Day 1
We got up
at 5am to be picked up by our shuttle. We drove through the new part of the city of Panama City through the skyscrapers which was cool standing tall with interesting buildings. We drove through a pretty steep road through the jungle. One car had even flew off the road into the trees, until we got to a river. Here we were sorted in to which sailing boat we were going on and then a little boat took us to it. Our boat had thirteen people on it 3 Aussie couple and an American couple. Two British boys, two Swiss girls and an Austrian guy. We passed little islands covered in coconut trees scattered throughout the sea. We came to our sailing boat La Gitanita (The Little Gypsy) and the captain Jonathan (Colombian) and cook and helper Sophie (Aussie) helped us all on. We stowed away our big bags and thongs (we won't be needing shoes for the rest of the trip) and he ran over a few 'rules'. We were all so hyped to be on a sailing boat in the San Blas. Underneath where the rooms and kitchen are was a lot bigger than I thought as well. We all had a few drinks, chatted then had lunch. Sophie cooked a delicious home cooked spag bowl (mine having carve as an meat alternative - will have to look out for that one when I'm home). There are more than 300 islands in the San Blas and I think about 40 of then inhabited by native people called Kunas. We made a stop at our first small island which had beautiful Aqua blue water and white sand. You could get off and chilled and grab a drink or go snorkelling through a shipwreck. The water was so clear the fish has such pretty colours from the sun hitting them and coral had started to form over the wreck. That was pretty cool. Wish I had a gopro to capture how clear the water for that snorkelling was!
After the island Sophie and Jonathan bought lobsters from the locals for dinner. They came over to our boat on their fishing boat and had huge lobsters to sell to us. We went on to another island for the night where we cooked up the lobster and had a communal dinner with another boat which definitely was the party boat. There was music playing, limbo, fire twirling etc. a good first night.
Day 2
Woke up feeling a bit salty and it's a little hot down in the cabins. We can't have showers to conserve water so will be pretty grose with birds nest hair by the end of the trip. Sophie cooked us scrambled eggs with avo and toast/Nutella. We went to the immigration island to get all our passports checked so a couple of us got off to have a look around and buy more beers etc. we had lunch then went to another bigger island. A couple of us got the dinghy to a reef and snorkelled. Sophie said there was a ship wreck so we were all snorkelling around trying to find it. When we got back on the boat she told us there wasn't actually any shipwreck. We then went on to the island. We walked around the whole island which took about 20min so not far at all. The water was soo blue around one side. We jumped back on the boat and had all mingled and had a few drinks and had tacos for dinner. They were light in a Bon fire and three other boats were also on the island. The big party boat were pretty tame that night and we all got pretty drunk. There were a few people from other boats there. Matt and I started chatting to an English and Scottish girl. After a while we realised figured out the Scottish girl, Rhiannon was family friends with the Tabones (Blake used to hang around with my friends after school and Rhys is Matts boss!) and she used to holiday with them in Cronulla! So funny and random that we crossed paths on a random island in the middle of the San Blas, her from Scotland and us from Oz, opposite sides of the world and to have mutual friends! We figured out I had met her years ago when she was in Oz and came out with Blake to Shellys party in the city! So random. They sold cocaine for $2 a hit on the island and It was Eve's 30th so
at 12pm we all sang to her. I think our engine was flooded so we attempted a few times with all of us scrambling on to the dinghy to go back to the boat. It was pretty funny. We were stranded for a bit and another boat had to rescue us. We partied for a bit longer back on the boat.
Day 3
We woke up and the sun was shining today! The water looked absolutely incredible in the sunshine. An amazing aqua blue and you could see star fish at the depths coz it was just so clear! We had breakfast and decided to stay at this island for the day so spent the morning jumping off the boat in to the water for a swim and hanging about. I situated myself in the hammock which was hanging at the back of the boat and I think was the best spot. In the shade listening to music surrounded by this incredible slice of paradise. It was a bit of a pinch me moment.
