Kat & Marty

Our first day of sailing was idyllic for me. There was barely a breeze and the ocean was almost perfectly flat meaning that for once, even though I had the aid of travel sick pills, I wasn't sea sick. Occasionaly we had to use the engine but mostly were still able to get enough of a breeze to move along slowly. The guys dropped a line off the back of the boat and we caught 5 fish one after the other which we cooked up almost immediately for lunch. Jefe taught us a new technique of dripping one or two drops of alcohol into the fish gills to kill them immediately. It seemed much more humane than watching their bodies twitch for ages on end, even once they received their death blows.

Marty and I had been given a cabin in the stern of the slightly decripid boat. By decrepid I mean that the peeling paint continuosly attached itself to any exposed skin and the kitchen should not be invstigated closely. Washed but not clean, became the trademark saying of our voyage. Our crew mates consisted of two other couples, one French and Mexican match and the other from Perth, Australia, then an English backpacker completed the party. We also had the privelege of one small crab's company, a few bed bugs and a couple of cockroaches that discreetly found themselves set adrift over the side. Fabio was quickly replaced with the name Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Carribean), as he was the living image and personality of the Johnny Depp character, later this was replaced by the shorter Jefe ("boss" in Spanish). The lad from Perth had a guitar with him and he provided folk music as we drifted along.

We made the San Blas Islands in the early afternoon and had a quick swim in the warm, clear Carribean water over a small patch of sand amidst the reef, while Jefe took our passports onto one island to get our departure stamps for Panama. He came back fairly soon mentioning something about being glad they hadn't checked for his license to carry passengers as he didn´t have one. Sometimes, we think, it is best to turn a deaf ear. We were dropped off on the main island for an hour. It was awful. We were intruding and it soon became clear these people were very much interested in money not in strange guests to their island. Their houses were made of beautifully woven panels of bamboo, but admiring them was invasive. A dance group started dancing everytime we walked by in the hope we would take photos which they would then charge us for, and people hurriedly pulled their handicrafts out on display in hope of a sale. We were supposed to meet Jefe back at the dropoff point in one hour but a local person came and told us there was a change of plans and he now wanted to meet us at the other end of the island (only 2 minutes walk). He found us there a few minutes after our meeting time on foot, his dinghy at the original meeting place. I wonder how many people are got with that practical joke.

We were pleased to get off such an uncomfortable place (too reminiscent of a human zoo with niether the local people or the visitors enjoying the experience) and sail through the sunset to our anchorage in the lee of two small islands. Sailing in through a reef pass we found one island alight with bonfires. The fires flickered high and created an eerie atmosphere through the palm trees. It was easy to imagine how the early explorers felt as they came to strange new lands and witnessed similar sights.

The morning dawned on paradise. We were surrounded by the proverbial tropical desert islands with golden sands and coconut palms. If you were stranded on a desert island what would you take..... these were it! We were close enough to swim to shore were giant conch shells and coconuts were scattered on the sand. Giant coloured starfish sat in the shallows gleaming yellow and red. Marty and I took snorkels in the hope of snagging some lobsters but found only sand banks teaming with starfish nearby. There weren´t many fish in the water at all but Marty did see a ray of some sort jump out of the water from the deck of the boat.  We spent the day lazing in the sun, feasting on coconut flavoured rice and oven baked fish that the local family supplied us with and swimming. At around 3pm Jefe suddenly announced we were departing for another island. We didn't have the time to stow away anything or even take down the heavy canvas shade cloth before we were out in a stiff breeze with main sail and jib full of wind. At one point Jefe tried to tack but the shade cloth was hopelessly in the way. Most of us had hardly been on boats before so weren't much use. I was secretly relieved that Marty knew a bit about sailing as Jefe definitely needed a knowledgable hand fairly frequently.

Just as we came out through the reef pass, Jefe's friend on another boat came sailing in to the anchorage we were leaving. I think Jefe wanted to turn back but by now we were all keen to visit another island. We would have been better off to turn around as the new position was less sheltered and we had a much rougher night. However we passed it with a nice spaghetti dinner and an early night. Jefe proved an admirable chef with a new Italian pasta speciality every night.

