On the high seas

   Equipped with bathers, sunscreen and 100 sea sickness pills, Kizzy and Selina and I met Captain YouYou and Lorena (our wonderful chef) at the marina at 6pm on a Tuesday evening to embark on our six-day voyage across the Caribbean Sea to Portobelo in Panama by way of the San Blas islands.

My first shock was to find that I was to share the voyage with 6 beautiful young ladies.  Oh, the hardship.  No men, no smelly feet, no loud voices, no one to challenge me in cricket supremacy.  Actually, that last one didn´t quite work out for me.  As soon as I taught Kizzy the magic formula of "step, bounce, hit" she had me chasing the ball all over the island.  She wasn´t so enthusiastic when it was her turn to bowl.  It was like playing with my brother all over again, but I couldn´t go complaining to mum this time (for all the good it ever did me!)

   We both picked up some new skills.  I learned how to snorkel without getting hideously burned.  The trick is to get out and hide in the shade after 20 minutes.  And Kizzy learned to sail all by herself.  She was wary at first but when she got going she was the most sensible person on the water.

   The San Blas islands were everything we could have hoped for.  Tropical paradise, as unspoilt as it gets these days.  We even had the option of sleeping in hammocks on an uninhabited patch of sand and coconut palms.  The two Dutch girls travelling with us had a long conversation with YouYou about it.

Anna:       Is it going to rain?
YouYou:  It might, it's all part of the excitement!
Lieke:      But if it does, you will come and get us?
YouYou:  No, I will be asleep on the boat.
Anna:       Will Lorena come and get us?
YouYou:  No, she will be asleep too.
Lieke:      So who will come to get us?
YouYou:  No one will come to get you.
Anna:       But then we will get wet!
YouYou:  Yes.  Do you still want to go?

This went on for at least 20 minutes before they decided that yes, they did want to go, whereas the rest of us saw the lightning on the horizon as a good reason to stay below deck.  At 5:30am, after hours of tropical-strength rain, Lorena cracked and fetched them off the island, finding the girls shivering in their hammocks and cowering from the coconuts threatening to fall on their heads.






We arrived in Portobello on the sixth day of our voyage, thoroughly relaxed and enamoured with the Caribbean way of life.  Except Kizzy, who had spent the night looking green and throwing up having grown complacent with her seasickness medication regime.  Unfortunately that seems to have put paid to her enthusiasm for yachting back to the UK in 2013, but I figure I´ve got 8 months to work on her.



Portobello was beautiful in the sunshine, and sadly Kizzy and I didn´t take any photos there.  Hopefully we will get some from Selina soon.  Selina was a revelation when we hit port.  I have never met anyone who gets hit on as much as she does.  She is very pretty but even so, every man we met (and I mean every man - barring YouYou and myself, who were of course complete gentlemen) made a beeline for her and set about explaining their romanitc intentions towards her.  I don´t know if there was just something in the water in Panama (or the beer) but this happened in the San Blas, in Portobelo, on the bus, at the canal, and it was still going on when we left her in Panama City.  I felt a little sorry for the other 5 girls who were travelling about with us.

Have bathers, will travel

   We arrived in Cartagena at some silly time in the morning, very thankful to be ushered into our hostel room for more sleep.  We sweltered for three hours in temperatures that would be considered cruel and inhumane for livestock before heading out to find a passage to Panama.  We met Selina, a fellow Londoner (well, Essex girl, actually), and spent the next few days wandering around Cartagena and upsetting the port authorities by playing hide and seek among the sailing boats while scouting out a berth to Panama.  Evidently you can´t just turn up and look around, which made no sense to any of us so we did all we could to misunderstand the very clear instructions from the security guard.

   We looked at a couple of unsuitable boats (and unsuitable captains).  One of the skippers assured us that his boat was a naked boat.  We laughed this off but he kept on insisting and so we left and warned the girl running the Blue Sailing charter office that he might be a bit of a sleaze.  She took note and later we ran into her at the marina and found out Mr Naked was her boyfriend, which was a little awkward for all of us.

   Luckily we also found a beautiful 50 foot vagabond ketch, built for an ´80s TV show complete with pirate flag and dreadlocked Polish captain, YouYou.  Very excited at the prospect of 5 days in luxury and paradise we rewarded ourselves with a the best curry in South America before returning to our sauna of a hostel room for an evening of regretting our meal choice.

Kizzy was somewhat surprised to find herself a millionaire all of a sudden as we put together a truly unsuitable sum of money to pay a pirate for our passage.