When I told people I was going to be traveling to Colombia alone they thought I was out of my mind. It’s pretty unfortunate that when hearing about Colombia most people still conjure up thoughts about kidnappings and ruthless drug lords. Even I am guilty of having those same thoughts but while traveling through Central America on another trip I met a ton of people who had braved the seemingly sketchy country and had nothing but amazing things to say about it. I also befriended a Danish traveler who told me about this once in a lifetime sailing trip she did from Cartagena, Colombia to the remote San Blas Islands in Panama. I was hooked. The chance to travel to a country not yet overrun by tourists and sail to remote islands, what more could I ask for?
Colombia definitely didn’t disappoint but I don’t want to write about all my Colombian wanderings. I want to share about the sailing trip, which turned out to be one of the wildest adventures of my life. Unfortunately, I do not have many photos from the sailing trip (after you hear the story you can probably understand why) so most of the below images are taken from exploring the streets of Old Town Cartagena, one of the top three most beautiful cities I have ever been to. Where flowers grow up the sides of brightly painted buildings and horse-drawn carriages mosey up and down the tiny maze of streets. Where you can watch the sunset from the stone walls of the old fort and sit in a colonial square watching dancers perform. A place so beautiful you could easily fall in love with a stranger from another hemisphere and not think it was a bad idea. It was a magical place and I’m pretty sure I have never said that about any other city I have ever visited.
Anyway, here is the story about the trip. My apologies if it runs a bit long but the sheer amount of craziness that occurred in the span of a few days was incredible…
Impetus: a driving force; impulse; stimulus.
Also the name of the 40ft boat that would bring us from Colombia’s colonial jewel city, Cartagena, through the San Blas archipelago and on to Panama mainland. The trip was meant to be 5 days and from what I had heard from other travelers pretty relaxing and idyllic. This was far from my experience.
From the beginning luck was not on our side. The trip kept getting postponed because the seas were unusually rough for this time of year in the Caribbean, but I didn’t mind a few bonus days in Cartagena and plus my rather delicate stomach was not really interested in braving rough waters. When we finally set sail we consisted of two boats, a “Pirate Fleet” as our captain liked to call it, each carrying 7 passengers. The plan was to sail together for two days straight, arrive at the San Blas Islands and dock up together. However, the seas were still extremely rough, the worst our captain had seen in his 3 years in the Caribbean, and we lost contact with the other boat during that first evening. Seasickness hit me pretty fast and I spent a good portion of those two days below deck in a delirious stupor going in and out of consciousness from all the seasick pills I had taken. I remember during brief bouts of clarity the worried looks on the faces of the other passengers as our boat was thrown around like a rag doll, hearing that the storm tore the main sail to pieces and listening to the first mate calling to the other boat over and over again on the radio but only hearing a deafening static on the other end. The scariest moments were feeling the massive waves break on top of the boat. Our captain was a striking Norwegian man covered in skeleton and snake tattoos who looked sort of like he had been taken off the cover of a cheesy romance novel with all his bulging muscles and wavy blonde hair. That first night, as one of the waves crashed onto the boat, I heard him let out a unearthly roar while trying to guide our vessel and thought to myself, we are most certainly going to die.
The trip seemed to take forever and there was no sign of land or our companion ship in sight. We finally arrived at the San Blas meeting point in the middle of the third evening, almost a solid 12 hours later then originally planned, and awoke to what we had been promised all along, paradise. The San Blas number over 365 tiny islands, and are mostly uninhibited except for a few of the larger ones which are home to the Kuna Yale tribe. As soon as we woke up we all joyfully jumped off the boat and into the most pristine water imaginable. I immediately swam to the nearest island and reveled in feeling solid ground below my feet again. We grabbed kayaks, snorkel gear and anything else we could get our hands on to help us explore our surroundings, while our worried captain tried to track down the other boat which fared far worse than us.
