Colombia, Caribbean + Cocaine: Part 2 Caribbean

From Colombia, we sailed with a group of 9 others through high seas, to the idyllic San Blas Islands and on to Panama’s mainland. Our captain was a wonderful French Brazilian man called Federico who kept us entertained with his many stories. We began our voyage on a stunning, calm evening, leaving the marina in Cartagena as the sun was setting. We were all a little nervous as we had heard plenty of stories of the rough Caribbean sea, when land disappeared from sight, the boat lurched in 5m swells, and everyone on board spent two days “feeding the fish”.

Dosed up on meds, we sailed off into the sunset and experienced our first intoxicatingly hot, but fairly calm, night aboard the 45 ft Sacarnagem. The next morning the swell picked up slightly, as did the temperature, and we spent the first half of the day in virtual silence as we all coped as best we could with the extreme heat. In the afternoon, Federico saved us, by managing to keep the boat still enough for us to jump overboard into the intensely blue clear Caribbean water to cool off.

Our second night in “high seas” was equally hot and equally calm, and many of us emerged from our cabins during the night to sleep on the deck. We woke early the next morning to the tranquillity of being in an archipelago of the Caribbean islands, called Holondaise, part of the San Blas group. For the next two days we swam, snorkelled, explored, read and enjoyed being in these stunning Panamanian islands.

At Federico’s request, we spent several hours picking up rubbish from the beach of one of the islands. Rubbish, specifically plastics, are a real problem in this area – a combination of litter washing onto the islands from the coasts of Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia, and the indigenous Kuna Yala people being indifferent to it and not seeing it as a problem. It is such a tragedy as this island group would be otherwise pristine, full of sea life and absolutely stunning.

One of the things that made Federico so good as a captain was his care for the environment and for the Kuna Yala people. His good relationship with the local people meant that we were able to wander through their villages, chat with them, and one woman even let me hold her 1 month old baby. We were so privileged to be able to meet them, still as tourists, but not feeling like such outsiders, and to chat to them about everyday things.

While in the islands we were subject to several tropical thunder storms. These were wonderfully dramatic and slightly terrifying alike, and the biggest one came on the morning we were due to leave the boat. The thunder and lightning came, and the rain poured as we departed the San Blas Islands for Panama’s mainland and the rest of Central America.