Dodging the Darien: Sailing from South America

The day had come, the journey split into two legs was about to reach the end of its first. The sun blazed down onto the Cartagena docks; sweat dripped down our faces as we carried the sum total of our travel posessions onto 'Seeadler', the three sailed boat that was to take us to Panama. As will be addressed in the second section of 'Dodging the Darien', although South and Central America are connected by land, the Darien Gap is an impassable mass of jungle and the only real way to pass between the two is via air or sea. As air would break my overland plans, the Caribbean Sea would have to provide my passage.

After loading up our stuff onto the boat and collecting provisions (Rum) for the journey, we set sail for Central America. From Rio to Cartagena through South America had taken 6 months at a lethargic pace, and had had many highs and lows in multiple senses of the word. As the boat slipped away from the slowly disappearing coastline of Cartagena the high spirits on board barely hid the pensive mood of each person reflecting on their own journey. For one or two on board this marked the last leg of their own adventure, but for all this provided an obvious point to look back over people they had met and places they had been. For me this had been one of great contrast: travelling alone and as a couple; sipping cocktails against the backdrop of a setting sun at the seaside and standing in awe under the dominating presence of cracking glaciers; Sandboarding down dunes in the middle of the desert and standing on top of the world just under 5000 above sea level (just under 2/3rds of the way up Everest); Standing alone in a landscape of Patagonian nothingness and partying in heaving crowds of Argentinians in Buenos Aires and Rosario. In fact there is so much I could list that this could go on for a very long while.

Sitting on the boat pensively, as the waves lapped against the hasteless vessel, I also sat wishing that I could know how many of the many miles I had travelled, how many hours I had spent in in transit (at an aroundabout guess it's 500 hours or 20 full days), which doesn't necessarily make that much difference but is still nevertheless interesting, quantitatively measuring the last six months of my life. On these travels my life had become our life, as two and a half months had been 24/7 with Emily, which in relationship terms of time spent together likely equates to just under a year. In fact in a recent conversation we worked out that we had never spent more than 6 hours apart since setting off from Cuzco in early August.

Hours passed and the sun set spectacularly over the sea, which surrounded us as far as we were able to see. The oval shaped moon shone fleetingly off the otherwise black waves and we began to settle into the routine of being on the boat, which was a necessity since we had 48 straight sailing before reaching the San Blas Islands. A few hours after sunset the captain's autopilot began to play up and I, while the autopilot was being fixed, was given the task of steering the boat due west for three hours before settling down with my new buddy Johan (a dutch guy who I paired up with from the off) to do four hours of nightwatch. Emily had begun to feel seasick, slipping off to a sleepy slumber in the baking cabin below, while Johan and I sat at the stern of the boat playing guitar, and singing whatever maritime themed songs came to mind. 2am came as the moon set below the water, encompassing the world into a shroud of utter blackness, and we were replaced by the next nightshift before slipping away into our own bouts of darkness.