The other boat had both of their sails rip in the middle of that storm and their engine crapped out as well. Plus, they were stranded painfully close to the Darien Gap’s guerrilla infested jungle. That evening our captain told us the bad news. We would have to sail another 12 hours to get the passengers of the other ship and bring them to where we were. The thought of having to get back on our boat for another day did not sit well so we decided to stay on one of the tiny islands and just wait for them to come back. The crew left us some food, a tarp, a few brief words of encouragement and set off to try and rescue the other boat. So here we are on a deserted island, feeling kind of stranded and time is just passing by. I kind of had a feeling their “12 hour” rescue prediction was a bit optimistic and as the 24 hour mark approached since we had last seen the boat we were getting alarmingly low on food supplies and we all began giving each other worried glances wondering what the heck we really got ourselves in to. Luckily, one of the local native people from another island came by in his dugout canoe and sold us some warm beer and a few bags of potato chips which held us over until we were finally reunited with our boat and now an additional 7 passengers.
The passengers from the other ship were pretty shook up after their whole ordeal so the next day the captain got them rides back to the mainland but our boat was still feeling up for a bit more San Blas time, so we proceeded to another little island where we were greeted by some more locals who sold us a pile of fresh crawling lobster, delivered again by dugout canoe. The feasts the captain and his first mate could cook up with such limited resources were amazing and we partied the night away with the native Kuna Yale people and plenty of “Pirate Punch”.
At this point, since we had so many hiccups along the way our captain offered us a few extra days at the islands. We were psyched to get to see more but one of our passengers had a flight to catch so the next morning our captain took him by dingy to the mainland. It was another stormy day so the rest of us were just meandering around the boat trying to occupy our time. I was below deck reading and when I popped my head up it looked like the boat was drifting. I alerted another passenger who didn’t think it was a problem but a few minutes later she came down below in a panic and said yes, we were definitely drifting. Now mind you, we were anchored in a very precarious spot wedged between a small shallow sand bar and a coral reef littered with the skeletal remains of other shipwrecks. We were drifting right towards them alone on a boat with no captain and an ignition that had to be jimmied with a knife to get to start.
We began to panic and felt pretty helpless. The closest island where our Kuna Yale friends lived was about a quarter mile of churning ocean away and none of us were really psyched about making the swim. Somehow I was elected and wordlessly (because what the hell else were we suppose to do?!?!) I grabbed a snorkel and a mask and dove in. I’m a pretty strong swimmer and had been doing long swims to keep in shape during this crazy trip but that was the longest quarter mile swim of my life. I kept thinking for sure I’d be eaten by a shark, or caught in the current and swept out to sea or just drown from pure fear but I somehow made it, and in my poorly spoken Spanish explained to the Kuna our situation. Our captain’s friend dropped his lunch when he heard what was happening and told me to swim to another nearby boat to try and get help while he headed out to our boat in his canoe. So back into the water I went and swam up to a huge yacht where I flailed my arms around and called for help until someone finally noticed me. They were French and my French is even poorer than my Spanish but they scooped me up into their dingy and we raced back to the boat. They were able to figure out the makeshift starter, raise the anchor and move us into a safer spot.
We thanked the French guys and they headed back to their boat but our Kuna friend decided to stay and keep the boat running just to make sure we were out of harms way. Just when we started laughing about the whole ordeal we realize we were drifting again. We raised the anchor to try and move to a better spot but the rope from the Kuna’s dugout canoe got tangled around our propeller and we started wildly drifting out of control towards the reef. It was complete chaos! The Kuna man wanted one of us to swim below the boat and cut the rope out of the spinning propeller in the rough seas! No one was about to swim under the boat with the propellers moving but another passenger and I hopped into the kayak and tried to pull the rope free. We were totally useless and I ended up getting knocked out of the kayak and was briefly pinned between the two boats before I somehow scrambled up the side to safety. Finally, our fearless Kuna, declares, “I’m not scared!” and grabs a knife, held it between his teeth and dives overboard like something out of a movie. He was able to free the rope, anchor us securely out of harms way and finally headed back to his home.
Like I said, one of the craziest adventures of my life. I hope my writing did it justice and I hope one to day to get back to the magical city of Cartagena and do that sailing trip again. This time with a lot more “Pirate Punch” and a lot less fearing for my life.
I’ve heard about this adventure when you first experienced it. Once again all that I can say is OMG!!!!!!Great photos.