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Crossing the Panama Canal
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Crossing the Panama Canal

One of the requirements to be allowed to pass through the Panama Canal is that you must have four linehandlers on board in addition to the captain. There is therefore a WhatsApp group that mediates contact between captains who are looking for linehandlers and sailors who will pass the canal themselves and want to gain some experience before their own cr ...

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Panamarina and Panama City

Panamarina is a really nice marina run by a French couple. There are good opportunities here to fix your boat on land with do-it-yourself workshops and tools for hire. If you want help, there are several craftsmen you can hire. However, our budget did not allow for anything other than doing the work ourselves. The marina also has a small ...

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Marina Turtle Cay, Panama
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Marina Turtle Cay, Panama

The sailing to Panama was probably the most uneventful sailing we have had in a long time. The wind was so weak that we only made 3 knots. So that it wouldn't take too long, we had to motorsail the two days it took to get to the San Blas or Guna Yala archipelago, as the archipelago is now called. Not even a thunderstorm came our way, desp ...

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Medellín
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Medellín

Medellín is Colombia's second largest city. It actually consists of 10 municipalities that basically grew together, with the municipality of Medellín being the dominant one that also gave the city its name. The 10 municipalities are in turn divided into a total of 16 "Comunas" which can be equated with city districts. Medellín is a ...

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Bogotá, Colombia
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Bogotá, Colombia

By bus it takes 15 to 20 hours to travel from Barranquilla to Bogotá and the railway is only partially built up in Colombia as the topography is extremely varied. In addition, it seems that the railway network was primarily built to facilitate the transport of the mining industry and not so focused on passenger transport. To get to Bogotá we therefore ...

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Santa Marta, Colombia
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Santa Marta, Colombia

After our hike to Ciudad Perdida, we stayed a few extra days in the city of Santa Marta, which is the capital of the Department of Magdalena. It must be admitted here that we were really tired after the hike and needed to rest. The only problem was that our wet, sweaty clothes smelled anything but violet 😉. The hotel did have a ...

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Ciudad Perdida, Colombia
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Ciudad Perdida, Colombia

On our wish list of places to visit in Colombia was Ciudad Perdida (Lost City) located on one of the slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range, near the coastal city of Santa Marta. Ciudad Perdida is a ruined city also known as Teyuna. In the Chibcha language of the Indians, the name roughly means "origin of the people of the earth". Another, less exotic, name for the site ...

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Barranquilla, Colombia
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Barranquilla, Colombia

After winning the battle against all the little bugs in the boat, we could now declare it both bug and mold free - at least for the time being. We made sure there were chafing pads and shock absorbers on the mooring lines, packed up the dinghy and stowed away as much as possible below deck. Now we could lock up and leave the boat for slig ...

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The crossing to Colombia and Puerto Velero
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The crossing to Colombia and Puerto Velero

After clearance from Aruba, we set sail for Colombia. We had an average wind of 18-20 knots almost the whole way and depending on the wind direction we alternated between genoa and downwind sail during the leg. The mainsail was never hoisted during the two and a half days we sailed. Our planning, for once, also matched really well with ho ...

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Aruba
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Aruba

We sailed the 75 nautical miles from Curaçao without any problems. We had a tailwind all night and "old man sailing", a typical Christer's expression 😉 meaning slow-sailing with only the genoa/foresail up. In our case with the purpose not to arrive too early in the next morning. Once we wriggled into the shallow industrial port where immigration and customs have their offices, we were abl ...

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" When I’m out sailing, I don’t wonder what heaven is like because I know. "