Come and sail with us to Colombia and the San Blas islands in Panama. We will spend more than 5 months in the region and we would love to have guests onboard from all over the world. Regardless if you are a sailor, Kite surfer, diver or a traveller you are most welcome to come and sail with us.
With the summer comes also hurricanes in the Caribbean, this season is best spent outside the hurricane belt in a place that statistic never has ben struck by a hurricane. Many sailors choose to go to the southeast part of the Caribbean to places such as Venezuela, ABC islands or Trinidad Tobago. We have decided to seek shelter more to the west and spend the summer cruising around the famous San Blas islands, coast of Panama and Colombia.
The plan is to stay in the area for at least a couple of months before it´s time to take the Panama Canal over to the Pacific Ocean- this will probably happen around September/October.
During this time we would love to have guests onboard from all over the world. Regardless if you are a sailor, Kite surfer, diver or a traveller you are most welcome to come and sail with us.
We have three rooms available onboard and you can choose to stay with us for a week or more.
A little bit about the main destinations during the summer 2014:
We wont have any exact travel plans with departure and arrival dates but what we do know is that we will cruise these areas for a couple of months. We will adapt our plans as well as we can so it suits our guests.
The San Blas Islands
We have not yet been in this group of over 340 islands outside the Panama´s eastern coast. This region is home to the Kuna Indians and even if the area is under Panama flag it is controlled by the Kunas. We have heard this place is suppose to be fantastic and will offer us many beautiful islands to anchor at – both with and without people on them.
We will really take our time and explore this place, both the nature and the Kuna Indians and their culture.
The whole region is surrounded with reefs so it should be superb for fishing, diving and snorkeling.
The rainy season starts in June and will last to November so we should expect heavy rain together suddenly wind strong winds now and then but normally it is small local weather system that passes rather quick.
Mainland – Panama
Even if we are planning to spend most of our time in the San Blas region we will also probably do some cruising along the rest of the Panama coastline. The region is fairly big and stretches all the way from Costa Rica to Colombia so I am sure it will give us many good experiences, memories and stories.
Colombia – Cartagena
Again- we have never been to Colombia before, but what we have been reading about Cartagena is that it is suppose to be one of the most beautiful cities in America, so we are full of expatiations.
Cartagena will be our first destination in Colombia and also the place where we will clear customs and immigration. According to our books the procedure seems a bit complicated but I guess we will know after our first “check in”.
We will probably spend a couple of days in the city of Cartagena before we continue our cruise around the Colombian archipelago. We won’t cruise the whole coast but we will for sure see a couple of interesting places before we head back to The San Blas islands.
The distance from the San Blas islands to Cartagena is only 200 nm but we will probably have the wind against us so it will be a bumpy slow ride.
The sail back to Panama should be a lot more comfortable so this is a better alternative if you are looking for an easy life!
More details:
Diving and snorkeling
Onboard the boat we do have two complete sets of dive equipment, 4 dive bottles and a dive compressor so that we can fill up air wherever we are. This gives us the total freedom to screw around under the water wherever we are and for how long we want.
We do also have 4 sets of snorkeling equipment onboard but keep in mind that both me and Anna are pretty small so if you have big feet’s you have to bring your own equipment,
If you are not a licensed diver we can take you under water anyway and do a what they call a “discovery dive” according to Padi regulations.
Cost/ Contribution for diving:
20 euro per dive including equipment
5 euro/ dive to borrow and refill of the tanks- if you have your own equipment
Fishing
We love the nature and all the animals in it, but we also need to eat and we are not vegetarians so we do fish a lot. Onboard you will find both spear guns and normal fishing gears. Feel free to borrow what ever you want on a “you break you pay” basis.
About sailing
We will not do any full on charter so everyone onboard must help out with basic duties such as cooking, cleaning, food shopping and if you are up for it also sailing.
You don’t need to know anything about sailing or boats to sail with us, some people just want to enjoy the environment and see new places, others want to sail or learn how to sail and for us all of you are welcome onboard.
One of the best advantages with traveling with a sailing boat is that we have the opportunity to get to places where it is normally not possible to travel to. We can go to more remote places without having to think about ferries, busses, finding a roof for the night and other things that you normally have to think of while traveling.
Another good thing is that if we are not happy with a place we will just move on, as long as the captain and the majority of the boat feels the same.
But there is also a couple of downsides when you are traveling with a sailing boat. One of the biggest is that instead of roads we will have to adapt our travel routes to wind, currents and weather. Sometimes the winds are fast and sometimes they are slow or there is none at all, sometimes it is just not possible to sail the planned direction so anyone traveling with us or any other sailing boat should not be in stress!
Costs
As we mentioned above we are not doing this on a “business” level. We are travelers and our goal is to sail around the world during the following years. Along our long journey we will invite people from all over the world to sail with us and are asking in return for a small contribution to the boat so that we can do repairs and maintenance along our way.
Above the contribution to the boat we will split all running costs such as diesel, cooking gas, food, marinas and check in fees. This cost varies form crew to crew. Some chooses a low budget and some wants to spend a bit more. Normally we stay on anchor and avoid staying in marinas to keep the cost as low as possible. This we will have to decide before we set of together.
Contribution cost for a weeks sailing with us: 300 euro
Contact us by email at any time. Keep in mind that it is sometimes hard for us to find a working Internet connection so be patient!
//Daniel & Anna and our dog Vera
Hi.
I am a danish kitesurferinstructor ( IKO level 2 senior ). This year I was 3 month in Cartagena arear.
Great kitesurfing. ( the main season is from December to mid April )
I am having a kiteschool in Denmark so I would have to stay until mid September in Denmark.
When you go to the Pacific in September, what is your plans from there ?
Morten
Hi Morten!
Our plans for the Pacific is at this moment just plans, not written in stone! I guess we will sail the Panama Canal sometime in September/ October. Because of the Cyclone season on the Pacific side we will have to “kill time” and cruise around a little bit around Panama, Costa Rica and Ecuador before we set of to the Marquises via the Galapagos Islands .
We will try to be one of the first boats that starts the crossing so that we will have as much time as possible in the South Pacific.
//Daniel