Sailing The Open Seas

Sunday, January 13

Being that this was our 3rd and final full day in Panama City and we had already spent some time exploring the neighbourhoods, we took advantage and had a little sleep in. By "sleep-in" we mean that we managed to roll around in bed until about 9:30 AM instead of waking up at balls AM as per usual. After breakfast we set out for our usual walk down the boardwalk in the smouldering heat, absorbing the sites and smells (of the fish market and polluted panamanian marina) one last time. We spent some time at our favourite internet cafe, booking tickets for Buenos Aires for January 23 as we had plans to meet up with our good friends Jeff and Adina. The tickets ended up costing about $1500 for the two of us, which was more expensive than we ever expected them to be. However, it was our plan to start on the south end of South America and make our way down to Patagonia before it got too cold and definitely was worth seeing a familiar face! So we printed out our tickets and made our way to the hard rock hotel for an afternoon of hot sun, pool and $4 waters. We were much too exhausted from the heat to make the 45 minute walk back to the old city, so we opted for a $3 taxi instead. Before we settled down for a much needed nap, we walked over to the grocery store to pick up veggies to make a salad for dinner and some necessities like rum, ginger ale, Gravol and saltine crackers for our big sailing excursion coming up.
 

 

After dinner we lazed around the Panamericana with a couple from Switzerland that we thought was on our sailboat! We spent the evening comparing stories that we heard from others about the trip and getting excited to set sail. We were showered, packed and in bed by midnight, as a jeep was picking us up at 5AM the next morning.

Monday, January 14

With the little amount of sleep that we got we were still able to jump right out or bed at 4:30AM when our alarm went off to wake us up. We grabbed our bags and quietly tiptoed out the door and down the stairs to wait for our jeep. Jonas and Elena (the couple from the night before) stumbled down the stairs a few minutes after us. When the jeep arrived we tossed our bags on the roof and the driver tied them down to the roof rack and we all piled in. There was already a guy in the Jeep that had been picked up before us and we had to more to pick up from Mamallena's (the place that hooked us up with sailboat tickets). It was a tight squeeze to start off, and it got even tighter as we drove throughout the mountains, twisting around the bumpy winding streets once again, to get the port. The ride couldn't end soon enough, as we were all blue in the face by the end. We think this was the worst mountain ride we've had yet, even though we thought the other ones were pretty bad! The driver must've done that drive hundreds of times in the past as he was zipping around those corners like no body's business. 

At the port we waited for almost an hour for our speed-boat taxi to show up. We realized that Jonas and Elena were on a different boat called the Nona Moane, not the Manigua like ours. We did however, meet an Aussie couple (Luke and Kirsty) that was on our boat. We got almost completely drenched on the 45 minute speed boat that took us to one of the San Blas Islands where Victor (our Captain), and the Manigua were waiting for us. We spend a few minutes meeting and greeting the rest of our 9 ship mates and Johana our crew mate. We hit it off right away with Luke and Kirsty and spend a good portion of the morning chatting and tanning with them at the front of the boat.  By early afternoon we had our first meal on the island served to us by the indigenous Kuna people that inhabited all of the San Blas Islands. The island was big enough to house 2 restaurants, a small hotel, a few houses and an a small airport. It was so small, though, that you could see right through to the other side. It was a sight to see, surrounded by pristine turquoise blue waters and soft white sand. After Victor organized our passports at customs, we were able to pile back on the boat and set sail to our first real destination island.

We arrived and anchored the boat for the night at around 4PM, with just enough time to suit up for a snorkeling expedition around the coral reefs and a sunken ship situated a few hundred meters from the boat. Unfortunately the waters were fairly murky, but were able to see several different tropical fish, including star fish, and a HUGE crab on the shore on our way back. The Kuna children greeted us by the shore with their dog that just had a litter of puppies! They must have been less than 1 week old as their eyes were still closed and they were smaller than David's hand. By 6:30 the sun was going down and Johana was bringing the dinghy over to pick us up for dinner. We had chicken stir fry and lots of rum until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore.

Tuesday, January 15.

We ended up waking up at balls AM again.  We had an early breakfast on the boat consisting of scrambled eggs, toast, fresh pineapple, and true Colombian coffee.  Most people took a quick dip in the Caribbean, and then we set sail to our next destination, a group of Islands Captain Victor called the "Green Islands".

It took us close to 5 hours of sailing to get there, and we got our first taste of what sailing in open waters would be like; Choppy.  It was a nice, sunny day though, and we spent most of the trip on the bow of the boat sun tanning, and feeling the occasional wave that splashed up on deck.  We also were treated to some special dolphins visitors, who swam beside the ship for a short while.

