Young, Wild, and Free: Four Days in the San Blas Islands

I couldn't help waking up early Friday morning; I'd been looking forward to my voyage to Colombia on the Wild Card for months, having been my only real deadline on the trip thus far, and the day had finally arrived. Charlie, our captain, picked me up at the hostel shortly before 10 A.M., along with the two Germans I'd met the night before; Alyssa and Ana had arrived in Panama City the previous day, and had decided to catch the Wild Card almost on a whim. I'd enjoyed hearing stories of their various travels to Fiji and Australia the night before, along with sharing some of my own stories from the road and my previous trip to the Galapagos. Upon our arrival at the marina, I found the Twin lashed to the railing on the starboard bow, looking for all the world like some kind of huge, wheeled figurehead pointing the way forward. I couldn't help grinning; I'd done a lot of cool things with motorcycles in my life, but this was definitely high up the list.

"I'm on a boat!" -The Twin

I wasn't the only one amused by the whole thing; as my fellow passengers arrived, many of them seemed to get a kick out of it as well. My explanation of exactly how a big, American-plated motorcycle had made its way onto a boat casting off from Panama served as a good means of breaking the ice, and we were all soon sharing stories of our various travels while getting to know each other. In addition to Ana and Alyssa, there were six other Germans: Leonie and Bjorn, a young couple from Hamburg; Giesele and Wolfgang, a middle-aged couple from the Munich region, and two solo travelers, Ferdinand and Caro. Joanna and Bobby were the other two Americans, having met while on Peace Corps missions in neighboring Panamanian towns. Matthijis was another solo traveler from Amsterdam, and Yvonne and Jonas had come from Norway, newly engaged. There were three Australians: Paul and Katherine, a fun-loving married couple who'd traveled through many of the same countries I had, and Drew, a freelance electrician who spent as much of his spare time as possible traveling. Finally, Patricia was about to make Colombia #41 on her list of countries visited, including her native Portugal. We were a diverse group of travelers, and the fact that we all hit it off almost immediately only made me more excited for the five days to come.

After being shown down to our respective bunks, we pushed off from the dock around noon. I was in the starboard rear corner of the ship along with seven others, and while I had exactly zero room to sit up, I could at least fit in my bunk without banging my head on the wall or having to fold my legs up. The interior was a little tight, but the large windows gave it a paradoxically airy feel, and I never had to worry about hitting my head on the ceiling. Plus, there was plenty of space on the forward deck and on top of the cabin for us to lounge about while underway. Charlie gave us a short welcome and briefing as we sailed away from the port, explaining that we'd be reaching the first of the San Blas Islands in the late afternoon, anchoring overnight, and spending the next day in the water and on the beach. He also introduced the rest of our crew: Orinson, the first mate and our dinghy pilot between the boat and the islands; Manuel, the Venezuelan cook, whose food would become one of the highlights of the trip; Kyran, a South African around my age training for his First Mate's license; and Keenan, Charlie's 15 year-old son. Last but not least, there was Big Mac, Charlie's dog, who seemingly never turned down the chance to curl up on our laps while we lounged on the deck. We sailed out of Puerto Lindo and into the Caribbean in high spirits, snapping photos of the passing islands and the rain-dotted Panamanian coast, and excitedly leaning over the side to catch a glimpse of the pod of dolphins surfing on our bow waves. I couldn't resist a bit of clowning around on the bike, either:

Our first glimpse of the islands did not disappoint; picture your best desert island image of white sand and palm trees, and that's what we found. The San Blas is an archipelago of over 300 islands forming a semi-autonomous territory of Panama, first inhabited in the early 1900's by members of the indigenous Kuna fleeing oppression by the Panamanian government, and today boast a population of around 35,000 people divided among 49 inhabited islands.

We couldn't actually set foot on the islands until the next morning due to visitors to the San Blas requiring customs approval, but that didn't stop us from jumping in the warm, blue waters surrounding the islands. It had been a long time since I'd jumped into an ocean, and at least for the first day, I relished the knowledge that there was nothing underneath me for hundreds of feet, and the feeling of salt drying in my hair.

The next morning, five of us jumped the gun a little, diving off the side of the Wild Card and swimming to the shore of El Porvenir, the capitol of the San Blas. We found some of the whitest sand I've ever set foot on, crabs scuttling underfoot, and- a runway? Yep, turns out the San Blas do get shipments by plane, although the runway is barely long enough for single-engined planes to take off from. Wandering around the island a bit, we found the customs station where Charlie was waiting on our passports, and a small Panamanian coast guard outpost. After wandering around a bit, which was enough to cover nearly the entire island, we swam back to the boat for breakfast. After Charlie returned with our passports, we moved on to another island in the chain whose name I can't remember, surrounded by coral reefs visible from the surface through the incredibly clear water. We spent the rest of the day snorkeling, walking around the island, enjoying rum-enhanced coconuts cut straight from the palm trees overhead, and playing volleyball on the beach with some of the locals and a group of travelers from another boat following the same route we were, and as night fell, we ferried back in the Wild Card's dinghy for dinner, sunburned but happy.