Matt and I swam over to a sand bank which connected two islands.. We saw people walking on from afar and looked like they were walking on water. We had a vegetable curry for lunch and then some of us were taught by Jonathan how to play liars dice. We then we went over on the dinghy to the island. We bought beers and played volleyball on the beach against boys from another boat. At sunset Jonathan took us over on the dinghy to the other island where we watched an incredible sunset over the ocean through the coconut tree lined beach. We were all waiting to be picked up and had a chat to some of the native Kuna people living on the island which some of the guys were buying beers from. They had two cute week old puppies I was patting and they offered us an aloe Vera drink which they drink to help cleanse their intestines. We had dinner back on the boat and all retreated to bed fairly early coz we knew it could be a rough day at sea the next day.
Day 4
We were woken up to have a briefing by Jonathan this morning before starting our journey across sea to Colombia. We all took seasickness tablets coz we heard that this part of the boat ride could be bad, although apparently the seas were quite calm. We drew each other's names out of a hat and whoever picked the person who threw up first got to keep the pool of money. Luckily no one ended up getting seasick! After breakfast I pretty much laid out on deck for the rest of the day. Moving from sun in to the shade and getting up for lunch. Not sure if it was the rocking boat, being at sea or the seasick tablets which make you drowsy. There's not much else to do at sea anyway. In the late afternoon we saw a pod of dolphins jumping out of the water and swimming and playing at the front of the boat. It was such an incredible sight. We ended up seeing it two more times. So amazing. We had dinner and at night saw lots of stars and couldn't figure out where the moon was. We saw the glowing algae which rippled through the waves. I'd seen this a couple of times back in Oz but apparently is rare to see so that was quite amazing. After dinner I saw a shooting star go across the sky and then it was a full moon glowing red which rose above the ocean. It was pretty magical that night to be out at sea.
Day 5
I had a dream that night I was driving a car but had no control over the steering wheel because of the boat rocking at night. A few people had dreamt similar things. Our last day at sea, apparently we were going really well with time and distance sailing across the sea and were due to arrive around
4pm. The motor was mainly on but sometimes we'd cast the sail, turn the motor off and just be purely sailing at sea. Jonathan taught some of the boys how to help out with pulling in the ropes for the sail, dropping the anchor and how to use the navigation system etc. After breakfast I decided to stay under the shade all day today. There wasn't much shade on deck so we all just sat around the table at the back and chatted. After lunch we played the Australian version of Cards Against Humanity and soon we had to get all our stuff organised as we were entering in to Cartagena, Colombia. Jonathan is from Cartagena so told us a little bit about it as we were nearing land. It was actually a lot bigger than I thought with almost 2 million people populating the city. You could see the cityscape of the new city to the left with all the high rise buildings and CBD. We anchored in to the dock and could see where the old town was, which is the nicer part of the city and the wall that ran around the outskirts, which was built to protect the city against attacks in war. When we were dinghyed back to shore with our bags we all had sea legs, which was pretty funny. But after 5 days at sea you literally could not stand straight and we were all wobbling around, trying to walk. None of us had a hostel booking so all jumped in cabs and went to the Main Street which has heaps of hostels in it and we all managed to book in to different hostels/rooms. Cold water to drink and a shower with whatever water, hot or cold, pressure or no pressure I could get was going to feel amazing after 5 days of not being able to shower and feeling very salty and grose by the end of it. Feeling clean and using the shower gel and shampoo and conditioner to finally wash my salty birds nest hair and able to put my fingers through it was so good! Even if there was a black out at the hostel half way through my shower and I couldn't see what I was doing, half due to the black out and also the sea legs which made my mind spin, legs wobble a bit and had to lean against the shower wall a couple of times to stand upright haha.
Feeling fresh we all met up across the road at a hostel called Mamaellas. It was good to have instant friends in a new city! We had a couple of drinks there, then went to dinner at an Italian restaurant. We were all pretty knackered so a couple of us went to have one more drink at a salsa bar down the road then went home to get some well needed sleep in a clean bed (not salty, hot bed with air con!)
An amazing experience both visiting a slice of paradise of the San Blas Islands and being at sea for two days and witnessing the magic that happens in a place we never usually get to spend so long. Sophie cooked us amazing food for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day! It got a little crammed sharing space with 14 other people on a boat for 5 days and not being able to shower properly and get in to a clean bed but we had such an awesome bunch of people which made the trip so much fun and it was definitely an experience I'll never forget.
