Firstly, I want to apologise to all of you lovely readers for the long wait. Traveling and blogging can be quite tricky and requires a decent discipline, that we obviously lost. In Cuba we managed to get a blog entry down every day! I think we lost that initial urge to document things as we got further and further behind with it all. But don’t panic! Here is a fresh one for you to sink your eyes and minds into.
This was an entry not to miss and certainly without delay! After all, we managed to hitchhike all the way through Bolivia from top to bottom with one legend of an Argentinian, so how hard would it be to hitch a ride in a sailing boat!?
We took a bus from Santa Marta and parted with our awesome Romanian friends we were traveling with for the last month, in search of dream… to find a sailing boat between Cartagena (Colombia) and San Blas Islands (Panama). It’s a very popular route for backpackers and the likes of drug smugglers, so there are plenty of boats crossing to and from these locations. Especially in Cartagena, there are agencies that are selling the five-day trip with trusted vessels for around 500 dollars per person! Ough! :s
This was obviously not in the range of our backpacker budget, so on our first day in Cartagena we approached an older guy walking along the street, close to our hostel with a t-shirt that said Austria on it. We thought he might be the owner of the hostel we were staying in as it was called Viena, but it turned out that it was not the case, but a nice chap anyhow. His name was Harry and he did in fact come from Austria. We spoke to him for a bit and he gave us a few tips about where to find boats sailing to San Blas and good places to eat in Cartagena.
Turns out that the marina Club Nautico was the place to hang out and ask people coming in and out if they happened to be sailing to San Blas any time soon. We went straight there the next morning and met quite a few people who we tried selling ourselves to in exchange for a trip to the San Blas Islands.
We also met some really nice Australians and an interesting French guy who we kept seeing again and who gave us some good tips about arriving in San Blas regarding the immigration services and how to pass by trouble-free. Towards the end of the day we managed to sneak into the marina with another friendly captain, this allowed us to ask directly on the other boats moored. We spoke to American, Swedish and Colombian captains who unfortunately weren’t traveling to San Blas or didn’t have space on the boat.There was a really helpful Brazilian guy we met with a nice fiberglass catamaran who gave us tips on who was leaving soon and also the possibility of sailing with him, however he was unsure of when he was leaving and said anywhere between 3-5 weeks! That was a bit long for us to wait.
While we were heading for the exit, we bumped into two young South Africans called Richard and Ruth. Unfortunately their boat had experienced a bit of damage when they managed to get caught by a gust of wind that broke their fore-mast on the way to the San Blas Islands, so they had to turn back to get it repaired. Fortunately they were going to leave for the San Blas Islands in a week or so and said that they had space, but Richard would have to ask his dad – the captain – first. Richard was sailing with his dad from South Africa and stunning Ruth joined them in Trinidad and Tobago about seven months ago to aid young Richard with his home schooling. After waiting a bit and getting to know the guys a bit better, Captain Coen turned up in the dingy to give them a ride back. We talked to him and he said he would think about it. He gave us his email address and we walked away with positive thoughts. We later emailed him as soon as we could.
Well, after two days of getting to know nearly every captain and boat in the marina, we eventually got an email from the South African Captain Coen who accepted our offer! Incredible! We were so happy to see that email pop up on the iPad :) To be honest, out of all the people we met in the marina, we couldn’t have found a better crew to sail with! We called him straight away and arranged to meet at the marina the next morning to start work on the boat. What a relief! We started jumping up and down in joy as we accomplished what all others said would be difficult or impossible. Some people said things like “Slim chance of finding a boat” or “Nobody will take you”. Haha! We did it ;)
Next day we joined our new crew on the fine, wooden hulled catamaran called Grazia. They showed us around the boat and then we got to work straight away. I was given the task of sanding down the gaff and giving it a new lick of paint, while Victoria helped the young guns polish the rails. It was nice to actually get something done for once. I like getting my hands dirty and this was exactly what I needed, a bit of satisfaction does some good. Captain Coen offered us a trip on the boat the day after too, so we left the marina that day with big smiles on our faces and a feeling of satisfaction.
The following day we arrived early in the morning to lift up the anchor and set out on our trip for clean, quiet, swimmable waters. To note, the waters in the marina and the whole bay of Cartagena are a bit cloudy and in some places stank of sewage and god knows what else. The captain dropped the two outboard engines into the water and off we went. We dropped the anchor about 600 m off the coast, to the southern tip of Bocagrande, right about here. We dived straight into the perfectly warm water and enjoyed a perfect day of bathing, beer sipping, jamming and diving down under the boat to scrape the barnacles off with a spatula.
The last few days have been spent on the Grazia, in the mornings doing small jobs like sanding down some of the woodwork on the boat in preparation for a new coat of varnish and cooking an English breakfast for everyone. Yummy :) More to come soon as we prepare the boat for our voyage to the San Blas Islands!