The following day followed much the same format; we sailed onwards to another one of the islands, where we were visited by a group of Kuna locals selling clothes and souvenirs, dropped anchor, and did our best beach bum impressions; after spending nearly the whole morning in the water, marveling at the coral reefs, colorful fish, and the generally amazing biodiversity visible just beneath the water's surface, Manuel treated us to a lunch of barbecued pork and chicken that was indistinguishable from most Southern BBQ restaurants. I was grateful for the small connection to home, and for the overall excellent food Manuel was providing us throughout the trip; we'd had pasta carbonara, one of my favorite dishes, the first night of the voyage, and every meal thus far had been very tasty. Manuel also made a point of speaking Spanish to me, joking that I had to keep it up on the boat trip, lest I forget it all among the largely English conversation taking place among passengers (ironically, with nearly half the passengers hailing from Germany, I was speaking more German than I had in years). We spent the afternoon lounging in hammocks, trekking around the island, and playing volleyball on the beach, only stopping to watch the incredible sunset casting purple yellow colors across the sky. The evening brought a few twists; the first was the arrival of Geoff and his large catamaran. An Australian by birth, Geoff had spent years refurbishing and selling hurricane-damaged boats, keeping one of the better ones for himself, and was hopping around the San Blas joining up with the regular traveling boats like ours along the way; he was good friends with our crew, and welcomed us aboard with music, drinks, and a generally constant party atmosphere. The second was the bonfire the boats' crews had built on shore after we finished dinner. Combining the passengers and crew of the boat we'd met the previous day, we partied well into the night.

Monday, our third day in the islands, was a virtual repeat, although definitely lower-key; I think some of us were still feeling the after-effects of the previous day and night, and nearly everyone was in pain from sunburns; despite copious amounts of sunscreen, the sun in the islands was absolutely brutal, and we couldn't stay in direct light for more than a few minutes without feeling our skin getting hot. After another snorkeling expedition, this one yielding an enormous stingray and a lionfish among many other beautiful sights, I spent much of the afternoon relaxing in a hammock. Manuel had a special treat for our lunch, having prepared a large bacalao (grouper) caught that morning; it was some of the most tender and delicious fish I can remember ever eating. That night, we relaxed around another bonfire on the shore, lower-key than the previous night, before ending up on Jeff's boat and partying into the wee hours of the morning.

Tuesday was our day in transit; we still had to get to Cartagena by Wednesday morning, and we had a lot of ocean to cover. We hadn't spent a lot of time sailing in open water, and once we did, a small rainstorm blew up around us, whipping the seas into a rough state. I was immediately seasick, and after bumming some Dramamine off one of my fellow passengers, spent the majority of the afternoon asleep in my bunk; lying flat below deck was the only thing that alleviated the nausea I'd been feeling. Luckily, the seas calmed back down in the late afternoon, and I was able to spend the last few hours of daylight enjoying another beautiful sunset with my friends.

We pulled into Cartagena around 10:30 at night, actually ahead of schedule, and with the port nearly deserted, we were allowed off the boat to stretch our legs a bit on the docks. The port district looked quite nice by night, and we were happy to be back on solid ground, even if we couldn't leave the confines of the dock.

The first order of business the next morning was unloading the bike; our passports had been submitted to Immigration for approval and entry stamps so we still couldn't leave the port, but we could at least get everything ready to go. Using a rope connected to the anchor hoist, a series of ropes keeping the Twin balanced, and four of us guiding it, we slowly guided the heavy bike over the railing of the Wild Card, and onto South American soil for the first time. I'll confess to some extreme anxiety over the process, but it went surprisingly smooth.

I'd caught myself checking the bow of the ship all throughout the voyage just to reassure myself that the bike was still in place. It sounds stupid and paranoid, but I'd come to realize that throughout two months of solo travel, with my surroundings changing almost daily and not always knowing where I was going to be at any given time, the Twin had become one of the few real constants in my life. On some level, it was only a machine, but to me, it was a machine that had carried me through desert, mountains, forests, and swamps, had taken the brunt of an accident that could have seriously injured me, and hadn't missed a beat the whole way. I felt that as long as the Twin was alongside and running, everything would be right with my trip, and with the world.