Ai ai, Captain!

“...Do you think I am an asshole?

You think I don’t know how to sail?”

Captain Freddy Mono

It was the most memorable trip of my life so far. I can describe it with 3 adjectives: the best, the bad, and the worst, not in that specific order. I have never sailed for almost a week in my life, so was not sure what to expect but I certainly did not expect that… But lets start from the beginning.

I met 2 Irish in the hostel in Panama who were going to Columbia. I decided not to go on a coconut boat, nor I wanted to pay $275 for the trip. Apparently, there was an alternative, which was going on a sailboat to the Panamanian-Colombian border and then taking a speedboat to the city where it would be possible to take a bus. That coasted $180, but there was a trick, the captain would not provide food and the speedboat and buses to Cartagena would costs at least $50. Well, it still seemed a little cheaper, also there were no boats going to Cartagena directly until next week, I liked the Irish couple, Kevin and Ruth (actually, there were not a couple), so I went with them. After all, I did not have to do anything, just pay. Sounds easy enough, so little did I know.

I began suspecting something when I found out that this captain was affiliated with this fishy Kuna guy - Gamaine. However, the plan seemed reasonable enough, the price too, was satisfactory. So, we went, as we were advised, to Colon and then a port of Portobello to catch a bus to La Guerra. The problems began when we got into traffic on the way to Colon, so we arrived quite late and caught a bus to Portobello, we had little time to spare so went straight to supermarket to get ourselves some food for a 4-6 days. That was, as we understood later, very unusual, because all the other captains provided food and cooked for their passengers, soon we found out why our case was different. Anyways, we did not get on a last bus to La Guerra and had to take a taxi. After all, we made it to the boat and finally met the captain. His name was Freddy, he was very skinny looking, almost anorexic, Columbian (I kept wondering throughout the journey if he was a drug addict, perhaps he was). There also was his, as he quickly point out, sick wife and 19 year old daughter. So here it was 3 of us and 3 of them, us against them, or vice versa, but we just did not know it then.

It was too late to sail the same night, so we just went to sleep anchored by Isla Granda, a mosquito plantation, as it was described by Freddy. We thought that it was a sarcastic joke and did not really pay attention, after all, we all had repellents. None of us, except for Freddy’s family of course, had a minute of sleep that night. As it was described by Ruth: “That was the worst night of her life, yet”. Kevin, her companion, simply said, that it was the longest and most intense one. As for me, not sleeping for the whole night, being attacked by helicopter-like mosquitoes (the noise was unbelievably loud) and jerking my body every 30 seconds, so these creatures would not drain my blood completely dry, was not the worst nor most intense experience. Both of my new Irish friends had hundreds of bites and dark blue sacks under their eyes. Apparently, “not all repellents created equally”, my repellent was a bit better and I managed to keep the bites to a dozens or so, and as far as sleepless night, oh well, it just one of those. The whole thing was pretty bad but it was just the beginning. Freddy simply ignored the whole story, I was a little annoyed by that and asked him if he slept this night. He suddenly seemed to be both shocked and angry with this question and replied that he had to take care of his wife all night, and asked me angrily if I was satisfied with that answer. I guess, this was when things went wrong with Freddy and me.

Next night we spend anchored by one of the 300 Robinson-like islands of San Blast (Kuna Yala) archipelago. I was very annoyed to learn that we could actually buy the food on the islands, that information was not at all provided. Anyways, it was real pretty. We met a lot of “mola” sellers, the rugs were pretty but the prices were not justified. After all, they don’t pay shit for the land they live on, not only they have an autonomy from Panama but also became Panamanian tourist attraction, and mola - Panamanian indigoes form of art. So they, make quite a load of money. This situation with Kuna people, their prices, lying about every subject Gamaine (Kuna), who advertised the trip, along with the captain Freddy, who was on top of my list of annoyment. The food situation pissed the hell out of me, because I bought so much of it, and it was not cheap. So I asked Freddy where we were going the next day. I wanted to know weather or not I should cook for the day or wait till we arrive on the next island. He looked at me as if I asked him something outrageous, like if he shits with cocaine. He said that we are going to Colombia, I wanted to go to Colombia did not I?, he asked me. I ignored him. By know, I knew that he was not exactly “friendly” type of person, in fact, I believed that he was actually somewhat crazy. I shared my opinion with the Irish, they didn’t really confirm it at that stage. Kevin speculated that being alone on the boat would make anybody antisocial. Also, he told me that he asked Freddy if that was possible to fish, he said yes, and promised to get some bait from the island. Then he said that he used to be a fisherman and now he doesn’t like to kill fish anymore, that fishes were his friends. Naturally, he never brought any bait. I guess, canned tuna was not his friend, because I saw him eating it! Well, peaces of puzzle were falling in place by now. I concluded that he was absolutely insane, plus a control freak.

