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Published: March 1st 2013
Paradise?
If not...it comes bloody close.Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! We were sailing to Panama, albeit a day late due to a cockup by the captain of the boat we were supposed to be going on. But the Almande was a fairly large boat with two French seadogs, Loic and Franck, to keep her on the right path to the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama. There were 9 of us on the boat; Vicky and Ed were a couple from Essex doing a similar trip to ourselves (always a wonderful thing to meet likeminded people); Jo and Jade an Anglo-Australian couple who were both big characters (if you are an 18 stone, tattooed, ginger beared, Australian bloke with a girls name you are going to be an awesome person, you don't really have a say in the matter, it's preordained); Andrea, a German girl who teaches English and Spanish; Jesus, an older Spanish chap, who just drank and smoke, but was travelling because he had throat cancer (!), and Patrizia, a Swiss girl who was an awesome swimmer and a shark at Asshole!
Suffice to say that I started on the rum early, 10am as the boat
was leaving Cartagena harbour to be precise, and Ed and Jade were willing to get involved. As we lost sight of land the waves began to get a bit more choppy, and the boat began to rock more. Most people were in a party mood despite the movement, I guess if you were feeling ill (I didn't feel sea at all, Eleanor was fine too) the tunes coming through the speakers, the rum and sense of freedom that we felt being at sea was enough to overcome it. That was the case for the first day anyway! On the second day I woke early and headed to the communal area at the rear of the boat, Jesus was there with his morning beer (every morning he was first up with a beer in hand) and then we spotted dolphins swimming alongside the boat...cue excitement and then everyone running up on to deck from their cabins. It was amazing to see, they swam faster than the boat and seemed to be showing off/having a lot of fun. But once the dolphins had gotten bored of us, the nausea seemed to sweep over people and the deck became busy only sporadically through
Sailing is a hard life.
There's too many ways to kick back and love life. the day. We had no success with fishing, except for one tuna on the first day (made in to sushi by Franck), which was a bit of a shame. There was little to do apart from enjoy the motion (very relaxing I found), listen to the music and/or read. It was very tranquil. It also helped that Loic and Franck were wizards in the kitchen and we were kept well stocked with tasty food and that we had a huge stash of booze! If the winds had been favourable, we could have made it to the San Blas in around 36 hours, but the winds weren't great. But as we neared the end of the second day on the boat the dolphins returned. I was lucky enough to still be up and sat at the front of the boat, in the moonlight, the water less than 2 feet from me, the boat gliding across the waves, with the dolphins zipping along beside us. It was a lovely moment.
We awoke on the third day to be greeted by paradise. I looked out of the cabin window, saw a postcard desert island framed within and practically lept out
of bed into my swim shorts. A quick stroll along the deck later and I was in the calm, warm waters of the Caribbean. Jumping in to the clear water and being surrounded by a couple of yachts, blue skies, early morning sun on the horizon and the tropical paradise of the two island and corral reefs, it was hard not to think that this was a dream. Was I really here in this perfect place? It was such a wonderful feeling! The morning beers were soon cracked open before we all proceeded to fling ourselves off the back, sides and roof of the boat with vary degrees of daring and success. After breakfast it was time to go snorkling...I was a bit hesitant, the only time I'd been snorkling before that trip was in one of the water parks in Disney World when I was a kid and I forgot I couldn't breathe through my nose and nearly drowned myself in my ensuing panic! But since I'm not 11 anymore and I'm pretty confident in my ability to learn lessons, I manned up got back into the water. This experience should not be missed. The reef was huge and
Sand, Sea, Boats
You can't see the rum, but it was an integral part of the ambiance. covered in life; I felt like a voyuer into another world, but in a non-pervy way obviously! We spent a good couple of hours out on the reef, before retreating to the island for some respite. The sand was fantastically fine, it didn't feel like sand at all, which a bit odd at first, but much more pleasant than normal sand or those bloody pebble beaches (yeah, that includes you Brighton, you waste of perfectly-good-beach-space). In addditon to all the crazy and weird/wonderful fish, we also got to see sharks and turtles...just like a David Attenborough documentary!
The ensuing days were spent going from island cluster to island cluster. We went diving off Dog Island on to a ship wreck which had become a reef. That was just too cool to really describe without being able to do it justice. Swimming around the wreck was like being a real explorer, looking into the past but also observing nature at it's most fine! On the islands there a innumerable palm trees, but you can't touch the coconuts as each one belongs to a person from the Khuni people, picking them up to eat is like stealing...I don't have
Shipwreck
Off "Dog Island" but not the crazy captain's shipwreck. a criminal record and it would be most uncool to pick up on because of a bloody coconut of all things...it would do my credibility with the Mafia (or one of Glasgow's east end gangs for that matter) no good at all! So the coconuts remained insitu and we just bought some lobster off locals and had a most wonderful dinner. Franck and Loic wanted us to stay for a few extra days, all but Jesus were keen (despite our need to be in Guatemala at a set date and having about 3 weeks to cross 4 countries to do so). Jesus departed at the anointed hour, and we set course for another wreck and islands. Oh, and San Blas has probably the most laid back immirrgation check point, it's essentially a mutlicoloured hut on a beach, next to an airstrip and no one seemed even remotely bothered about protocols or whatnot. Perhaps Heathrow should lighten up a bit too?