We went down for a siesta with poor timing, as right when we fell asleep, we happened to arrive at the island.  Being that we knew we'd be there the entire next day, we decided to enjoy our sleep, and skip the dinghy to shore.  When we woke up, we just chilled on the boat, swam, and had a late lunch; Alice's favourite, Pasta Bolognese.  We also decided that we wanted to make a beach campfire later that night, and so we took a dinghy ride over to the island to collect some firewood while it was still light out.

Over dinner (veggie stirfry and rice), made by el Capitan himself, we all tried to relax and enjoy each others' company.  The reason we were "trying" was because of one particular co-sailer from California named John.  John felt as if the world, and subsequently any conversation, revolved around him, and as such, we all had a tough time talking about anything other than John and his endless fish stories.  It is difficult, however, to be in a bad mood in such a beautiful place, so we all took it in stride. 



After dinner, a small group off us (Alice, Dave, and an Aussie named Dinny) went over to the island to get the fire started.  It was a bit of a struggle at first, but eventually the inner outdoorspeople came out in us, and we were able to create a pretty roaring fire.  It was visible from the boat, so when they saw we had succeeded, our fellow sailors all came to enjoy.  We drank and sat by the fire, John sang songs, (mainly James Taylor) Luke went crab fishing in the dark (unsuccessfully) and we all had a great time.  When a couple of us were too drunk to stay awake (John), we decided to put the fire out and head back to the boat.

Wednesday, January 16.

We woke up, you guessed it, at balls AM again, despite all the drinking the night before.  Today's breakfast was omelet and toast, with watermelon.  We decided to take advantage of the snorkeling gear again, and spent a few hours swimming around a huge reef that circled almost the entire island.  We saw lots of different fish, a sea turtle, and came uncomfortably close to a stingray!  We also had the unfortunate experience of sliding bum first over what we learnt was called "fire coral", which burned quite a bit for the rest of the afternoon.

After snorkeling, we walked around the uninhabited island, and a full loop of the beach took around 45 minutes.  When we had become pretty exhausted from all the snorkeling, walking, and above 30 degree temperatures, we hailed the dinghy and took a ride back to the sailboat.  Victor and Johana had gone with the sailboat to a nearby town, while we were on the island, and sourced out a special lunch for us; Lobster and potato chips!  It was a delicious treat, and we all enjoyed it very much.  After lunch, we all hung around on the boat, and got ourselves mentally prepared for the big sail, which was to be commencing that evening.

 

We all took "Navy showers", which consisted of jumping in the sea, lathering, jumping back in the sea, and then a dousing of fresh water. We also prepared by taking our anti-nausea medication,  and departed for Colombia around 8:30.  At first, the going wasn't too bad, but it didn't take long for the boat to start really rocking.  There were 3 people who immediately became ill (one of whom, an older guy named Jim who happened to be sleeping right beside Dave), but everyone else seemed to be okay.  At one point, we hit a huge wave, and the stove popped open sending a big frying pan right into Dinny's head, but he was okay too. 

Thursday, January 17.

After trying our best to sleep, and accomplishing a few hours of it, we ended up going on deck BEFORE balls AM.  Victor had a rule that there were no passengers allowed on deck if the sun wasn't out, so as soon as the sun came up, we all wanted to get out of the cramped and very hot cabin.  The only exception were the two Dutch girls, who literally did not leave their cabin (and plastic bags) for the entirety of the journey.  Everyone else felt much better in the fresh air, although the waves were getting pretty substantial now that we were in open waters. We spent the rest of the day popping Gravols and shifting between naps and getting air. None of us had much of appetite, but there were sandwiches and fruit readily available whenever we wanted.


We were making great time as the sun was going down. Victor had informed us that if we kept our steady speed we should hopefully arrive into Colombia by 2am. The last stretch was the worst one yet. The waves were becoming increasingly bigger going from 1 meter to 3 or 4! Victor and Johana were taking turns redirecting the sails and managing the wheel. At one point the waves got so bad they were coming up over the ship and into some of the cabins! Luckily enough the two of us were switched into the middle cabin just in time to avoid having our stuff get soaked. Amazingly enough, at this point we were feeling less nauseous than ever, and were beginning to enjoy the ride. We went down for our final nap and actually slept through the worst of the waves.