Here is what happened: I was going down inside the cabin, the entrance of which was located right behind the steering wheel, the control panel was located on the left, just inside the cabin on the left side, I would not be surprised to find out that this insane, completely impractical design, was Freddy’s idea. Anyways, I was going up and down, doing all the cooking, because Kevin got seasick and Ruth could not swallow the gasoline fumes inside the kitchen anymore (I don’t know why the “kitchen” smelled like inside of the SUV tank). So, I accidentally hit the starter button. The entrance was very small, the fucking button was just under my left elbow. It was an honest mistake, caused by improperly constructed sailboat. Nothing really happened, there was a little noise in the engine, and everything went back to normal. Freddy woke up immediately after he heard the noise. He yelled at me, and told me that I was breaking his boat. I said that I was sorry and ignored him again; he went back to sleep. After some time, he caught me passing in close proximity of that starer button! Five minutes after this, he called me up. Later the Irish told me that they thought he was going to apologies for his behavior. Oh how wrong they were. Here I was, 8 years old again, being yelled at for something that was not even my fault. He started his speech with a little something which I remembered exactly, word for word, and it is in the epigraph of this story. After that, he said that I always ask him questions, and should calm down, otherwise he could deliver me on one of the 3 villages which were on the Panamanian side. He was going on and on and I kept my mouth shut. I knew that he was bluffing but did not want to exercise my luck in a Derian Gap. I was standing there looking at him amazed, not with his stupid nonsense, but with myself. I was not scared of him but yet I kept it quiet. The only thing I said, was that, I was sorry again to cause him trouble and explained my questions as a form of joke. To which he responded that he doesn’t do jokes and hates then other joke and I promised not to make any on his boat ever again. Now that sounds like I backed out and indeed I did. In fact, I was very proud of that. Never in my life I was able to contain myself like this, but I knew it was absolutely no use, yet it never stopped me before. Even Kevin and Ruth were surprised by my reaction, or rather lack of it. The funniest thing was that I managed to ignore him again.

We arrived on very beautiful island where I met other captains swapping stories about crazy Freddy. Apparently, he was famous for that! The insanity continued. We never new what was our next move! His daughter, Ingrid, as bossy as her father was teaching us how to paddle. You should’ve seen that, she was yelling at me and Kevin in Spanish: “Durro, durro” (which means “harder, stronger”), I had a laugh, but still wanted to drown her. We called her bossy Sirena. She smoked some pot on the island an became a little mellow, she even allowed us to paddle our own way to another sailboat to see her friends. There was a similar scenario: a Frenchman making a little extra cash delivering backpackers to and from Panama. But how different the atmosphere was. The guests and captain were cooking together, then the cap open a bottle of rum and began to play a guitar and sang. We felt like we just sentenced a 20 year term, in a high security prison and were not prepared for a civil life. We had a lot of fun comparing the situations on the boats anchored just 20 meters from each other, luckily the bossy Sirena did not understand any English.

This went for 5 days. Despite of everything we had a lot of fun and “grew stronger” so to speak. The whole last days of our journey we were accompanied by lots of dolphins. They would appear in front off the boat and would swim along for hours. We never got tired of watching them. It was like a little manifestation of a greater good. Moreover, when we arrived at our destination point and crazy Freddy rushed us out of the boat the very second we anchored (in fact, he stayed at this spot for several days! What an asshole); but is was for the best, because the Sapzurro was the best place I have seen so far, we all agreed on that. It was a paradise, everything there was in contrary to what we had on the boat. There was a steady ground (I was like a true seaman, who got of the boat, rocking for 2 days), there were flowers and fruits everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of mangos and avocados, star fruits and many others I don’t know names for. Our host, Alfredo, or simply Chileno, as he was known to locals (he was from Chile), was the sweetest man. Also there was a great red snapper, cheap beer and ability to eat as much guacamole as human body would process. There was so much fruits everywhere, that I even cooked beans with mango sauce and slices of star fruits.

We stayed there for 2 days instead of one and when we went to a nearest town to get our speed boat (200 horse power) we met Freddy with his, not sick anymore, wife; he said that we should get our entry stamps done here, asap. We ignored him, we were no longer in his command and enjoyed our freedom, besides, there was no time. We hoped to get our stamps done in the next town, which was Turbo. Well, there was trouble. In Turbo we learned that we are illegal trespassers and cant get the stamps and should pay a fine of a $100 each. We were outraged and went to Cartagena on a next bus. On a next day, the chef migration of Cartagena told us to pay $250 each, and leave the country immediately! I knew we should’ve done the fucking stamps in that damned town, like Freddy said, but it was too late. Again, the border-crossing.., when will I learn? We managed to negotiate, negotiate (!) with the chef of migration, a $135 fine and 30 days. He too, was an asshole. He was pulling out numbers, like some kind of magician would do with rabbits, except the numbers were pulled out of his ass .

It took me (and the rest of us) 2 days, several application forms, 5 photographs, fingerprints of all 10 fingers, several photocopies, 2 bank transfer and a hanging folder!!! They wanted a folder for my documents, can you believe this!?

P.S. In Cartagena, I heard a story about 2 Israelis, who got absolutely outraged with Freddy’s attitude and his nonsense, that they demanded the money and their passports back. He did not want to give them any of that. Little did he know about Israeli patience. They've just beaten him up, took the money their passports and got off the boat. Freddy called police and the guys spent a night in jail. Not sure how it went after that but they got to Columbia all right, with another captain who even walked them to the migration office where they got their entry stamps done. I suppose that happened right before our trip with Freddy, no wonder he was worried about me ;) . Oh well, he was an asshole anyways.