Story: VALHALLA, the caribbean heaven

The Pan-Amercian highway is said to be the longest netwerk of roads on this planet. Starting in the northern tip of North America and going all the way to Southern Chile.

At one point the road is not connected allthough. This is at the Darien Gap. A 54 mile stretch of land between Panama and Colombia. This stretch of rainforest has may hazards. Not only you can get lost easily, you also have to deal with jungle, swamps and insects. But probably the biggest problem is the Guerilla activity in this area. People have been kidnapped by these troups while trying to cross the gap and unfortunately not everyone has been found back alive.

There are three ways to cross the Darian Gap.

#1 Over land: The preferable way if you had enough of this earthly live

#2 Through the air: Fast, cheap, save and utterly boring.

#3 Over water: Find a seaworthy ship and a captain and start a caribean sailing adventure never to forget.

In Panama City I meet up with Dennis. This guy owns a big sailing yacht called the “Valhalla”. Once in a while the wind carries him to Cartagena, a colonial town in Colombia. He happens to go this Sunday. If I want I can join him.

With a couple of other people we head for Porto Bello, a small town on the Caribbean coast. This is where Dennis his Yacht lays.

The blue 75-foot sailing yacht, worth 300.000 dollars, is going to bring us to Colombia. We will first go to some of the San Blas islands, where we will stop for a couple of days. This is the home of the Kuna Indians. After this visit we will continue to Cartagena, Colombia.

Normally the boat is chartered by wealthy people who come to South America to roam the Caribbean for a couple of days. These people pay for such a trip approximately five times the price we pay.

The ship is a two-master with a spacious kitchen, a living room, three bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms. There is also a fridge to cool our drinks and the 25 dollar Cuban cigars.

When the diesel- and watertanks are completely filled we are set to go to Chichime, the first of the San Blas islands we're going to visit. Because there is a lot of coral reef around Chichime, we have to be sure to arrive there during daytime. Herefore we have to wait till the evening before we can leave.

While Dennis starts the engine, I weigh anchor together with Dena, Dennis his girlfriend, and Anthony, one of my travelcompanions. With a couple of people we stay on the front of the boat to look for reef or other boats and to give directions to Dennis who is at the helm. When we've properly left the port we hoist one sail to increase our speed.

Early in the morning we get close to Chichime. We pass one bounty island after the other. The San Blas archipelago consists of hundreds of small to middle-size islands. Most of them are uninhabited. On a couple of them the Kuna-Indians live. This is a tribe which still has a traditional lifestyle. By the second island we drop anchor in the bay of Chichime and women in Kayukas (dugout canoes) come to our boat. The women have brought a lot of handicraft with them. All the shirts, scarves and bags have Mole. This is a typical decoration technique. Most of them are colorful patches with abstract figures or animal figures. Most of the women have short hair, many times covered with a bright red scarf. Around their legs they wear long strings of beads in all different colors. After we’ve bought some patches from the women, we go on shore. The island is small. Within fifteen minutes you can walk around it. In total there are about ten wooden huts. The only thing you can buy on the island is fresh baked bread, seafood and pipas (variant of the coconut which is mainly used for its milk). For a while these pipas used to be the currency on the San Blas islands but recently they've changed that into the Balboa of Panama. In the evening we buy some pipas. One of the locals cuts them open and we bring them back to the Valhalla. Here we add some rum to the pipa and voila, a cocoloco.

After spending another day on Chichime it’s time to move on again. Because we will leave Panama soon we need to be stamped out. This is only possible in El Porvenir. A bigger island with an airstrip, a hotel and a customs office. After a four hour sail we arrive. At first the custom officer doesn't want to cooperate. It's Sunday, he's drinking in a bar and he doesn't feel like doing anything else. When Dennis offers him to financially support his drinking habit, his attitude changes. He jokes around, mixes Anthony up with a famous Panamanian boxer and me with David Beckham. By accident he stamps me out twice, but nothing seems to bother him anymore.

In the early afternoon of the next day we set sail to the island group Hollandaise. Most of the islands are uninhabited and all have the bounty-look again. Yesterday we got some fresh caught fish from other sailors. Today we prepare them for dinner. The minute we throw the leftovers overboard a couple of huge nurse sharks appear to make use of this free, easy to get, meal. They must be at least four metres long. I don't want to miss the opportunity to swim with these creatures, get some snorkel gear and plunge into the water. When I'm in the water I don't see the fishes anymore. I realise that I've bumped my knee half an hour ago which resulted in a bleeding wound and I notice that nobody has floret me into the water. I get a little bit nervous. Then I see one of the huge beasts. When I swim towards it another shark appears from the deep blue depths. When I come close to the first shark it is luckily shy and swims away. Also the second one doesn't have an aggressive behaviour. For about ten minutes I stay in the water with the fish, then they loose their interest and swim off. There are no more lumps of fish in the water and they disappear to where they came from.

A couple of days ago there was a short circuit in one of the generators. This resulted first in a small fire and then in a limited energy supply. The fridge doesn't work anymore, we have to be careful with using water and even have problems with starting the engine. A couple of captains from other boats come over to help out. With portable generators and a lot of knowledge they manage to start the engine again. We hoist one sail and we're off to Colombia. From Hollandaise to Cartagena is approximately 36 hours. This means we have to spend two full nights on the open sea. I volunteer to take the helm the first part of the night. The rudder is on auto pilot, so the only thing I need to do is to check if we still go in the right direction and if there are any other ships nearby. We have a pace of a steady five and a halve knots an hour and everything seems to go alright. What Dennis forgot to mention to me is that I had to check the temperature of the coolant now and then. When Dennis wakes up at 3.30 AM the engine is overheated and has to be shot down. A screw of the ventilator was too tight so it couldn't do its job properly. I'm disappointed that this happened while I was in charge but guess it is not really my fault. After two hours the motor has cooled down again and we are able to move on. By then I'm vast asleep although.

In the afternoon of the second day on open sea we decide to to hoist all four of the sails. The Valhalla looks splendid. The boat cuts through the waves and our pace is at least seven to eight knots per hour, which is faster then when we would have used the engine. . It’s already dark when we enter the port of Cartagena and I’m on the helm. I manoeuvre our yacht between the green and red bouys towards our destination. The skyline is dominated by skyscrapers and ancient fortresses. After a two week trip we’ve reached our destination. Cartagena is ours to explore.