Friday, January 18

Sure enough at 2 AM the cabin lights came on and we were informed that we had officially made our safe arrival into the Colombian port. What a relief! Some of us had coffee and hot chocolate and Alice scarfed down the dinner she refused the night before. We slept a little bit longer until John woke up at 5:45 AM and naturally, no one could sleep after that. By 6:30AM we were being dinghied to the dock and saying our goodbyes. Some of us walked over to the ATM together to take out Colombian pesos as we were informed that no one would accept our American dollars here. The two of us began our trek to find our hostel in Cartagena's old city and after spending a few hours trying to find it, checked in.

It wasn't long before we realized that we had left our wet bathing suits in a garbage bag back on the boat. So we made a mission to take the one hour walk all the way back to the docks. We stopped for an interesting and super cheap breakfast consisting of a cheese-stick donut and beef patty on the way, and when we got to the docks,  hailed another dinghy to drive us to the boat. Unfortunately we were unable to find our bathing suits, as Victor said they must have gotten thrown out with the rest of the trash right after we left. So we let bygones be bygones and headed back to our place empty handed. We spent the rest of the day in a comatose-like state, watching TV and barely breathing from the heat and exhaustion.
 
When we had saved up a bit of energy, we went food shopping, and bought some food to last us through the three days we'd be staying in Cartagena.   We came back and made sandwiches, and continued watching TV, reading, and falling in and out of consciousness.  A note we forgot to mention was that the boat actually arrived a full day early, due to the good timing we had made.  As such, we had not booked our hostel for that evening.  They told us it would be no problem, though, as they had extra mattresses, and would set one up for us in the large common area with the TV.  That sounded like a great idea at the time, however, when we were ready to get to bed (around 10:30, embarrassingly enough) there was a group of young Argentinians just getting their party started.  We decided not to be party poopers, and let them do their thing while we watched, paced around, and become increasingly tired and frustrated.  Around 1:00 AM, as we were about to just put the mattresses down and say "sorry, but adios", they conveniently decided to take their party elsewhere.  We put our mattresses down and fell asleep almost immediately.

 

Saturday, January 19.

We managed to actually sleep in until close to 9:00AM, and had dry All Bran cereal for breakfast.  We decided to have a lazy day, and spent most of it in the hostel, continuing to watch TV, read, and relax.  We made up our own excursion by trying to navigate the local bus system, and find the bus terminal, as we needed to by a ticket to get a bus to Bogota.  It took us a few hours, and we managed to get the ticket for the 21 HOUR ride to Bogota that we would be doing on the 21st, as we had to catch a flight to Buenos Aires on the 23rd at noon.

When we got back to the hostel, we made dinner (boiled water and added to Raman noodles), ate, and decided to go for a little walk around.  It turned out the old city really came alive at night, with tons of people everywhere, street performers, merchants selling just about everything, and lots of horse drawn carriages.  We enjoyed the sights and scenes, came back to the hostel around 10:00, and went to bed soon after.

Sunday, January 20.

We managed to sleep in again, and decided that we would make Sunday a beach day.  Despite being on the Caribbean Sea, apparently the only good beach around was a one hour boat ride away.  We had the option of taking a "tour" provided by our hostel, but it was $30/person, so we decided to head down to the boat docks and try our luck at making our own way.  When we made it down there, every Colombian and their brothers were offering us the same tour that we had been offered at the hostel, and at the same price.  We were getting a bit frustrated, but eventually told them that we just wanted a ride to beach, and worked them down to $20/person.  After each paying another $7.50 for some kind of beach tax, we were on our way.

The way there was in a speed boat, and took just under an hour.  It was a super hot day, and the beach was really crowded, so we had to walk all the way to the end where there was some room to spread our towels.  We spent the day tanning, reading, sweating, saying "no thanks" to the millions of salespeople, and swimming.  By 3:00PM, which was the time the boat was coming to pick us up, we were ready to go.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to take the same speed boat back.  This time, they shuttled many more of us over to a larger ferry.  Once it was full, we were on our way.  Evidently, we had picked the wrong row, as 3 out of the 8 people in our row were throwing up.  We, however, being seasoned sailors now, had no problem with the ride.

It took much longer to get back, over an hour, and we jumped off the boat at the earliest chance.  We walked back to the hostel, showered, headed out for our favourite night of the weak, Cheat Night!  As usual for our cheat dinners, we sourced out pizza, hamburguesas, fries/papas fritas, and this time added a souped up street hotdog for dessert! We ended off the night with another walk around the old city. This time we brought our camera and went a little picture crazy.

Monday, January 21

We had another sleep in lazy day consisting of breakfast on the balcony and surfing the net and here we are at 1:30 in the afternoon plugging in all the details of the last week for all of you. After dinner we will be getting into a taxi and heading over to the bus terminal once again for our long overnight trip to Bogota.

With love from the old City,
Dalice

 

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