Friday, March 30, 2007

Seasick in Paradise

After about a week in Panama City, I managed to get a hold of a Captain of a sailboat to take me to Colombia.

The sailboat, Irene, was 37 feet and had 7 passengers when we left the port of Portobelo in Panama. The crew consisted of the Captain, Humberto, 44, his first mate and girlfriend, Lady, of less than half his age, 21, and Humberto´s Nephew Juandavid, 20. Then there was myself and three people from France. At times it was a little frustrating as the crew would be in an indepth conversation in Spanish and the other three would be speaking in French. All but 2 people spoke English, however we did most of our communication in Spanish.

The first few days of the trip were wonderful, with the exception of the third night. The third night was the first night we spent sailing instead of anchored in a bay. Let´s just say dinner didn´t stay down.

We visited many of the San Blas Islands which are georgious, postcard-perfect, islands with white sand and terquoise water, just of the Carribean coast of Panama. They streach from just east of the Canal to Colombia. Most of the islands are scarcely or uninhabited and the only people living in the area are the Kuna, an indigenous tribe. The Kuna were granted the land by the Panamanian governement and essencially have total control over the area.

Snorkeling was a frequent activity and there were some beautiful reefs. I saw a manta ray that was roughly a meter and a half wide.

The last few days of the trip weren´t as nice for a couple reasons. For one I began to get a little sick of the crew they were fun but I couldn´t stand them after a while. Also, the trip was supposed to be 5 nights, six days. Instead it was 7 nights, 8 days. As well, the captain tried to get me to pay money that I wasn´t supposed to, then ended up ripping me off five dollars. He was even more stingey with the others. The only good thing about the extended trip was we got to sail in a beautiful catamaran and there were dolphins jumping all around us.

So here I am coke-capital of the world.

I´ll have to go do some exploring before I say anything else.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

benner... i think what your doing is completely ridiculously amazingly awesome.. keep up the good work... say hi to the colombians for me..

magni

Anonymous said...

hey benner, Rob dave mason sonja and i say HEY BABY!

stay safe in the coke capital

robs says "sorry I have e-mail i feel really guilty"

I say "i love you be safe"
dave says "go medium, I wish i could talk to goast thatd be SAWEET"

they are high and i am naked...

WE LOVE YOU

Anonymous said...

that was me shannon opps sorry

Anonymous said...

You weren't naked, I was right beside you. And what I really said was I'm sorry I have not emailed you and I feel terrible about it. with any luck I'll get to it tonight...it'll be a fatty.


Rob

Anonymous said...

Hey Ben

We hope you are having a great Easter Party.

We thought you would like to be part of Jay's Egg Hunt.

Don't worry, he has not eaten your Hippie Kraft Dinner.

Love
Mom and Dad

Anonymous said...

Ben! It´s Grace! Sooo you´re in Columbia you crazy kid! I´m in Bolivia right now...crazy crazy crazy. I guess we´re just not destined to meet in South America :-(. I actually am going to Peru though. But only for a couple days to go through to Chile so it doesn´t really count I guess. I guess you´re going home in a couple of weeks eh....it´ll be weird to be back. Anyways have an awesome rest of your trip...I get back in may so i´ll see you then!! xoxoxoxoxxox ps...we´re gonna party like it´s 1999!!!!! :-)