Let me start by saying sailing with Wild Card is one of the best things we've done on his trip. We had the most amazing time.
Meeting at the public dock at 5pm, the thirteen of us got a lift to the lovely pale blue Wild Card boat. We sat on the deck for a quick briefing of what to expect, were designated our beds (Tom and I got the only private room - result!) and went back up on deck to watch the sun go down over Portobelo, which looks a lot prettier from the ocean than it does from within the town!
We had a delicious supper cooked by resident Aussie chef Sophie, and set sail around 9pm. We lay on the deck as the stars came out, and headed out into the ocean which was sporadically lit up by far-off lightning strikes. Out in the open water a few of us (myself included) were lucky enough to see our spaghetti bolognese for a second time, so in an effort to try and overcome the sea sickness most had an early night.
We woke up in the morning to beautifully calm ocean, and the most idyllic little islands I've ever seen. Like something from a movie, the hundreds of little land masses were comprised of sparkling white sand, text book palm trees and crystal clear waters. Sadly it was raining, but we'd been expecting this what with it being the wet season. Our captain Charlie joked that once we'd paid our visitors´ tax to the indigenous local Kuna people, the sun would come out. But sure enough no sooner had Charlie returned from dropping our $20 off at the 'office' the sun broke through and we only had a couple more showers in the whole five days of sailing!
The first three days were filled by swimming, snorkelling and visiting various of the tiny islands, all of which were breathtakingly beautiful and home to just one or two local families. The Kuna people were wonderfully friendly and accommodating, and it was fascinating to see how they went about their daily life totally separated from the rest of Panama, with their own beliefs, expertise and ways of life.
The snorkelling was also fantastic - you cannot dive in San Blas due to protective laws and as a result the underwater world is in fabulous condition. We played beach volleyball and drank coco locos (coconuts freshly plucked from the trees topped up with a bit of rum) as the sun went down. The whole thing was totally surreal.
We then had two nights and one full day on the open ocean as we left San Blas and headed for Cartagena. This was obviously the less pleasant part of the journey, with it being extremely hard to get around the boat without falling over and very hard to eat anything without it coming straight back up. But as we say with every part of our journey that is a bit of a challenge - it's all part of the adventure!
We arrived into Cartagena as the sun was rising, and by then we were all very ready to be on steady ground. Passengers and luggage got ferried to land first, followed by the five bicycles and our motorbike. All went without a hitch and we breathed a sigh of relief when, after ten minutes of relentless kickstarting, the bike came back to life.
I took all our stuff to the hostel while Tom went to the Aduana to get our temporary import permit - just as they went on a two-hour lunchbreak, and after which he had to spend three hours going around the city looking for motorbike insurance, which wasn´t the best way to end our wonderful journey between Central and South America but nevertheless we had made it and were so excited to get going on this second part of our journey.