(32) San Blas Islands to Cartagena, Colombia

We have arrived in South America! Neil, Paxson and I got in to Cartagena yesterday morning (12/18) after a 5 day boat trip from Panama to Colombia. Today is a rest, relax and have laundry done day and tomorrow we fly to Bogota to pick up the motorcycles on the 21st and continue the trip.

So backing up to where I left off on the previous post, the folks at Wild Card Sailing picked the three of us up at our hotel in Panama City on December 13. We spent another hour or so picking up other passengers at their hotels/hostels before heading out of town to Linton Marina on the Caribbean cost of Panama where we met up with another van of folks who were also going to be on the boat with us. While on the van ride we found out that many of us had received more or less information about the trip than the others. Between information I hadn’t received and our just plain hap hazard planning we realized we were short a few things for the trip. The biggest of those was that we had neglected to bring any booze with us! Not to fear though, a stop was made at a grocery store near the marina where every one in the van ran in and stocked up on 5 days of libations (alcoholic and non alcoholic) for the trip. So in the end that turned out to be a non-issue.

Another thing we just didn’t think of was to bring a towel with us. There would be lots of jumping in the ocean over the next few days and none of us thought to bring a towel. That said all Neil and I have for towels are backpacking camp towels. About 2’X1’. While they would have been nice to dry off with they are definitely not big enough to be beach towels. Neither Neil nor I thought to bring our Nalgene water bottles either. Those are still buried in our motorcycle luggage. Nothing big was overlooked though.

One thing that I did manage to remember to get was sea sickness pills. Or at least I thought that’s what I got. I went to a pharmacy in Panama City and tried to get Dramamine pills but the woman behind the counter didn’t speak English. So it was Google Translate to the rescue. I typed in “sea sickness tablets” and it dutifully came up with a translation that I showed to the pharmacist. She smiled, nodded and started rummaging around behind the counter and produced a box of pills. I paid and walked out feeling pretty proud of myself for navigating that little exchange. I didn’t recognize the name of the drug, but it’s not uncommon for drugs to have different names in different countries. The next day just before we were to catch the van to the boat I decided to Google what it was I had purchased. I was somewhat non-plussed when I read that the normal reason this medication is prescribed is as an anti-nausea medicine for pregnant women 🤦‍♂️. Oh well, at least the magic words anti-nausea were there. At this point I just had to take them along and hope for the best.

The sailing company kind of altered their start time for the trip for us since the first semi-final game of the World Cup was being played that afternoon. We were able to sit in the marina clubhouse, have some lunch and beers and watch the Argentina vs, Croatia game. Argentina would go on to win the game by a score of 3 to 0. The game served as a good way to begin to get to know the rest of the people on the boat as well. After the game was done we all grabbed our gear went to the boat, got assigned our bunks and had a safety briefing before setting off at about 4:30 pm.

Our trip consisted of 21 passengers and 4 crew. The passengers were from the US, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, England, Australia and New Zealand. The crew were all Colombian except for one Dutch lady. So a pretty mixed bag of nationalities. The age distribution was a bit less mixed. An American couple were in their late 40s, early 50s and the two guys from Switzerland were in their 50s. Then me at 63. The rest of the boat were 35 or under and the bulk of those 27 or under. As I was told later, not only was I the oldest person on the boat, I was older than the boat its self. LOL All in all they were good people and everyone seemed to get along well.

We were warned that once we got out of the marina the seas were likely to get rough and that proved to be the case. Most everyone was sitting on the fore deck at the beginning but once the bow spray started coming up onto the deck everyone either moved inside or onto the small rear deck. They said we would be motoring until about midnight to reach our first mooring spot in the San Blas Islands. Given that I headed down to my little bunk (or sweat box as I called it more often than not) to lay down. I get sea sick sometimes if I’m up and about but I’m totally fine if I can lay down. So I skipped dinner and just went to sleep until about 1:00 am when the engine was turned off, we came to a stop and dropped anchor. That was a nice sheltered location and I had no issues there.

The next morning I was the first up. Which wasn’t too surprising since I laid down at 5:30 pm the night before. I got to sit out on the deck and watch the sunrise before anyone else began to stir for the day. The first order of business each day was for the crew to get coffee made. It was really nice to have fresh brewed coffee as you watch the sun come up on the boat each day. The island we anchored by was the only inhabited one we would stay at for the trip. People from the Kuna tribe inhabit the San Blas and one family lived on this island. We spent the day swimming and snorkeling and generally just hanging out on the beach.

