My Endless Weekend: Sailing - San Blas Archipelago (Part I)

The sailing-adventure was a diverse experience. This was one of the last boats going as it was the end of the sailing season and no boats can make it from Panama to Colombia in January-March due to the strong headwinds. Our Italian captain therefore warned us that if we were unlucky with the weather, we may be a day or so delayed from the normal five-day, four-nights itinerary.

The first days we went to the San Blas archipelago and anchored outside small pretty islands during the nights. We did not encounter rough weather but headwinds, which made it impossible to sail across the open sea, the shortest route to Cartagena. Therefore, we decided to travel the longer route along the coast. This gave us the opportunity to experience the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean Sea during four afternoons and nights.

By now it was clear that it was certainly going to take longer than planned (were still far from Cartagena) but as the captain had to feed us as long as we were on board (fixed price), we did not complain too much.

On board we were originally five passengers, four motorbikes plus the captain. However, on the third day we got three more passengers from other boats that departed just before us. These were from a sailboat with a Swedish captain. He had been heavily drunk while sailing and managed to go on the reef twice and broke the mast on his boat. The passengers were therefore stranded on an island due to a damaged boat and we picked up two of them. Another passenger also joined, stranded from another boat with a Spanish captain.

Our boat now started to get full. Some passengers had to sleep on deck due to lack of space in the cabin. As long as there is good weather, sleeping on deck is normally a very pleasant experience; it is warm and fresh and there are no mosquitos etc but unfortunately there were some showers every night. I therefore sticked to my little bench inside the boat.

Following are some pictures from the Caribbean sail.