Fritz The Cat - Sailing Colombia to Panama

The voyage involves 2 days on the open seas before reaching and spending 3 days swimming, spear fishing, searching for crabs and crayfish, and exploring the beautiful San Blas Islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama, inhabited by Kunas the native Indian tribes of Panama. There were 18 of us on the boat including the Captain and his first mate/cook/cleaner/basically did everything, including stealing my bed but he deserved it. While sailing out of Cartagena the coast guard called out to us but Fritz just told them he would be back in 2 weeks... We found out later that the next boat that was meant to leave the following day was stopped, searched and made to stay overnight, and then process repeated the following day. Apparently the officials are trying to stop these private boats operating because a ferry service is due to start shipping passengers between the two countries.

While sailing on the open water we each had to take an hour turn at being captain throughout the night. I scored the 1 to 2am shift... But it was fine, I spent my hour sitting on the front of the boat keeping an eye out for ships but with no excitement. On the 2nd night an older fellow from Germany was on watch while we we sitting at the back of the boat having a few drinks. We had some good speed at this stage and were approaching the islands when we went flying past a 5 metre high marker buoy, missing by about 10 metres... I'm glad we trusted this guy with our lives...

We reached the islands early in the morning and awoke to the sensational clear waters and palm tree islands. We went for a swim and snorkel straight away and the water was so warm that you could spend all day in it. The visibility of the water was amazing and we found a few manta rays, a crab, and a reef shark that was sleeping just under a ledge in the coral, but nothing worth feasting on for dinner. This was repeated over the next couple of days before it was time to head to the main land.

The captain had informed us that the usual place he pulled into was now charging $100 to get our passports stamped so he had organised to meet a guy who works in the immigration department who lives on one of the islands to meet us and stamp our passports. It all worked out fine and so we headed into the mainland. Here a Kuna boat met us and ferried us up a remote river. On the way the captain realised he had left his mobile on the boat and quickly jumped off onto a passing boat and headed back out, leaving us with no idea what we were doing. We thought this may be his quick getaway. Anyway the boat pulled into a little community where a number of 4x4s were waiting to drive us to Panama City.