So we now enter the chapter of our Sail through the San Blas Islands from Panama to the shores of Colombia...

There are 3 ways to get from Panama to Colombia - to fly, to try your luck past the FARC through the pretty little National Park they call the Darien Gap, or to sail the Carribean for 5 days.

Neither Matt or I are the biggest thrill seekers, so from day 1 we agreed we would just fly - it is quick, safe and the price is relative. This was until we meet our new little brothers Pat and Damo, and as you may recall in our last blog updates we have recently consumed a considerable amount of rum and before I knew it we had changed our route and we were up for the adventure across the high seas!!!

They say hindsight is a marvellous thing and now I know why...

We arrived into Panama city and were told if you were going to find a boat and a Captain the place to do it is Lunas Castle Hostel. So we check in and start pursuing a Captain. It appears all four of us are what you call "easy" and after chatting to 2 Captains we decide old mate Captain Kevin and his young German girlfriend are the ones for us.

In our defence they all promise exactly the same stuff - the only real difference is how many passengers they will take. Captain Kevin will only take 4 at a time and we are happy that we all get along and it will be easier to spend 5 days in confined spaces with people you like, rather than on a boat with 10 people you can't stand.

I annoy him all day with questions - how safe is it, how long will the open ocean section take, is there a shower, is there enough room for all of us to sleep comfortably, do you have emergenecy evacuation plans - he answered them all like a true salesman and we bought it - hook, line and sinker!!

So the next day we catch a bus 2 hours out of town to a little port area called Puerto Lindo, where we meet the Cap and Julia to do our food shopping and prep the boat to sail the next morning.

After shopping he pops us on a chicken bus and we head to the boat. Now alarm bells should have started to ring when we jump off the bus on the side of the road and he points at a gate and says now we have to jump that! Ah come again - we have to what?!?! Throw your backpacks over and climb as best you can, then jump!! Technically speaking we have to trespass to get to where he docks his boat, we all look at each other and laugh, then jump...

I should mention at this stage the Cap is a 42 year old Canadian and his crew member is his 26 year old German girlfriend, who was a tourist like us but is now 5 months pregnant with his baby. Hopefully I am starting to set the scene.

So we jump the gate and paddle his dingy with all our stuff out to the boat - he shows us around and admittedly all the boys think "shes tops", me on the otherhand was a little taken aback - "she" certainly wasn't the big, luxurious sailing boat I was expecting but being the only girl for the last few weeks I have started to learn to grin and giggle, and agree that this will be the best thing ever!!

That night the Cap takes us to this "great new hostel" in Puerto Lindo, which to cut a long story short when Lonley Planet claim off the beaten track and still untouched by tourism - they are actually referring to this place, as we may have been the first and only people to ever stay here but for $5 the Cap sure got us a bargin.

For my family who read this blog, Matt actually laughed out loud and said "f*** I can't wait to tell your brother about this!! He will never believe you stayed here!" So for Troy - I stayed, I actually slept, but yeah I put my own sheet down and swore under my breathe for an hour or so!

The next day we are up at 6am and off to the boat to set sail at 7am for our adventure. We get to the boat as the Cap is doing a few last minute preparations and at this point mentioned the boat hadn't sailed for 4 months and he was looking forward to being back on the ocean. I smile, I nod and I try to not worry yet.

The first day consists of an 8 hour sail from Puerto Lindo to Chichimunga, one of the 365 islands that make up the San Blas. With no word of a lie we were 40 minutes into the sail when I had to take what was going to be the first of many vomits for the next 5 days. It took Matt a few hours and he joined me in the seasick ward, emptying our stomachs of everything we had eaten, drank or even thought about eating for the last 2 months.

Pat and Damo however love the ocean and claim on numerous occassions throughout day one "this is the best day of their lives", the boys and the Cap proceed to polish off a 2L bottle of rum, sail us through a storm, hail down some indigineous Kuna people in their wooden canoe in the middle of no where and buy a massive cod fish and 4 lobsters for dinner, and eventually we make it to the flat calm area of Chichimunga where we finally stop on the crystal clear water protected by the island and jump into the warmest ocean I have ever felt - at this point my sickness subsides and the day gets better.

The next 2 days consist of sailing around some of the San Blas, and this was the part I enjoyed. The water hardly rippled, you could see through to the bottom of the sea bed and watch the stringrays swim past, and the starfish just chill out all day.

During this time Matt, the boys and I are partied - we drank, we shared happy memories, sad stories, and we shared a lot of laughs. Damo and I talked about music and our love for it, whilst blaring techno sets as loud as we could on the speakers and dancing round like a pair of nut cases, whilst Patrick and Matt sat and talked about the army, and the country and their futures. Over these few days all four of us changed our views and preceptions on at least one topic each, and it was at this point we bonded with two of the most genuine, hard working, caring, crazy blokes we have had the pleasure of meeting and who we now call mates. Patrick and Damian if you read this we are coming to farm, and we want that lamb roast and we can't wait to welcome you to Perth when you come for the wedding!

This is also when we discovered our 42 year old salty sea dog Captain liked to be naked pretty much all the time and really only put clothes on when I threw dirty looks around - we realised by this point we had ourselves one of the "rouge" Captains everyone warns you about and my poor innocent eyes will never recover from those few days!

On day 4 we made "the jump" and started the 40 hour open ocean sail where you could not see a speck of land for most of this time and it was just us, the wide blue ocean and our little Chinese Junk Rig sail boat.

At this point I become the most awful person on the boat, and it's safe to say everyone probably wanted to push me overboard at some stage - they are only human! In my defence for this entire time I was sick every few hours, I could not keep anything down including water and my only refuge was to take sleeping tablets and try and sleep for as long as I could.

The boys did an amazing job, and I believe if it wasn't for them we would probably have still not made it to shore. Pat and Damo pulled 10 hour shifts through the night sailing by the stars - oh yeah let's add our boat didn't have a steering wheel, instead you guided it with a piece of 4x2 wood and the gears were worked with a wrench on a bolt but they did it!

Matt took the helm for his shift and pushed through his sea sickness for a 6 hour shift from dusk til midnight. Matt hadn't spent more than an hour or so on a boat before this trip and now he was in charge of sailing us, navigating by the stars through the open ocean shipping lane between Panama and Colombia all alone. The next morning he revealed that for part of this, probably due to the dehydration and sea sickness, he completed wigged out and thought the boat couldn't go straight and it felt like it was going round and round in circles, he started to hear and see things - people apparently walking on a boat way off in the distance and trying to talk to him. He was relatively freaked out but did his job and did a bloody great job - we all made it safely!

We pulled into Cartagena, Colombia 5 days later and not an hour to soon as far as I was concerned. We anchored the boat and all four of us were off as quick as we could, by this stage we were all completely over it and just wanted a good shower (the boat didn't actually have one - despite promises) and a good nights sleep!

We shook the Cap's hand, kissed Julia goodbye and wished her luck and went our separate ways. It was time for Matt and I to be on our own and we sadly waved adios to our little brothers the next morning. They took off up to the North of Colombia for more seaside action, whilst Matt and I couldn't get away from the ocean quick enough and headed for the mountains and a litte retreat in Medellin.

Now that I have been on land for 3 days, and as I said in the beginning with a bit of hindsight on my side, sailing the San Blas was definitely amazing and an experience we will talk about for a long time to come, and when we catch up for that lamb roast with our little Melbourne brothers and share another rum no doubt we will laugh about it all - what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger!

Peace xxx