A chartered sailboat from Colombia to paradise passes through the eye of the storm.

by Kitt Doucette

Just beyond the bored security guard, through an unmarked sheet-metal door, is the Club Naútico Cartagena in Colombia. A few plastic chairs surround grimy tables underneath a sagging gray tarp. Spare engine parts reeking of diesel are stacked against a back fence, and a wilting inflatable dinghy wears a for-sale sign. I’m sweating profusely in the equatorial heat. Eyeing the various boats in their slips, I pretend I’m here for official business, as locals repeatedly try to sell me the country’s most famous export.

I am looking to broker a deal, but not that kind. On the advice of a trusted friend with a taste for adventure, I’m here looking for a lift to the San Blas Islands, 180 nautical miles southwest across the Caribbean Sea.

“All you have to do is show up at the Club Naútico with a flexible schedule and a little cash,” my friend Drew explained to me a few weeks earlier. “The San Blas Islands will blow you away. It’s an amazing trip and worth the leap of faith.” Drew is one of those travelers who always seems to be one step ahead of everybody else, discovering places and journeys years before they become spoiled. After talking my twin brother and frequent travel partner, Cody, into joining me, all we had to do was convince our loved ones it was perfectly safe.

Remnants of Colombia’s drug trade are everywhere. Confiscated smuggling submarines line the shore, and harbor police patrol the area in tricked-out cigarette boats with chrome mufflers — leftover bounty from the War on Drugs. These days, however, Cartagena is ripe for tourism. It’s beautiful, its people are friendly, the nightlife scene is becoming a travel-section staple, and it’s still cheap. Since security has improved over the last 10 years, Colombia has become the go-to spot in South America, and tourism seems to be the country’s new drug of choice.

But the San Blas Islands couldn’t feel further away from all that. The archipelago consists of nearly 400 Caribbean islands off the northern coast of Panama. One of the reasons it’s somewhat difficult to access is the Darién Gap (see map) — a largely roadless swath of jungle between Central and South America, inhabited by outlaws and suicidal missionaries, that makes travel to the nearest coast extremely difficult, not to mention dangerous.

Islands like the San Blas are increasingly rare. Still fairly unknown and undeveloped, they’re home to the Kuna Indians, one of the last semiautonomous native tribes in the world. The Kuna Yala — the tribe’s fiercely protected reserve — limits tourism and development and has allowed the Kuna people to live much the same way they did a century ago. The combination of strict native protection and utter remoteness has kept the San Blas Islands well below the radar for the past five decades, but the Panamanian government has been eyeing them for a number of years with big plans for development.

Hopping on a private sailboat charter is a little trickier than hitchhiking, but the idea is pretty much the same. Eventually, I find a bulletin board full of faded advertisements and handwritten fliers for charters. Apparently, boats come and go, sometimes tomorrow, sometimes next week, sometimes next month. Boat captains are a pretty eccentric bunch, and you damn well better make sure you get along with the one you choose because at sea, his boat is a country and the captain is king. Depending on the length of the trip and your experience, you can either pay for a spot or take a job as crew.

One shady captain we met took us out to inspect his boat, but in less than two minutes aboard his leaky death trap, we decline his offer. In recent years the enterprise has become even sketchier, with rogue captains offering rock-bottom rates but not investing any money in the safety of their vessels.

Finally, after our third day lurking around the Club Naútico, a sturdy-looking red dinghy powered by a clean 13-horsepower outboard engine pulls up to the dock, and a man of indeterminable age, with sturdy arms and a flattop haircut, jumps off. I run to the dinghy and offer a hand unloading supplies. We introduce ourselves to Captain John. I tour his boat, a 60-foot monohull called the Wild Card, and agree to meet him that night at a local bar with our passports. “No money until we get to Panama, mate,” he announces. “We set sail tomorrow at sunset.”

The following afternoon I’m standing on a dock surrounded by surfboard bags and backpacks as two Yamaha motorcycles roll up behind us. Pete and his wife, Bruce, take off their helmets and introduce themselves with rough British courtesy. They’ve been on a three-year trip, riding all over the world — from London down to South Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, South America — and they’ll be joining us aboard the Wild Card as they continue north. Also along for the ride was Scott, a 25-year-old teacher from Chicago who has been traveling in South America for a few months before starting work as a teacher in Nicaragua.

When Captain John arrives, we set about loading the 250-pound bikes aboard the dinghy and then winching them up onto the deck of the Wild Card. As the last color drains out of the sunset, we raise anchor and silently slide out of port; as we pass the last series of green and red flashing buoys, there’s a collective sigh of relief. I listen one more time for the distinctive whine of large outboard engines — a telltale sign of the powerful cigarette boats that carry police or pirates, both of which are still a concern in Colombian waters at night. Hearing nothing but the slap of waves against the bow and wind in the sails, I crack an Aguila beer and breathe in the sea air. It’s a good night for sailing. The sky is clear; the wind is fresh and coming from a northerly direction. “The crossing to the protected waters of the San Blas will take about 35 hours,” Captain John informs us. “So get comfortable, and enjoy the ride!”

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