The morning still held some wind and chop in the water. Jefe radioed his friend and we were soon under motor back to our original berth. We spent another day there lazing on hammocks strung between palm trees, swimming and reading. Marty joined the others for a game of football and some beach volleyball. We had a lunch of coconut rice, smoked fish and fried plantains. Delicous! Marty pulled starfish out of the water for me to take photos of and I had fun photographing the conch shells and even a coconut as well. The sand was white and the water clear looking turquoise and green off in the distance. As the day drew to a close we went back to our respective boats for dinner. After a couple of guitars were pulled out and we had fun making lots of noise. I dived into the water off the side of the boat and phospherence lit up around me as I swam back to the boat.

The sound of the yacht motor right next to our bed woke me at 5am the next morning as we began our voyage of 48 hours to Cartegena in Colombia. Out in the ocean the choppy waves soon had me sea sick and I spent a couple of hours hanging over the back of the boat then lying in a patch of shade on the deck trying my best not to die. Unusually Marty joined me this time but his recovery rate was a little quicker. Jefe cooked eggs for breakfast which didn`t last long with me and I missed my first watch on the tiller. However things got better. In the afternoon the wind dropped as did the swell and the water turned to glass. Magically I was able to move around again and took my first turn driving the boat. We had the motor going and there was a slightly faulty auto pilot that took control too - you just had to watch it to make sure it didn´t turn itself off.

We had another pasta dinner with eggs and cheese mixed in with a delicous potato and cabbage (an unlikely mix) salad. Marty and I had a sleep before our 10-12pm watch. When we came up on deck again the sky was full of stars. The auto pilot had fixed itself and wasn´t causing any problems so we sat there as shooting stars lit the sky. Once a large container ship came across the horizon toward us but turned away from our path. We saw two low flying aircraft too. One flew so low it must have only been 10m above the waves. We suspect it was a drug runner going beneath the radar. It buzzed us but moved on without causing any problems. At midnight we were more than ready to sleep again. We were up again for the 6-8am watch and everyone else woke up and joined us to watch the blood red sun rise over the flat ocean. One of the others dropped the fishing line over the side and we caught a dolphin fish. It was beautiful, a deep sky blue with yellow markings. The day was hot and I spent it trying to keep in the shade. In the kitchen jefe made flambie bananas. I was washing some dishes when he lit up the first pan full and nearly did a backward flip as the flames rushed up toward the low roof. They tasted like heaven - our first sweet food in days.

Slowly the sun moved across the sky then set streaking colours across the sky in all directions. At around 8pm the lights of Cartegena appeared on the horizon and the next few hours brought them closer and closer. A wind came up and we flew in under sail. All of us passengers sat packed into the stern or ´cockpit´as jefe called it. Eventually Marty and I went down for a nap but were woken an hour later by complete stillness. We went back up to find we had run aground on a sand bank. Jefe slowly nursed the Fenecia off and back into deeper waters. We passed about 10 meteres from a statue of what appeared to be a woman in a robe in Cartegena harbour. Jefe ran around like a mad thing but wasn´t communicating anything for us to do and we ran aground for a second time as we went on the wrong side of a channel marker. Once again Jefe managed to get it back off the sand bank and into deeper water and we put our anchor down next to his friend´s boat who won first place by at least an hour. (In the morning we found the anchor had been put down across someone elses but fortunately they were very graceful about it.) It was past midnight so we slept on the boat rather than go ashore in the strange city. In the morning we planned to get off early and find accomodation then meet Jefe back in the late afternoon to collect our passports with visas in them. The yacht club had made a new policy that it didn´t want backpackers hanging around and the customs officials didn´t want us to leave yet so we had to spend the morning sitting on the hot deck of the boat. Jefe went off to call his family and we couldn´t work out how to use the boat water filter so were feeling quite thirsty and bad tempered by the time a customs official came in a rubber dinghy to take us on shore. At the club we bought much needed lemonade and finally gained permission to go and get accomodation for the night. The plan was to meet back at 4pm to collect our passports. So now for Cartegena Colombia...