Goodbye South America, Hello Central!

Nothing is ever as it seems. We envisioned a tranquil lounge underneath flapping sails lazily taking us to the San Blas Islands of Panama...cocktail in hand. Four days of this we expected, but then again, what do we know. Four days ended up being pushed to seven, but none of us were ready to give up our sea legs at the end of it.
We were a day late in leaving Cartegena as the immigration people kept demanding more stamps on more papers, but finally late Sunday afternoon we watched as Marcos, our captain, explained to his 17 year old first-mate, who had never been sailing before, how to pull up the anchor and roll out the sails. Any semblance of the peace we were anticipating flew off the deck with the White Pidgeon´s first big dip into the world of the ¨open sea.¨ For two straight days and two straight nights we hung on for dear life as we watched 15-20 ft. swells swallow us whole, spitting spray over the top. To move about the boat, let alone cook and eat a meal or use the restroom, took more exertion than living out an entire day on dry land. Sleeping was nearly impossible as every two minutes or so you´d get flung either off the bed or into the wall. Silence was hard to find amidst the constant, high-pitched drone of our ¨cook´s¨ chattering. She hardly did any cooking, would look at us and say something in melted Spanish which nobody could understand, and would sashay around in her thong with not an ounce of shame. Really, as much as we wanted to superglue her mouth shut or give her a nudge off the side, she added spice, a Colombian flavor of salsa music and Reggaeton.
All this sounds like it could be potentially miserable...and maybe it would´ve been had we been as sick as our fellow passengers, of whom included the cook and the first mate, but the trip was perfect. Marcos made perfect meals, the 7ft., 100 lb marlin the boys of the boat caught made perfect ceviche, the snorkelling in the islands was perfectly underwordly, sleeping in hammocks in the guest hut of the native island people was...you get the point.
Friday rolled around and the immigration officer decided he didnt want to come back until tuesday, maybe wednesday, so we did some more hanging around on the boat (was more of what we envisioned this time), soccer games on the beach, just good old fashioned fun, until Sunday. We got on a 20 seat airplane and scooted over to Panama City we visited the Canal and are living in the lap of luxury at the Marriott. Some way to travel.

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