Puking over boats and the blue lagoon

Somehow through our endless charm and badgering Sarah and i convinced Annie to come with us on our boat trip to Panama. She was originally going south and flying out of bogota for Buenos aires, so it was a big deal for her to be going the opposite way. Though all we really had to do was show her some pictures of the Sanblas islands, which I would recommend for you to look up online right now. Take note you may drool and then be filled with a raging jealousy.

We carted ourselves back to cartagena and hung out there for a few days arranging our boat trip with the "Hard Winer" (not a typo...i myself thought it was meant to be hard winner), owned by Henrik the danish captain. On the 7th we said our goodbyes to colombia and excitedly climbed aboard the large trimaran for a 5 day cruise to Panama.

The players
Sarah, Annie, and myself
Ben P from Australia
Ben C, Jess, and Nate from Canada
German one and German two, unnamed and possibly in the porn industry
Stretch (casimir) from the Netherlands
Janna from Germany
The captain Henrik, Denmark
Armin, 1st mate from Germany
Raisa, the cook and Henrik's girlfriend from Venezuela

All in all, we were a good group. Everybody was nice and laid back, although the german guys kept to themselves and actually ended up leaving a day early. I never saw them more happy than when they were hefting their huge rolling suitcases onto a tiny dinghy and waving goodbye to us. It took awhile for everybody to warm up to each other, although whether this was from everybody being seasick during the first 36 hours of sailing or because we all started in small subgroups as it was, I'm not sure.

The first few days were quiet on the boat. We were sailing in open waters, and I felt a little nervous looking out and seeing nothing but water. I lay still for most of those 36 hours because even with seasickness tablets I felt a bit queasy sitting up or moving at all. Ben P caught a fresh tuna fish and Henrik made us sashimi (delish!) and I watched sarah violently puke over the side of the boat. Repeatedly.

But the islands themselves were a-ma-zing. They are the closest thing I've seen to sheer, untouched paradise! We were landing on tiny little islands that you could walk around in 5 minutes with nothing more than some foliage and a some lone palm trees. All the water was an intense shade of blue, and completely crystal clear. I could seriously float about and look down to see my toes clearly! These islands were straight out of The Blue Lagoon, and after a few days I fancied myself a bit like brooke shields (hah! i wish!) with all that salt in my tangly hair and a raging tan to boot. We spent three days navigating the islands and doing things like going for swims, cracking up coconuts, having bbqs on the beach, and eating fresh caught shark/octopus/conch. Janna and I even swam to one of the nearby islands, although it was one of those weird optical illusions that made the second island seem really close, so halfway there I looked up and cursed myself when i realized i was then really far from the boat AND the island and had no choice but to continue swimming.

We spent our last night on a large, windy island that housed 2 or 3 Kuna indian families. It was fascinating to get a glimpse into their way of life, and I fell in love with the style of dress all of the women embraced. They sew special brightly patterned textiles called "mulas" (unsure of my spelling on that one), and each woman would wear one tightly around the waist in combination with mismatched print on another brightly patterned print until somehow it just worked.