 

Disgruntled clanging around in the kitchen due to having to provide both a vegetarian option and a gluten free option from the captain’s wife, led us as the guests to apportion out our own dinners, which made for a much less confrontational affair, whilst the captain and his wife slept it off.

The next morning was shocking. Everyone felt pretty hungover and the place was a state. Tim was massively sunburnt as a result of the dodgy sun cream, the cat appeared dead and there was spaghetti everywhere. After a combined effort from me and Tim and Suzi, we managed to get the place cleaned up before the crew woke up. We again did this mainly for our own benefit as we were soon starting to realise life was much easier if we sorted things out ourselves and avoided any unnecessary interactions with either the captain or his wife!

The painful morning after

Kitty must have got caught up in the mess too

Not a sight you want hungover

We had a bit of breakfast on the boat and then sailed to a collection of islands where the indigenous Kuna still live. The dingy ferried us over in 2 hits from the boat and apart from having to spend the day, in the far from humble hungover captain’s presence, it was a really fun afternoon. We watched as the locals gutted and prepared a selection of fish for us to sample for our lunch and we explored and took in the sights of the islands. Sadly, the erosion of these islands has resulted in much of the sand being washed away, leaving buildings floating on stilts in the water, whilst the Kuna’s attempt to rebuild this lost land with garbage used as landfill.

One of the Kuna islands

Chilling out on the island

Fish as fresh as you can get it!

Later that afternoon, we sailed to the biggest island in the archipelago. In terms of these islands, ‘big’ means it will take about 20 minutes to walk around its edge! We anchored there just before sunset and together with the other guests walked the extent of the island and ate fruit until the sun went down, then took photos of our moon shadows! The captain attempted to get a BBQ going. The meat worked out fine, but once again, the vegetarians were left with some fish still trying to be cooked at gone 10pm as we were being ushered out of the cooking area on the island. With the firepit now nearly out, we might as well have just been holding the fish to try to warm it up! Eventually, they burnt it enough on one side that it was just edible.

Doing my best with a melon

It's the lilt man!

You don't get water much calmer than this

Sunset on the island

My awesome boat friends!

On Friday morning we went back to the same island. It really was a special island and the beaches were just amazing. There were starfish at the shoreline and the sea was as warm as a bath. We spent the morning together with the other guests, talking, chilling on the beach, recounting previous escapades and finally airing all our concerns about the crew and not only their lack of responsibility at sea but their inability to show any respect to their guests, especially after 2 bottles of rum! 

Another hard working day on the beach

Important job for the day - reorganising the order of my bracelets

We then headed to the hut on the other side of the island where we were to have our last BBQ. Left over bits from the last few days were re-heated and served up, and uh-oh another few bottles of rum were plonked on the table. It was good fun though as all the other guests were great and we ended up chatting together with some of the other frequenters to the islands too. 

Lining stomachs for rum binge mark 2

Starfish in your face

What we did realise very soon though was that, it wasn’t only ours, but all captions appear to be complete dicks! If they aren’t sitting around massaging each other’s testosterone fuelled egos, they’re pouting at, groping or chatting up any girls they come into contact with. It must work on some girls I’m sure, but lines from one captain such as ‘you have beautiful eyes, they are green, with little stars in and lovely black bits’ isn’t really going to wash. By ‘lovely black bits’ I assume he is talking about my pupils, a feature of everyone’s eyes and not really anything special to comment on. I think the English vocab needs improving a little there. Maybe he can learn some from his poor English speaking girlfriend who we met back in the agency before we left. Douchebags. The lot of them!

As the sun set for our final night in San Blas, we headed back to the boat. The rum continued to be washed down and we had a great last night with the friends we had made on the boat. We avoided, where possible any further interactions with drunk, sleazy captain, his drunk, flirtatious wife and the other pervy captain who had made the eye comment, who was also invited back onto the boat, by his now new best friend, our captain.

Although I have to say, it was quite lucky the other captain was there as he managed to stop our captain attempting to move the ship through a really shallow coral filled area late at night whilst drunk. Apparently manoeuvring boats with a blinding hangover is no problem, but the line is drawn at completely hammered. 

By not clearing the reef the night before, this resulted in us being late to port in Panama the following day, which was no surprise really. What was a surprise however, was being dropped at a completely different port that planned. Not having a real clue where we were, we said our goodbyes to the captain and his crew, thanking them through gritted teeth, as us English do, for their help and hospitality. Their crew hand Cuorta had been an angel though and if anything we viewed her more as one of us than one of them. Luckily she would have a break too as she wasn’t due to return with them to Cartagena for at least a couple of days. 

San Blas islands are spectacular and it really was a true tropical paradise setting. The captain looked like Gollum and was a nasty little man and his wife was a head-case, but it made for an interesting time that’s for sure. The other guests were all amazing and made the trip for us. It was great sharing stories and even making further plans together. It was also the case that we all had a rough plan of getting to Panama City at some point in the next day or so but first things first, we had to get over any land sickness, find ourselves a bed somewhere local for the night and fully debrief our trip over a couple of beers.

Lovely boat friends again!