On the boat in the bay at Cartagena
Before setting out from El Porvenir for Cartagena we dropped off four of the group from the boat at the airport so that they could catch a flight back to Panama City because they didn´t want to stay on the boat for the rest of the trip. It was pretty neat watching the small planes land at the airport there and the captain managed to pick up two other people for the trip to Cartagena. After setting sail at noon the trip was pretty smooth until we hit some rough seas later that night, but it was nothing nearly as bad as the first night of the trip. By the second day we were totally out at sea with no land in sight. The view at night was absolutely beautiful, there was no moon and all you could see from horizon to horizon was a full panorama of stars and as the boat cut through the water, the water fell away on either side in a fluorescent glow. Sadly there was nothing to be seen except for a few container ships the rest of the way until on Friday evening we finally saw the lights of Cartagena. It has a very nice skyline with lots of lights and good looking high rise buildings. We motored slowly into the bay around 9pm and had to spend the night on the boat as the customs office was closed until the next morning. We were all desperately waiting to take a shower as seven days without a shower is really unbearable, especially when you are covered in salt spray, sweat, and sunscreen residue. But at least we were finally able to eat a good meal since we weren´t able to cook anything due to the rough waters on the open ocean. Finally we had arrived in Colombia, I think that all of us were tremendously happy to be getting off the boat.
