Dodging the Darien: Stormy Seas

After a long, hot night in the sticky sauna of our cabin, we awoke to a different world from that which we had departed the previous evening. The sea was a still, oily mass of deep, clear blue, and on the horizon the sea merged seemlessly with the sky, to the point where we could have been floating through it (this sounds over exagerated or romanticised but wait until you see the photos). But the stillness was not to last as stormy seas approached.

The morning also marked the beginning of Johan's 30th birthday and smiley faced yellow balloons were put up all over the boat in anticipation of the evening's pirate party. As days go the majority of ours passed with few events, people lying bathing everywhere like the plague had hit, books being read, and the preparations for dinner. Thus far nobody had been able to shower in anything other than salt water and after a sticky night's sleep everyone was hoping for a shower. A shower us what we got.

As the sun began to set on deck, and the smells of cooking wafted up from below, black clouds formed on the horizon in every direction. Captain Guido, a genuinely insane Bavarian with many years experience began to look uneasy, lowering the sails and generally tinkering with a sense of urgency. Our Westward course was quickly changed to that of Southwest, before changing to Northwest as one dominating wall of black matched our course. Donned in pirate gear for the now dissipating Pirate Party, there was a mixed sense of both excitement and nervousness as the impending blackness closed in. A hard rain began to fall (also providing a well received shower!) and the boat rose and crashed back down into the sea. After a tension filled 20 minutes it became clear that we had managed to clip the edge of the storm, constantly flickering with flashes of lightning, and the mood began to lighten. The party had been pretty much washed out but the night had been far from dull.

Gradually people had begun to slip off to their respective cabins, and Johan and I settled on the deck for nightwatch, continually watching out for another storm cloud. When leaving Cartagena, Guido, the captain, had been warned about a Tropical Wave that would be heading along his usual route and had amended his course to avoid it. On the horizon to our right (the usual route) we watched the sky light up with extreme regularity and vivacity, thankful that we were on our amended course, while discussing music and pointing out cloud shapes (including Papa Smurf, a cow's head and an uncanny crocodile). In the heat of one debate on whether a cloud to our left looked like a nuclear fall out mushroom cloud or a lightbulb (with realistic flashy lightning), the captain came out and asked which direction the large black monster dead ahead in front of us was going. "it's not really moving much" I stammered in reply to his question of which I did not really know the answer to. In our haste to watch the exciting clouds all around us we had omitted to notice the impending darkness creeping right in our direction. As the black wall approached us, the usually warm wind blew cold and the waves grew harsh around us. Once again the captain redirected the boat to the north, but this time it was not enough to avoid the storm, and soon lightning was crashing all around us in the dense blackness that had swallowed us. With the boat moving at around 4 knots, which more or less equates to the speed of running our chances of avoiding it were always slim (have you ever managed to out manouver a storm on foot?) and it was to much relief when we cleared the storm with little incident. The next morning we would awaken to the paradisical San Blas and would have effectively passed the Darien Gap.

As mentioned in my previous blog, the Darien Gap is a vast roadless expanse of forest and marshland lying between Panama and Columbia. Although there are a few accounts of people passing through the Darien, it is as uncommon as it is dangerous. In addition to the natural impassability (boggy mashes clad with Mosquitos, surging rivers stretching for miles across your patch etc.) the population of the gap is almost solely cocaine traffickers and Columbian guerillas, neither of which being known for their warm hospitality when encountered (unless you count the fact that both may strongly insist on you staying with them for a while!).

For that reason stormy Caribbean seas, were nothing but a minor inconvenience in comparison to the alternative. All that was left for us to encounter was the palm fronged islands of paradise before the second leg of our journey began.