While being
offered drugs, cocaine among other things, was becoming normal when walking the
streets in Colombia, our best experience with the infamous drug came in the
Caribbean Islands.
As we were preparing to leave our mooring in Holondaise (San
Blas), the Coast Guard boat headed into the bay and over to another boat. We
watched in interest as the heavily armed, balaclava clad men boarded the boat
that belonged to Patrick, a friend of Federico’s (our captain) who had had
dinner on the beach with us the night before. Of course we assumed they were
doing a routine search. Federico
obviously wanted to wait to see if they were going to search his boat before
leaving (not a good look to be departing just as the coast guard arrives), but
they were being so thorough with Patrick’s boat that we departed as scheduled
for the next group of islands.
During the
afternoon, the immigration boat came by to stamp our passports for Panama now
that we were in their territory. After they left, Federico, looking shocked,
whispered to Jono and me that the coast guard had found cocaine on Patrick’s boat in their search this morning, and he was being escorted to a Panamanain jail. We couldn’t believe it. In this Caribbean paradise
there is a strong underbelly with the cocaine trade and the corrupt
authorities. We knew about this, but we didn’t expect to be so close to it. It was no
wonder they had taken so long to search his boat.
The next day we discovered
that Patrick had been set up – he wasn’t in fact carrying cocaine, but a yacht
carrying a large amount of cocaine was discovered by the Coast Guard that same
day in the bay we were in. All a little too close to home.
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