Sailing to San Blas into a New Year and New Continent
On 29th December we set sail from Cartagena, Colombia to Puerto Lindo, Panama via the San Blas islands in the Caribbean.
The trip lasted 6 days and 5 nights which is quite a long time to be in a very confined space with a group of 14 other passengers, 1 captain and 1 deckhand…especially when 12 of those people are German or Swiss and prefer to speak German and who don’t understand Australian/Kiwi humour and don’t have any respect for people’s personal space…Marcello is much more diplomatic when describing these people but they really got on my nerves so diplomacy is out the window! But on the plus side the 4 non German speakers were lovely people; a couple-Kate’s from NZ and Ed’s Australian/English, an older Israeli woman who spoke so softly people originally thought she was a mute and a deckhand from Colombia.
On the trip out to San Blas we sailed in open sea for 2 full nights and 1 full day. There was lots of vomiting (not by either of us luckily) as we pushed through the 3m swell for hours on end. Much to our annoyance one of the other passengers commandeered our bed for part of the journey as she struggled to keep herself from being sick. Later in the trip our bed was taken over by not just her but also her husband and her daughter so we had no chance of getting the bed back!
Luckily the islands were beautiful and we weren’t sailing over New Years Eve so everyone was able to enjoy the drinks that they’d brought on board. We spent the day hanging out on our own island ferrying beers between us and the boat via kayak. Luckily that night everyone was quite jovial and friendly with each other…even if the majority of other people chose to spend their night playing cards.
On January 3rd we arrived at Puerto Lindo Panama ready to start the new year on our next continent; Central America. And at this point 2 became 4 as we had travel companions- Ed and Kate.
