08/08 Day One on the Boat.

Recap..... This is going to be a working blog, most of which done in retrograde, with posts being added to and updated from time to time as we remember stuff. I apologise for the sometimes boring prose and other times note form, but let's face it, hannah and I are having way too much fun travelling.
Also, most of my permitted 'iPhone time' is taken up checking mcfc news, emails and facebook. In that order. So updates will perhaps not be as regular as we'd like.

Ok, so halfway thru our trip we decide to start writing some things down. Presently Hannah and I are sailing from Puerto Lindo, Panamá to Cartagena, Colombia.
We have spent 3 months travelling already which began in Havana, Cuba. From there we travelled through México, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and then into Panamá where we started out in Bocas del Toro - this is where they had also recently been tracking a couple of serial killers. Great.... We didn't notice much of a shady vibe while we were there, in fact most others knew nothing about it.


We arrived at Hostel Wunderbar from Panama City yesterday to say goodbye to Central América. This was the place where they organised the yacht trips to San Blas and beyond.

The hostal was full of Panama to/from Colombia folk, some had just done the trip in reverse and were relaying some of their less fond experiences of the voyage.

Hannah and I were on the 50ft Seeadler (sea eagle) complete with 7 other travellers, 5 motorbikes, and a crazy (but just the right amount of crazy) German captain called guido.

Luckily, all the crew were great, and everyone got on right from the off.

There were 2 yanks, Darren and Jamie from Vermont,
2 'grand dad' bikers, also from the states - patrick and steve, or more affectionately, grand dad and ropes (Steve had 7 year dreadlocks),
And 3 more bikers, two of which were kiwi's and had been riding from Canada, and were going all the way to southernmost Argentina. Wow. Rob the bearded American had joined craig and josh in Mexico, he was from Portland, and he was cruising down to Lima, Peru where he would start a new job.

The other boat, Iliki, with which we'd be sailing alongside and sharing some meals with when we were in land, was almost exclusively german. And most were couples. Although they weren't all XX/XY couples.


We set sail after breakfast. But more like 10 than 8 as planned. A day of sailing should have seen us all the way to our first San Blas archipelago islet but we left too late to get all the way in as planned - Because of the surrounding reefs it's too dangerous in low light. And tonight is a New Moon. Absolute darkness as of about 7pm.

Instead we anchor down and go for a swim in the open sea for half an hour before we ate on the boat.

Here is our crazy skipper...

Location:Puerto Lindo, Panama