The San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama have been one of the highlights of our trip so far. We started from Panama City on Christmas Day and landed in Cartagena, Colombia five days later ready to ring in the New Year. We booked the Independence boat through Mamallena Hostel.An 81 foot, 53 year old boat with an amazing crew and a fucking psycho for a Captain. We sailed to one or two islands per day and survived a hideously choppy 32-hour open water crossing to eventually land in Cartagena.
We have added a couple of little stories between the photos in this post. So read them if you want an idea of what it was really like on the tour :)
THE ISLANDS
Each island is just a tiny speck of land peppered with palm trees, so small that you would assume they were uninhabited. However the most wonderful people live on these islands, the Kuna people. The women were dressed wonderfully with layers and layers of beautiful beaded jewellery. The men were kind enough to converse with us in our terrible Spanglish, telling us how long they had lived on their home island. They made bonfires fuelled from dried palm leaves and skilfully cracked our fresh coconuts for us. Some days we snorkelled around the islands spotting large, vibrant shells, colourful crabs and tirds of starfish. Interesting fact, a group of starfish is called a tird... what a terrible name for such a cute creature.
THE CAPTAIN
During the Captain's introduction to the vessel, it became clear to us that his biggest concern was the possibility of a mishap involving the loo pipes. He went on to specify the acceptable length and shape of a shit, and how we must be careful not to put anything else (besides shit) into the toilet, and if we were to disobey this rule, that we would be knee deep in said shit. The shit stories were followed up by vomit stories, warning us to check the direction of the wind before having a vom so as not to splash other patrons downwind. It must have been the grotesque-ness of the vomit story that reminded him of another shit story, and so the horrifying anecdotes continued.
On the first day we noticed a beautiful girl with a killer body suddenly joining our tour. Kassandra had overheard the crew address her as Candy. She hadn't introduced herself to any of the guests on the boat and she seemed to appear out of nowhere. While we leisurely threw a ball to one another in the water, she flounced about in the shallows on her own. We wondered who this mystical creature was. We were later informed that she was a prostitute, hired for the duration of the trip by the Captain.
The guy stayed in his special little Captain's room for the most part of the journey. He emerged only to steer the boat for unfairly short shifts (while listening to Rammstein on his iPod) to repeatedly ask all guests on the boat how they liked the food, and to bark orders at the underpaid crew. We were later told by the crew members what was contained in his little pad-locked-to-the-extreme abode. Apparently Captain Freak is a fan of weaponry and is the proud owner of a shotgun and a collection of samurai swords. He also keeps large amounts of US currency in there as he doesn't use a bank.
Admittedly, the collection of shotguns and samurai swords was only hearsay. But we do know one thing that he hoarded in that festy little room. Drinking water. Captain Weirdo rationed the drinking water to the patrons. On one night, we had been partying until about midnight and before bedtime, noticed there was no water available. Our Aussie friend bravely knocked on the Captain's door to be greeted by a starkers Captain Creepy, who proceeded to yell something along the lines of, "How dare you disturb me! You want to party, fine! But don't you dare knock on my door!" The exact words are fuzzy in our memory but the final line is for certain, Captain Agro yelled "FUCK YO ASS!", throwing a 4L bottle of water out of his door.
Ever wondered where Candy was at this point? We never saw her after that first day. She had decided to bail. Smart girl.
THE CREW
These stories just added to the experience in a positive way, and kept us laughing and joking for the duration of the trip. So the Captain was a dick, but the crew were phenomenal. We requested vegan meals and while we expected rice and beans morning and night, the cook smashed out generous portions of delicious veggie soups, stews, pastas etc. The First Mate leapt about the boat, helping out in anyway he could, driving us to the islands, helping us sneak onto the deck to sleep (Captain Shithead wouldn't allow it), handing out snorkel gear and diving down to cut the buoy rope when Captain Incompetent got the propeller caught in it.
THE SONG
One of our talented friends from the tour wrote a song about our adventure. Do yourself a favour and listen to the lyrics. Joe managed to perfectly depict our amazing journey, even featuring the Captain's dirty habits. What a talent!
THE ENDING
The last image of this post illustrate what was to be the Independence's terrible fate. The images were emailed to us by the First Mate just two weeks after our tour. Apparently Captain Dickhead has more to worry about than a mis-shaped turd getting stuck in the dunny pipes. USD bills are waterproof, right?
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