i read a book a few months back called 'size of the world' by an american journalist named jeff greenwald who went around the world without flying back in the 90s sometime. i wasnt planning on doing that, but i was inspired to try and get from the usa to chile without flying. one of my problem points was the darien gap as there isnt any roads and so my usual bus method wasnt gonna work.
so, i found myself a boat.
had a 4hr rough early morning 4X4 trip out into kuna land to where my boat was anchored. the kuna are a fairly private autonomous indigenous nation about 30,000 that control a heap of land in northern panama, mainly the entire san blas archipelago. they were actually having a big meeting when we were going through to talk about whether or not they will continue to allow tourist boats through.
there was 15 of us (aus/israel/uk/german/switz and me not the only aussie) and 7 crew on the 40m german vessel stahlratte - www.stahlratte.org it was a former german punk boat and also did some time as one of greenpeace´s rainbow warriors. so interesting boat.
first day we headed down and anchored between these 3 small inhabitad islands, all of which you walk around in a couple of minutes. had a couple of days to do whatever. did some snorkelling which was really cool tummy scratching/reach out and touch sort of stuff, and saw a nice stingray with what seemed to me to be an unusually long tail. very cool though. checked out the islands and we had a sweet bbq/bonfire on one of them one night and then most of us hung around drinking and then swam back to the back under a very bright full moon. also went for a fair swim out to this tiny little island with about 3 palm trees which you could walk around in i reckon less than a minute. picture postcard stuff.
spent about 30hrs getting to colombia. wasnt a lot of wind so we couldnt sail proper and had to rely on a combo of motor and motorsailing. either way it was pretty cool to be bouncing along in the carribean under a full moon watching flying fish jumping around all over the place. am thinking not too many people get to do that in their lifetimes
the stahlratte was bigger and a little more expensive than what i was planning on taking, but it was so good i have no regrets; good food good people good fun.
also heard some very funny stories from these yanks that took another boat at a similar time: their captain was drunk and they had to steer the boat, by sight as none of the systems were working; the ran out of food and water; there was a family of illegal immigrants on board; and to top it all off the captain had the wrong immigration forms and they had to wait in the harbour for a day or two until it was sorted out.
so yes very happy with the stahlratte!
also good to meet some people heading the same direction as me. if time and money permitted i would have definetly been up for a 6 day trek to the lost city further up the coast with tripp and jake, or a sure-to-be-very-interesting mission through the guianas then down into brazil and back to colombia with chris and joel; but probably not up for cycling around south america with jeff for the next two years (he has already been cycling 14 months-around canada then down) crazy man.
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