Adios Colombia Bienvenidos Panama y San Blas

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...So, off we went to sail the seven sea's. GARRRR!!!
After buying our supplies for the 6 days (canned beer, bottled rum and plastic bag packed crips) our boat started its 2 day sailing trip towards the San Blas Islands. This part is the worst, and according to our captain, Hernando Higuera, the trip on the open sea makes most people sick, even if your sailing with the Stella Luna (sorry wanted to put some reference in here incase people are looking for some information on the net.) There is also nothing to do on a 42 foot boat packed with 8 people. We were travelling with two canadians tourist, our captian and his wife (also the cook), the wifes sugar obsessed daughter and a danish friend of theirs who has lived in south america for 8 years.We spent our time drinking beers (some people more than others) and chatting.
Our captain was a natural wonder, he can survive without drinking water. Well he only drinks it when it contains alcohol or cofine. His wife was similar, but cooking soups was her best skill. The daughter was a 14 year old, spoiled brat who only seemed to eat sugar. We guess the daughter gets left behind some times, meaning the parents only see her every two weeks, so they spoil her when she is arround. She never done anything on board, apart from lying around and to ingest pounds and pounds of sweets.

An idea from Sati, the canadian, was to just remain drunk so one doesnt feel the sickness. Didn't work, he stopped drinking after the first night. His girlfriend also felt terrible, the wife, Maria, even puked up, missing the water and redecorating the deck. The only people not feeling sea sick were Diana and I and our pirate captian.
After a terrible 40 hours of sleeping in a pool of sweat, not being able to wash, and a lot of beers and no movement we arrived at the islands. The urge (strengthened by the natural instict of hygine and the will for freedom) to just jump over board into the turquoise world beneath us and cool off, was only conquered by the fact that the boat was still manoeuvring between some of the most beatiful islands I've seen. Our only highlight to this point was the occasional visit of dolphins, making it all a little more mind blowing.
The water was maginficent, the current strong but the following bath/shower in the sea was by far the best bit. The washing up which followed was not as nice, but we were warned before the trip that we would have to help out, and, washing up in dingie surrounded by these gorgeous islands isnt that bad.
The evening was spent eating, Maria cooking a exceptionally good soup, and drinking rum.
The next day we then left towards the Lemon Keys/Chichime picking up Ferdericos friends boat on the way. On this Island we enjoyed snorkelling, volleyball and our evening meal of freshly caught lobster. The lobster was OK, just didn't appreciate it being drenched in garlic butter. The rest of the people didn't either, as it was impossible to get rid off.
The days panned out the same, swimming, snorkelling, lying in the "flour like" sand, walking around islands, eating well cooked food and ending the evening with drinking nice homemade Cuba Libres.

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Photos

San Blas
die Stella Luna

San Blas
Delfine als Wegbegleiter

San Blas
Holland Keys...
Abwaschen

San Blas
Holland Keys

San Blas
Holland Keys

San Blas
Lemon Keys

San Blas
Lemon Keys

San Blas
Chichime

San Blas
Kapitaen Broughall

San Blas
Chichime

San Blas
Hummer gefaellig

San Blas
Beauty(l) and the beast(r)

San Blas
Man muss ja in Form bleiben...

San Blas
Das ist ein waschechter Inselaffe

San Blas
Affen gesichtet!

Comments

[mel]

Oh my god
Sieht aus wie in der Werbung für Reiseveranstalter...Traumhaft!!! Hab auch ein neues Lieblingsfoto aus eurem Blog, schätze mal ihr wisst welches... Das Affenbild ist perfekt gelungen!

[anonymous]

hi!

[levoyageux]

a different experience
Unfortunately our experience with Hernando and Maria's boat hasn't been so good. We had read the tips here on Lonelyplanet and so we did the trip Cartagena-San Blas with them but the service has been quite disappointing. Maybe in these two years things has changed as there is more request. I'll try to tell our experience as it can be useful to someones. Hernando's catamaran is in good conditions and he seems to be a good person, but: 1.Capacity. the boat had the capacity of 10 persons maximum and he filled it up to 13 people. 2 persons had to sleep in the kitchen's sofa bed, wich they knew in the last minute (quite injust, as they paid the same as everybody) and on top they had to share it with Hernando's helper who didn't have a bed. The cabin's beds didn't have pillows nor bottom sheets. Somebody asked for it and the answer was "what do you need another sheet for?!". 2.Tank water. It was forbidden to use water (they kept the autoclave closed during the hole trip and you couldn't even wash your face and teeth in the morning, unless you had a little bottle to fill up when they switched on water to cook). Soon we discovered that there was so few water because they were giving us tankwater to drink! Awful, since carribbean tapwater is not drinkable, in fact Hernando and his wife had their own bottles of sparklingwater. Fortunately we had some yodopils, but we've had anyway stomach problems. In the meeting we have had some days before leaving, they had told us that there would be enough drinkingwater for everybody, but they never told us that it would be tankwater and that we couldn't even have one shower during the five days. 3. The food. Hernando said in the meeting that in the islands he would buy fish and lobsters but the reality was different: during the ride to San Blas we ate only salads for lunch and dinner (some people had already told to María that they didn't eat salad and she gave to them a plate of corn, although there was lots of other cans and other food in the fridge). When we got to San Blas, they bought some fish but no lobsters. Hernando said that they were too big, so we had to pay for it. We told him that, if they were too big to eat one each, he could just buy a couple of them and we would share them, but he said no. The worse was the last dinner of the trip: they had bought fish and María made soup with it. They gave us a cup of soup each, but actually there was no fish inside but only the hot water! this and some crackers was supposed to be the dinner. 4. Service. We had to pay the whole price of the trip (400$) the day before leaving but we suggest to pay the half before traveling and the other half only at the end. We chose these people because they seemed to be friendly and reliable, but since the beginning of the trip we noticed a big change in manners (quite arrogant) and service (didn't correspond to what we paid). and service. Paying the second half in the end is the only way to make sure to receive a good service.