Drink up, me 'earties, Yo Ho.

They say half the fun is getting there and whoever ´they´are they might have been referring to the border between Panama and Colombia. There exists, in the Americas, an optimistic road called the Pan American Highway. The romance being that you can drive all the way from Canada to Argentina on one, nicely paved, road.

And it would do if it weren´t for the Darién Gap.

100km of dense jungle filled to the teeth with bandits, guerrillas and other people who might want to kill or kidnap you. The Darién presents an interesting choice for the pan American traveller...

Do you      a) Fly (boring)

                 b) Do an awkward but cheap mix of flights, boats and buses

          or    c) Sail there

Despite a long family history of sea sickness (my grandfather a WW1 pilot reportedly couldn´t even fly over water without turning green) I plumped for ´c´ and signed myself up for five days onboard a 40ft yacht named ´Impetus´ sailing first through the stunning San Blas archipelago and then across the sea to Colombia´s colonial jewel, Cartagena.

The San Blas Islands number somewhere (it depends who you´re talking to) between the neat 365 to 400 + tiny islands, most sporting little more than a few palm trees, a white sandy beach and an appealing strip of coral reef. A few are home to the island´s autonomous, indigenous people the Kuna Yale. On our first day we hadn´t been on the yacht for more than thirty minutes when two Kuna men appeared in a dugout canoe with ten live lobsters milling about their feet. Bargaining between them and our First Mate ensued and five minutes later we had purchased seven lobsters (one each!) for $20. The second night the event was repeated with enormous red snapper replacing the lobster´s role. Thankfully both our Aussie First Mate and Norwegian Captain were excellent cooks and did the unbelievably fresh food justice.

Dinner!

The first three days were spent cruising between the islands and diving off the boat. Our Captain took us to an amazingly wrecked wreck just a few meters below the water line where we could snorkel amongst the tens of tropical fish and bright corals. Foolishly I indulged in a bit of free diving down to the cabins and swam away with two painful stings on my elbows.

On our first night, between mugs of rum someone noticed a spotted eagle ray gliding past the boat and only a few inches deep. We all rushed over to the side and spent the next half hour watching the graceful creature and its companion ripple around the pool of light our boat created. Having not bee lucky enough to see one when diving in Utila this definitely made up for it!

However after three days of bliss it was time to set sail and we awoke on the fourth day to see the palmed islands slipping out of sight. For a while all we could see were the jagged, forested peaks of the prepossessing Darién before they too disappeared leaving us alone at sea.

Dinner!

Then the sea sickness set in. Clearly my grandfather is alive and well in my veins as I spent most of day four lying on my back listening to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, then Down and Out in Paris and in London and finally before sleep claimed me most of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. However the next morning the seas had died down and I managed to force down a few spoonfuls of oatmeal, enough to provide a base for the mariners secret weapon; seasickness tablets.

I spent day five feeling like superwoman able to stumble about the boat, sit down, stand up and eat at whim. Amazing stuff! The elation didn´t even subside as night fell because sitting on the deck admiring the bio-phosphorescence around the boat I heard a splash. A loud splash, too loud to be the tuna who had been flinging themselves out of the water all day. Looking down I saw a phosphorescent trail loop under the boat and then out of the water arched two dolphins. The rest of the crew were summoned and we spent our last waking hours on the boat being guided towards the glow of Cartagena by the sparkling dolphins and their ghostly leaping shadows.

The next morning we had arrived in Cartagena and all that remained to be done was to find our land legs and, like the true pirates we had become, hit the rum.