Since there were people on this island it is also the one time we had a meal off the boat. The cook from the boat put together a great barbecue meal and we had a bonfire on the beach afterward. We were totally out of cell phone range on this island. Although it would come in and out during our time in the islands. This evening was the second semi-final game of the World Cup between France and Morocco. Given all the Europeans on the boat there was quite a bit of interest in the game. As part of my equipment for the motorcycle trip I have a satellite GPS unit that allows me to send and receive text messages via the satellite network anywhere in the world. I had decided to bring this along so I could communicate with people while we were otherwise out of touch. My thanks to my ex-wife and Neil’s mother for texting us game score updates that night! All the soccer junkies on the boat greatly appreciated the news.

The next morning we weighed anchor hand headed off to another island for the day. It was about 2 hours away so we had plenty of time to do more beach combing, swimming and snorkeling once we arrived there. The highlight of this day, at least for me, was lunch. The local Kuna fishermen knew we were coming and brought a load of lobsters that Manu, our cook, made into and amazing spaghetti and lobster in cream sauce lunch for us. While the accommodations on the boat were a bit Spartan the food was very good. It was always simple but very tasty and much appreciated by everyone on board.

By Spartan I mean that there was no air conditioning on the boat. So all of the below deck sleeping beds and bunks were very hot. There were also no showers on board. We had one barrel of fresh water that we could use to rinse the salt water and sweat off with, but we were told to use it wisely because when it was gone there would be no more until the end of the trip. We had plenty of fresh water for drinking and cooking though. While the rinsing water worked OK for getting the sea salt off it didn’t do anything for removing sun screen. So by the end we all felt pretty sticky and mucky from the 5 day’s accumulation of sweat, salt and sun screen.

We had most of the third day at yet another island. I think it turned out to be most everyone’s favorite. We saw dolphins as we were motoring over to it. Some of the fish that were spotted by the snorkelers were shark, rays, barracuda. One of the Dutch guys was looking for lobsters and turned a rock over while snorkeling and got bit by an eel though. It wasn’t super bad, but he was bleeding pretty good for a bit before we could get things bandaged up.

At about 4:00 pm that afternoon we packed things up and started off on the estimated 35 to 40 hour open ocean crossing from the San Blas to Cartagena. We were warned that this is the windy season and the seas were likely to be rough for most of the crossing. I’m guessing that for the bulk of the crossing we had 4 to 6 foot swells. The boat only makes about 5 to 6 knots (up to about 7 miles and hour) so it was a long slow couple days making the crossing. I have to admit that I spent more than half of the time laying down in my bunk. I did manage to be up and about for another sighting of a pod of dolphins jumping along side the boat though which was cool. The boat was equipped with sails as well as motor and those were raised to help with our speed during the crossing. The down side to this is that it made the boat heal over to one side. That in turn made laying down and sleeping difficult. For me it meant that I slept rolled against the wall of my bunk. For the couples on the trip it meant that they had to fight to keep from the up hill person rolling over onto the downhill person.

In the end we had two nights and one full day at sea. We pulled into Cartagena at around 9:00 am yesterday (12/18). Everyone piled off the boat and headed for their respective hotels and hostels. We were way to early in the day to have a room ready of us in our hotel, but we managed to arrive at the hotel just before half time of the World Cup final game of France vs. Argentina. So we watched what some are calling the best World Cup final ever in the lobby of the hotel. The game wound up going to overtime after being tied at 2-2 at the end of regulation. No one scored in over time so the game went to penalty kicks to decide the winner with Argentina eventually winning. After the game and some lunch Neil, Paxson and I were able to check into our rooms and head immediately for the shower we had all be craving!

Last night was a goodbye get together for everyone on the boat in the old town of Cartagena. The crew of the boat and a local office takes care of our immigration paperwork. So they had our passports and the meeting served as our way to get the passports back and to say goodbye to everyone on the boat. We met in Plaza de la Trinidad and were able to just wander, eat street food, get drinks and chat for the night before everyone went their own way.

Today has been just a day of walking around the old town of Cartagena for me. I dropped off laundry this morning and will need to get it back later today. We have all three booked plane tickets to Bogota for tomorrow. I’ve been in contact with the shipping company and the bikes are flying to Bogota today. We are to pick them up at Bogota air cargo on the 21st. So at this point it looks like we will be back on the road again on the 22nd. The three of us need to get together tonight and decide on what routes we will take. At this time I’m thinking we will spend Christmas in Medellin, but that hasn’t been fully decided.

So that will begin the South America section of our journey. We know there is some civil unrest going on in Peru. I’m in contact with friends John and I have in Lima and we will make plans for Peru as that situation unfolds. Our plan at this point is to be in Quito, Ecuador on January 5th so that Paxson can fly back to the US. Whew, that’s it for now!