To our minds it made perfect sense to sail, particularly since we wanted to visit the San Blas islands. The San Blas, while technically a part of Panama, are administered by the local indiginous people, the Kuna. The Kuna don´t like outside influences, so they make it somewhat difficult for people to visit. They charge an additional tourist tax and they also restrict where tourists can travel within the San Blas. Its not possible to live in the San Blas or to operate a business in the there unless you are Kuna. With the sailing trip, we would spend three days on different islands in the San Blas and cut out a lot of the difficulty associated with travelling there. Also, we would get the chance to sail the seven seas and pretend we were pirates.
On the recommendation of several travellers we met along the way, we booked in with the Austrian catamaran ´Fritz the Cat´. We made the right decision. Fritz is an ex-restaurant owner and definately knows how to cook a crab. He´s been sailing back and forth between Panama and Colombia for two and a half years, and he´s a most sea worthy captain. He also plays the trumpet and will go spearfishing for your dinner whenever possible. His catamaran was also used in the background of the filming of ´James Bond, Quantom of Solice´. As you can imagine, its a very nice boat.
So we got up on our day of departure at 5am and got into a 4x4 which took us up and down windy roads. It took us across some pretty rugged landscape to arrive in the Kuna-run port of Carti. Just to get into the Kuna territory, you have to pay 6$. Arrive we did in torrential rain, but we were definately excited. There were three Americans, two New Zealanders, three Canadians, one Quebecer, one Dutch guy, two Liverpudlians and the two of us. Plus one Colombian boat hand, the Captian and his significant other. It was a pretty well packed boat. Of course, this dynamic duo somehow managed to get the best room on the boat, en suite and everything!
On our arrival to the boat, it was pretty wet and miserable, so we weren´t too hopeful. But as soon as we got on board, our shoes were taken from us and we wouldn´t see them again for 5 days. Our bags were dumped somewhere and we were sat down at a table with freshly baked brown bread and a giant pot of tea. That pot of tea was on the go the whole time we were on the boat, I was a happy chappy. One thing that you were never short of was food, and good food at that. There was always more, and every meal we had was delicious. Every time we´d eat we´d say, "Fritz, this is so good, its really delicious" to which he would respond, "You like it? I am so lucky! Ha Ha Ha!" (His laugh reminded me a little of the Count from Sesame Street.)
Once everyone arrived we hauled anchor and made our way to our first destination where Fritz organised all our passports and immigration nonsense. Easiest border crossing yet! Fritz actually has to soften up one of the officials with a bottle of Scotch every time he comes through. He says he doesn´t mind in the slightest, because at least things get done! We went for a swim and we motored on towards another group of islands where we spent the night. After a very civilised dinner, we went ashore for some beach volleyball and a few beers. Very relaxing.
The next two-ish days we spent by the lovely islands, the owner of which came on board and ate breakfast lunch and dinner with us every day. The way the Kuna run the San Blas is that certain families will have coconut rights over some islands and some people have fishing rights over some reefs. Well, our new Kuna friend, (who´s been working with Fritz ever since he started running this trip) took us out to his reef. One morning bright eyed and bushy tailed, we got into his little wooden dug out canoe and he took us to his Coral reef. To be honest, it was some of the best snorkelling ever.
The reef was beautiful and the life abundant. (Notice how I´m really streching my positive vocabulary from the last post). Our new guide showed us how to use the traditional Kuna method of catching lobster and crabs. Its basically a stick with a wire noose which you have to hook the lobster or crab on. Well dear readers, you´ll be happy to hear that for the first time ever in her short life, yours truely caught her own dinner. Yes, I hooked a HUGE kind crab. Although, if I´m really honest, myself and one of the Americans (BJ) worked as a team to catch the crab. And as soon as BJ went back to the boat to get the bag for the crab, I immediately wanted to throw him back. I felt really guilty. On the plus side, I didn´t have to cook him, Fritz took care of that. There´s nothing so tastey as dinner you´ve caught yourself! Our catch was pretty shameful in comparason to what our guide caught, he came back with several more crabs and a few lobsters to boot. He even brought a baby turtle back with him. Initially I was a bit worried that he was going to eat the turtle as we´ve seen done in other places, but no, he just wanted us to get a close up look. All in all, it was a sucessful fishing trip.
That night we set sail for the open sea, and everyone had to take their turn at the helm. Now, this all sounds a bit more dramatic than it actually was. Fritz said the crossing was the smoothest he´s ever had. Well, there was no wind, so we motored the whole way. And the auto-pilot did all the hard stuff like navigating. All we really had to do was make sure there were no icebergs dead ahead. But we did it like hardened sea faring professionals! We looked port, we looked starbord, and never did we come anywhere near anything that could potentially cause damage or sink our fair vessel. In my head, I was a pirate ARRrrrrrgh. In reality, I was probably half asleep most of the time.
We spent a full day at sea, watching the endless horizon. We were joined on two occasions by dolphins. To pass the time, we played cards and catchphrase. Once or twice I would be sitting at the front of the boat and I´d look around and realise that there were ten people looking out over the sea and noone was saying anything. It was very very peaceful, and very quiet. We watched the sun go down over the open sea and everyone was snapping it because it really was a sight to be seen. We then had a large discussion about why sunsets are universally beautiful, which led in turn to many other odd conversations.
The other people on the boat were a pretty special bunch. It was a pretty rag tag group of people. The three Canadians were a family motor biking the whole way from Canada through South America. And Jing, the mom was I think the most perceptive person I´ve ever met. Really special lady. Ray, the Quebecer told us all about French Quebec and the culture there. I now have a burning desire to go visit it and see if everyone there is as friendly and as funny as Ray. But all in all, we met some very special people, they all make me smile.
We arrived into Colombia about 8 or so hours early. I went to sleep and there was nothing in sight, I woke up to this amazing skyline. It was really exciting. Not only was it new place day, it was also new country day, new continent day, new currency day AND best of all, New Guidebook day. Yes indeed, we´ve gone through a whole guidebook.
I´ll tell you all about Colombia shortly in the next post, but I think I´m in love with Colombia. Ahead we´ve got a 6 day hike through the jungle to the Lost City, we´ve got Colombia´s best National Park and also San Gil which is apparently adventure sport central of South America. Who knows, but the trip goes one and we´ll let you know all about it.
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