October 23 – November 22 , 2025; 19847 nm and 2438 days after departure from La Rochelle

It took us just over two weeks to be back in the hustle and bustle of the big city of Cartagena. A fun change of life after weeks of calmness and doing almost nothing. Yet, before diving into city life we had a few stops. Our first one at Snug Harbour unfortunately turned out to be a very short one. Mean flies and mosquitos attacked us to either suck our precious blood or to annoy us simply by their presence. So instead of staying a couple of days we preferred to flee early next morning and headed to Isla Pina. Here we had more luck. No annoying bugs only a huge grasshopper made me scream when he flew aboard Altimate. (I’m not sure who was more afraid at that moment- me or the hopper.) We enjoyed the pretty island for a few days and even had a mini potluck with another German couple who was anchored there too. But soon Sapzurro was calling. My favourite little paradise like anchorage in Colombia right at the border to Panamá. The weather goddess was kind and helped us having a pretty fast ride. That’s why we made it around midday already to Obaldia. Victor, the port Captain as well as the immigration officers were friendly as always and made the check out procedure easy and fast. (Especially compared to Colon, where we almost couldn’t leave because the port captain just didn’t show up for days!!) Only an hour later after leaving Obaldia we set anchor in the pretty bay of Sapzurro.

As always Sapzurro was such a nice place to be. We just love it! The beauty is probably the mixture of everything. The pretty anchorage, the friendly people, the jungle-like atmosphere yet connected to a little village and the variety of walks. The latter we were especially looking forward to. (Let’s face it, San Blas are always great but the walking options are very limited. BBQ island for instant, you can walk around in less than 10 min. Not much of a challenge! Even for lazy fellows.) So, after a couple of days rediscovering Sapzurro and getting our legs adapted to longer walks again, we felt strong enough to hike to Carpurgana. The bigger village about 5km south of Sapzurro. (Remember only reachable by lancha or by foot.)The path was not that long but pretty tiring as it meanders through the jungle up and down the hills. We left early to avoid the big heat and to arrive before midday to get as well our passports stamped. This time we were a bit smarter than last time! (Kinda lesson learned from our previous experiences; at least in my humble memory we were walking in flip-flops and without any water! El Capitano disagreed that we did so but…who can tell for sure?) We had put on proper shoes and had taken enough water! Even though we enjoyed the hike through the jungle very much it felt different the second time. We figured, exploring areas for the first time is somehow a much more exciting experience. I mean, it was not a new knowledge but … somehow I missed it! Anyway like last time, after about 1,5 h we were happy to arrive in Carpurgana. Only this time we were not that thirsty but for sure as sweaty!

The passports got stamped with just a little hiccup due to problems with their computer system. Thank god not an issue with our new passports! I don’t know what it is but I always fear one could get in trouble for whatever reason. With our freshly stamped passports in our pockets and after a short breakfast we were already done with Carpurgana and ready to head back to Sapzurro. A lancha took us back and just before we reached the bay of Sapzurro, a dolphin was performing amazing high jumps out of the water. He was right next to us and even the lancha marinero and his boys were completely overwhelmed by the performance of that dolphin. BUT by the time I had my mobile out of the wet bag he stopped his extraordinary circus act. What a bummer! No proof of that beautiful dolphin spectacle. Or a moment of life how it used to be – without having the need to capture everything in pics…, almost poetic ain’t it?
Enough of my nonsense! Anyway, we spent a few more days in Sapzurro, hiking to Miel, (the small village which already belongs to Panamá), enjoying lunch or dinner at Lina’s restaurant(if anyone remembers, she was the one who helped me organising a dentist appointment two years ago in Carpurgana) and watching sunsets at the beach.

After more than a week of enjoying sweet Sapzurro we headed directly to Cholón, the calm bay which was only 19 nm before Cartagena. Current in our favour and better winds than forecasted made it a fast and pleasant overnight sail. We stayed two nights before heading to the big city of Cartagena. Here we met up with our friends Ilka and Dogan from Macera. It was fun to see them again but unfortunately they left only a few days after we had arrived. But nothing to be sad of as we will be reunited soon in San Blas. The very best part though was that we happened to arrive just before Independence Day week. And oh boy! We knew that would turn out as a big big not ending party. Remember, the Colombians do know HOW to and especially LIKE to partyyyyyy. November 13th was the day of the parade and we happened to be at the right time at the right place to partyyyy with the locals. I had soooo much fun! (I’m not so sure if El Capitano was as excited as I was?) Not only watching the parade but in particular spraying “espuma” – foam. I have no clue why they do it but who cares! It was so much fun spraying others and pretending it was not me. In the beginning I was careful and sprayed only a little but latest with my second foam bottle I was on fire! The girls next to me (see feature pic) loved that and taught me being brave and go for it. Everything was allowed, except unfortunately spraying police officers. That would have been so much fun!!! Just my luck I had asked the ladies before I was going to spray the officers😁. On the other hand of course I got foamed like crazy too. I was soaking wet thanks to being covered in foam for quite some time. Awesome!!! But after -at least it felt like hours- being sprayed and standing in the sun we were done and really needed to go back to recover. In comparison the Colombians seemed to be just starting to warm up. Maybe they were just a little younger, fitter, more used to partyyyy????

When we were not in party mood we worked on our errands list to get smaller. One big point were medical appointments. Norbert went to my favourite chiropractor to check on his hurting shoulder. I wanted to have a dermatologist check on my itchy urticaria and I also wanted to have a check up on my eyes as I was not happy with my vision! And last but not least we both wanted a clean and polish treatment for our teeth. Damn it! That sounds like we are wrecks! Fortunately getting appointments was easy and fast. So only within two weeks we had done all the appointments and I got enlightened that I needed new prescription glasses. It turned out that my right eye prescription was way off. I was glad to hear that as at my first appointment the doc said I might need a cataract surgery. So I was very happy when it turned out that my eyes were healthy.
The other errands were nothing special. Such as buying groceries, minor parts for Altimate, a few things for sewing and of course checking in and out. As the anchorage was super rolly the whole day thanks to millions of boats passing by in a crazy speed we hardly stayed aboard. But having all those appointments and errands to do it was not suuuch a big problem.
The following weekend we were lucky to have the opportunity to watch life music from the water. They had built a big stage right at the water front of Getsemani. For two days boats could tie-up right in front of the stage. It was unbelievable how packed that area was. The coast guard had built up a few big moorings for bigger boats and had put some swimming barriers for smaller boats to tie to. It was also possible to anchor but we wouldn’t have dared to do so with Altimate. Instead we took the dinghy and headed over those few meters to the dive into the craziness. Zee and Tomek also joined us to explore the busy and fun happening. I have never seen so many boats gathered together so close that it was literally possible to walk over the water. Even with the dinghy we sometimes had problems to squeeze through the many boats. A big, loud and fun partyyyyy with more foam, dance, rum, beer or whatever was desired. Clever business orientated marineros squeezed their way skilfully through the bigger boats to ensure supplies. No Colombian would like to run out of alcohol or espuma those days!!!
The four of us only stayed until it got dark but the party went on until late. We could very well hear the performance from our anchorage but not see the stage. The following link from an official YouTube video shows a nice overview of the bay with all the fun. https://youtube.com/shorts/W4CDxmCDAjk?si=8AD2fhX83kcQaQ-P

Well, partying was nice but we were slowly reaching our party fun limits. After two weeks of loud music and a very rolly anchorage we were looking forward to a much quieter place. Due to me getting new prescription glasses we had about 10 more days to spend in the vicinity of Cartagena. So we lifted the hook and sailed to the calm bay of Cholón to reboot our party energy.