San Blas too fast!

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Goodbye Cartagena

If you do the part time cruising thing like we do you sometimes enter and leave a country 2 or 3 times by plane and get pretty familiar with the place. Cartagena was like that. We ended up spending about 10 days there in total and by then you are walking through the city waving to shopkeepers and kids on the street and the fruit vendor tosses you an apple out of respect as you walk by.

La Casa de el Jefe

Colombia is a bit short on cruising grounds and long on heavy weather save for the Rosarios. This small group of islands lies 20 miles southwest of Cartagena and is a beautiful place. There are some special houses sitting on small islands seemingly just big enough to hold them up. Pablo Escobar owned one of them in the 80’s and visited here quite often. We were only stopping for a night so our tour was limited to a long dinghy cruise followed by a beautiful sunset. We could have spent some more time there.

Nightime is the rightime

Leaving Rosario was leaving Colombia and we headed out across our last patch of Caribbean open water to explore the north Coast of Panama. These are the kind of places that we used to dream about visiting and pretty far out there compared to cruising the relatively easy eastern Caribbean. This was a 220-mile leg and at this point we are pretty down with the short passage thing. We didn’t need crew and we aren’t overly anxious anymore and even more surprising is the night comes and we love it. Floating in space a mile above the earth moving along watching the stars is quite possibly our favorite time. Night brings excitement and usually some sleep. People are often concerned about being bored but we find there is always plenty to do and it’s quite magical.

Panama

Even the name is cool. Sounds adventurous and it is. This isthmian country has islands, mountains and jungles galore. I have heard the term “jungles of panama” before but hiking through it is surreal. I would have to believe they filmed Tarzan here and mostly because of the tall trees with vines to swing on. No I didn’t swing on vines as Lennie likes to remind me of my age but we did hear a loud roar so scary that we ran to the ranger station begging for cover. We told the ranger it was a leopard, jaguar or King Kong and he said…..”not to worry it’s a howler monkey the size of a small dog” We said “listen mister we aren’t kidding there is a hellacious fury coming our way to kill us all. I almost grabbed him by the throat. Then he pointed to a fast moving small mammal running across the road and he said “yep, there he goes” What? Really? Like that little thing made the horrendous creature noise that roared up the valley and he said….”that’s why they call e’m howler monkeys”

Now before you laugh at us wait until you hear them. Not in this video below but in the next Panama film I caught a bit of the sound and it still curdles my blood!

Enjoy this trip with plenty of sailing and exploring of new horizons!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 Responses

  1. Manson & Cindy - Cat's Meow

    Hey guys! Another terrific video. Small world! Joshua contacted me a few months ago to see if we might tag team up the coast when we sail our boats from Fort Lauderdale to the Chesapeake. We will be berthing our boats at nearly adjacent marinas. He arrived in Lauderdale to take delivery of his L48 the day I was leaving to return to Virginia last month so we had an opportunity to meet face to face at Harbour Towne Marina. We won’t be able to tag team (his boat is already on the way up the coast) but I’m sure we’ll cross paths again.

    Hope to see you next week when I return to sail north!

    Manson

    • happytogether

      HI Manson, Small world indeed! We are headed to California on Thursday night to meet Captain Richard in San Francisco. What day will you be here?
      Randy

  2. SailingWindanSea

    Another great video! Scary about them rouge 20’s.
    Can you share more about your ability to stay connected via internet? Which company did you use as a provider? Did you have a year contract?
    I will also work while sailing and the staying connected part has been a fear of mine.

    • happytogether

      Hi Sailing windansea! Glad you liked the video. We use the only affordable internet system called KVH V3ip and its about .50 cents per meg. You can send lots of emails but web browsing is costly. It is great to stay connected through. You can pick a plan and prepay for what you need. We pay 1000 per month for 2 gigs and .49 if we go over. Good luck! Randy

  3. Sarah

    Hi SV Happy Together! Are you in the Oakland Estuary right now? My boyfriend and I met you briefly at the Miami Boat Show at the Leopard party and we think you just motored by. Welcome to the bay & Happy Sails!
    Sarah & Jonathan

    • happytogether

      Hi Sarah and Jonathan! Sorry for the delayed response! Yes the boat is in the bay area. We will be doing a few trips out there. Send us an email as we are trying to do an open house! Randy

  4. Hans Norved

    G’day from down under. Thanks for sharing your cruising life, Monica and I are from Australia and we aspire to cruising as well, we have a 2 year plan…. You two are inspirational and extremely practical as well! I have a question re your camera and drone – if you have already answered the question elsewhere obviously just give me a link. What sort of camera do you use for general filming, and what drone do you use – it seems to have a long reach – how far from the controller have you dared fly it? Cheers guys and keep up the good work.

    • happytogether

      Hello Hans! Thanks for reading our blog and watching. Congrats on your two year plan! We use go pros for most of the filming. We also use a Panasonic GH4 which has zoom and is new to us. We use Macs and FCPX to editing. Our drone is a Phantom 3 professional and we fly it 1.5 Miles from the controller. I am considering buying the upgrade that allows 4 miles reach. This is a fun life. Get out here:) Always available to answer questions. Randy