Cruising the San Blas Islands

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The trip started from Panama City. A city known for its canal, canal and its canal. Yes, there isn’t much excitement in Panama City. I’m sure some people will disagree, but I didn’t find it the best of places. The old quarter is actually being renovated and it’s looking rather nice there now. Some nice colonial buildings give the area some character. The rest of Panama is just a big sweaty city with, did I mention a canal?

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The Panama Canal is impressive. No two ways about it, it’s one of man’s great achievements, and goes to show what we can achieve when we put our minds to it. We’ve certainly come a long way since our hunter-gatherer days. The canal is 77km waterway that connects the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. France actually started work on it in 1881, but due to technical difficulties and a high mortality rate, they gave up.

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The United States then took over work and completed the canal by 1914. It takes between 6-8 hours to pass through the canal, and since it opened there has been a staggering 334 million vessels cut through the Panama Canal. I went for a few hours to see it in operation, and it might not be the most exciting thing to watch, but it is a very impressive piece off engineering.

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I left the smog of Panama City for a five-day crossing from Panama to Cartagena, Colombia. Three days cruising through the idyllic San Blas Islands before a 36 hour crossing across to Colombia. I had my boat booked and I was ready for the life.

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Idyllic is quite a stereotypical word to use for tropical islands, but if there is ever a word more suited to the San Blas Islands, its idyllic. They comprise of about 350 islands off the coast of mainland Panama and stretch down to the border of Colombia. About only 40 are inhabited, but only by the local Guna people.

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Hispanic Panamanians are not allowed to live on these islands, and no tourist is allowed to sleep there. There are no hotels on the islands and one has to stay on the boat you’re cruising in. It’s a hard life at times. Anyway, I spent 3 days with my newest group of friends cruising and seeing these amazingly idyllic islands, fishing for dinner, snorkeling and swimming to islands, some big enough to host only one tree. A coconut tree of course.

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I’ve been to many a tropical island and this archipelago are as nice as any I’ve seen. Crystal clear, turquoise water laps up onto every white powdered beach on every one of the San Blas’ islands. Sometimes it’s difficult not to sound stereotypical but to spend three days cruising these islands, leaving my temporary footprint on every little beach skipping over the unhinged broken coconut shells and carefree starfishes, it really is the life.

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After leaving the San Blas behind we set sail for a 36-hour crossing over to Cartagena. There were 12 of us on the boat and we all enjoyed sitting on the deck chatting, drinking beers and eating the most delectable lobster, while we sped across the Caribbean to Cartagena. Where we all finally entered Colombia to go off on our ways. I’ll save writing about Cartagena until I write about Colombia, because this journey is really all about the idyllic San Blas Islands. I recommend.

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