Ah, the high seas! Or the fairly quiet seas, if you go by our journey. It started inauspiciously. We'd got our hostel to book the jeep which would take us from Panama City to Carti (where the ship was leaving), they said it would be there at 5.30 Saturday morning. So me, Nick and three other people- turns out they would be on the boat with us- were waiting patiently on Saturday, when the jeep turned up. To pick up the three people it had reserved. And that jeep would be full, so no room for others. Oops. We spent about 10-15 minutes trying to sort things out, as somewhere along the way something had gone awry. As the receptionist was on the phone to another person to try and get them to come pick us up, a second jeep arrived from a different company entirely- turns out that one was for us- no one at the hostel thought it would be useful to tell anyone (us, other staff…) which company would be for which people, which made for a tense start to the day.

After our jeep had been driving for maybe half an hour it pulled up into the parking lot of a shopping mall where there was a tourist office open for business. Everyone had to jump out and get to the office- where there were a couple dozen other people- and have a lady tell us that we all needed to make sure we booked our accommodation on the San Blas Islands at least 24 hours in advance, the return jeep trip would be $50US and we had to keep our wristbands to make sure we could get back on the jeep. After this inspiring talk (oh god, were we even at the right place? Were we going in the right direction? Would we make it in time??!!) we went up to the lady and explained we weren't planning to stay on the islands, or come back and all we wanted was a one way ride to Carti. She said that was fine and we wouldn't need wristbands. And that the price was US$30, not the $25 our hostel had told us. Dammit.

Anyway after a couple hours driving we pulled up at a tiny river jetty where all the other jeeps were, also the 3 English people from our hostel that morning. They were going from there along the river to the ship, but we were carrying on by jeep into Carti to get on the ship. Confusing what?! With not much hope that things would work out any time soon me and Nick carried on in the jeep a few minutes down the road to an ocean port- we'd arrived in Carti. Our driver told one of the locals we needed a ride out to the Independence, we grabbed our backpacks, paid the fee and jumped on a panga boat which took us straight out.

The boat was lovely, as far as they go (not being an expert all I can comment on is what I think it's like…). There were going to be 11 people onboard, also 4 crew. Crew had their own cabins and we were split 3 to a cabin--somehow me & Nick had the biggest one, think it was maybe like a second living room as there was a tv, a bar (empty) and generally a lot more space than the others. We were sharing with Marcos, a German who had brought his motorbike with him from Germany and was heading to Colombia for a while. Fun times. Eventually the others all arrived from that river jetty part, and we set sail for the immigration island to get stamped out of Panama. While Captain Michele was off doing that, the rest of us decided to test the waters by swimming round the boat a few times- the locals paddled out in their canoes to try and sell us bracelets etc but we were all too busy enjoying the water.

On a side note, Capt Michele is a nutter! Over the next 5 days we learned that petroleum actually came from Venus on spaceships (and is running out); a lot of the world's history is a conspiracy; he's the most famous man in Slovenia (where he's from) because he lives on a ship and it's a land locked country; and he generally only employs female crew because the men have too much testosterone and will eventually try to mutiny. Good sailing skills, and excellent to talk to (or be talked at) for those few days.

The rest of that day and the next two were spent island hopping through the San Blas Islands, sailing for a bit to the next lagoon where we'd have lunch, then spend the afternoon on the kayak, with the snorkel gear or just with floaties. There were islands to explore including on the last day at the islands, one tiny one which had two coconut trees on it- the perfect marooning island. Our second night was a beach barbeque, heading into Elephant Island (still no explanation) where Julia and Carl Luis cooked fresh fish on the open fire. Delicious!

Our third evening we were due to start the probably non-stop open sea trek to Cartagena somewhere around midnight, getting into the port early hours of the next next day (day 5). Not to be. In the afternoon we were anchored in a lovely lagoon surrounded by islands when we saw dolphins! Beautiful creatures. I jumped in to see if I could get closer, and the b*****s swam away. Later in the afternoon Mike and Seamus were in the kayak when the dolphins came back- while a couple of the guys on the boat were watching them, they noticed over on the far horizon a tornado coming down from the sky- wheeeee. We all started 'Oooohhing' and 'Aaaahing' for a while, trying to get photos of the storm and tornado, when Captain Michele came up and said we'd start sailing earlier, soon after dinner. The storm was the opposite way from where we were going, but we were surrounded by reefs which could be tricky and if the winds from the storm did manage to reach us, he wanted to be past the reefs by then. So dinner around 5, and we set off by about 7.

We sailed through the night and most of the following day, it's amazing how quickly you lose sight of land and just become completely surrounded by water. During the sail day dolphins again reappeared and stayed near us for quite a while, there was even a white one swimming around. After lunch we did stop for half an hour or so, so we could go for a swim if we wanted (open sea, deep water….of course we did!). Then again it was full tilt, a whopping 7 knots per hour, towards Cartagena. We would roughly be arriving about 10pm or so but wouldn't be able to get off the boat until daylight but that was all good. During the evening a cruise ship or something went past a couple of kms away, looked pretty impressive with all the lights shining away. I'd taken a sea sick tablet just in case which I think doubles as a sleepy pill as I was knackered, so went to bed soon after seeing the lights of Colombia in the distance. Welcome back to South America!

In the morning Julia woke us all up for an early breakfast of pancakes (woohoo), then we packed up the dingy and motored to the dock. Michele had told us to take taxis to immigration (there's nothing on the wharf, literally if you arrived by ship you could just wander in to the city, stay a year, and leave again by ship and they'd never know. Drug smuggling anyone?!). At immigration our passports were stamped with minimal fuss- maybe they could go to the Costa Rica/Panama border and train them??!- and we were let loose on the city. Our boat trip was at and end. Fun as it had been and while I did enjoy it, it also re-reconfirmed I'm not the sort of person who would be thrilled to live on a ship.

But for now, we're in Cartagena, a lovely city and will be here a few days before heading for Bogota.... tough life!