Loic told me and Ed about this captain, who wasn't really a captain, but rather a blood thristy and seemingly insane criminal. So the story goes he killed the captain of a boat, like the one we
One happy turtle!
Probably not as grateful as he should have been... were on, and began sailing Colombia to Panama, before that boat packed in. He than did the same thing again, but sank that boat (the wreck we were going to see) before nicking a final boat, and probably killing that guy too, although I'm not certain about that. Anyway, that maniac is in jail now, according to Loic, although I never checked the veracity of this story, why would I, Loic wasn't the crazy captain and I survived any potentil lust for bloody, but maybe I will look it up on the internet in a but, when I'm waiting for the photos to upload.
But at the wreck (is it bad English to start a sentence with "but"? I'm pretty sure my English teacher, Mrs Humphries, said it was, but people seem to do it...may be it's part of the dumbing down in culture that Gove and the government seem to keeep going on about in the news? Anyway if you do know please let me in on the secret, thanks) we ran in to a little bit of trouble. The current was a bit strong, nothing you couldn't swim in for a little bit, but could
get dangerous if you lost your way. Unfortunately, a couple of the group got caught up in the breakers on the reef. I was swimming away happily on on the reef, minding my own business, and generally having a swell time before someone told me a I need to go to where the people in trouble were! Cue swimming like Phelps to get out of the crazy water and back to the safety of the reef. I was the only one not getting in to the little speed boat back to our yacht, this was kind of a blessing as I was the only one to see Captain Crazy's sunken ship (he'd really messed it up) and got to enjoy the corral life again. It also meant that I had to swim the 800m back to the boat, in a current, having expended most of my energy getting out of the sticky situation earlier. Clearly I made it, but it was probably the most tired I've been since I did a half marathon following a long recovery from injury! But whilst recovering on the boat Ellie and I, along with Ed, rescued a turtle from local fishermen, nothing heroic, we
God Bless the Amande
And all who sail in her! just paid for the little fella, but I'd rather give them $5 (and they'll keep doing it obviously, they'll make money from sentimental gringos like ourselves) than let him be dinner that night! That night the sky was crystal clear and it was possible to observe the milkyway, satelites, Venus and shooting stars...all in all pretty incredible. To round off the trip we visted Isla Grande, a more conventional island which wasn't anything special, was still quite nice, I just preferred the tropical islands, they seemed so much more exotic!
We left the boat and headed too Panaman City via chicken bus...American school buses, but usually pimped out in garish colours, huge sound systems and sometimes custom TV/DVD setups...nothing screams "This is Central America!" into your pathetic little ears until they bleed, more than these icons! They are loud in every sense of the word. The journey wasn't too arduous, but Panama has a very American feel to it. This is in part due to the Canal being owned by the Americans until fairly recently, the rather large banking centre and the large numbers of Ex-Pats who come down to make their dollars go futher. Name an
Big kids...
Its just fun! American fast food joint and you'll find it in the malls, if you want root beer and apple pie then you can get it, the motorways are the same design as in the USA too. But, there is a distinct Central American/Spanish Colonial flavour to Panama City too. The old town, Casco Viejo, juts out on a little penninsula between the Canal and the new downtown districts. It was a building site when we visited, I'd guess 50% of the streets and probably a similar percentage of the buildings were undergoing major revamps. The Colonial Hotel has been undergoing a make over since 2003 and it's still just a shell. It's a strange place. But they do have a couple of brew pubs which are amazing and some very good coffee shops, but by general Panamanian standards, it's rather expensive here. Rather bizarrrely the government are building a huge ringroad, in the ocean to link the new town with the canal, to avoid traffic I think, but it'll mean a huge highway just meters from the old town and it'll probably ruin the ambiance that they are trying to create with their restorations.
Panama is famous for
Pimp Bus!
Suffice to say MTV won't be needed in Panama any time soon one thing, and that's the Panama Canal. The history of the project goes back to the 1850's when the French tried to build it, but many thousands of people died from malaria and yellow fever...so they gave up. The Americans decided to get involved and finished it in 1913. Then they stayed for the next 70 years or so, in contrast to America's "interests" in the rest of Central America, this was very tame. There's a huge volume of traffic going through the Canal each day. We headed up to Miraflores locks to see what it was all about. It's pretty impressive seeing a fully laden oil tanker pass through the massive gates of the lock, and then drop 20m in the space of a few minutes. It's truly a magnificent piece of engineering, but one which the current government is trying to top with a large canal, for larger ships, running parallel to the current incarnation. Panama was rather pleasant, but we were on a tight schedule so we had to push on to Nicuragua, via Costa Rica.
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mlmcadams
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yeahhhh there you are! ჱܓ
I was missing y'all. Can you keep coming North and spend some time here in Houston? Thanks for the update, smiling real big! =)