Our boarding instructions were to meet Frank at Hans' restaurant at about 1800 on Wednesday and whilst we all dined and imbibed he would ferry our luggage across to the boat in the tender.
This rendez-vous was just six hours after my proclaimed boycott of Hans' so meant swallowing my pride somewhat, though I did ensure I kept out of the way of Hans' wife.
Frank regaled us with tales of a life at sea and within an hour or so Loic, our captain and boat owner, appeared so we spent a few hours all getting to know each other over a few beers.
The drill was for Kerry and I, Ed and Arno and Jerem to board the Amande tonight and then first thing in the morning all passengers would convene and we would set sail.
The missing passengers were, according to Loic, "a guy from Isla Grande" and "a guy and a girl whom I met in Panama City".
Whilst this sounded flaky in the extreme you have to remember that we could have been sailing on any number of boats so it seems that nobody really knows what's occurring in this game until it is being played out.
Rule changes, U turns and volte faces are the name of the Panama to Colombia sailing game, as we would come to realise only too well.
At about 2200 and with Loic having picked up the tab at the bar, we were taken across the inky black bay for our first look at the boat, our home until Sunday morning. We all had our own private rooms, the communal area was large and open to the elements and there was lots of deck space too.
It looked great and I felt we'd made a good choice.
After breakfast next morning there was no sign of our other passengers and rumours began to circulate that they weren't coming after all. It was baking hot so we all went in for a swim around the yachts in the bay while Loic went off to look for the others. A full two hours passed before he returned with three rucksacks.
In the meantime another tender had approached and jettisoned a lean and rangy Brazilian by the name of Leandro. By an incredible twist of fate the guy piloting the tender was the chap that had shot at Arno and Jerem last weekend and they had a brief conversation about that misunderstanding which, incidentally, had seen both of the Frenchies rendered shoeless.
Leandro induced awe in us when he told us his tale. No ten month sabbatical for him or gap year or anything quite so limiting: he began his travels three years ago in his home town of Sao Paolo, riding his 125cc motorbike through Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela to Colombia.
It was here that he parted with his compadre, Leandro sailing to the Isla Grande to run a bar for a year and his mate continuing on by motorbike bound for Alaska.
His audience were split on whether his revelation that he had fathered a child in Chile during a brief fling was a good thing or not, males nodding sagely and thinking "nice one", female thinking "Ugh! Puerco Brasiliano" (Brazilian peeeg).
Anyway, the fact that he'd worked in a bar for a year stood us all in good stead because regardless of his love 'em and leave 'em past he made a fantastic cocktail.
Loic then came back with three more people, the two from Panama City had hooked up with another girl on the way to become a triumvirate and, fortunately for us, were all English speaking.
We were therefore nine in total, on an eight berth boat.
Leandro would sleep on deck in exchange for a discounted fare.
Our three newcomers comprised of: Kayla, a 28 year old Canadian with a lust for life and a new-found determination to tick things off her bucket list. Recent accomplishments were a parachute jump, completing a triathlon and backpacking around Asia.
She was heading to Argentina before flying home to resume her physiotherapy practice.
Hannah was a 23 year old southern belle from Georgia with the most luxuriant head of red hair cascading down her back and owner of the bikini most likely to desert its owner when in contact with water. A student, Hannah was travelling from Costa Rica to Peru alone.
Finally there was Drew, a 28 year old who spends four months per year working with his dad in his kayak business in Colorado and a large proportion of the remaining eight months per year travelling.
That Drew modelled himself on me was evident. Loud shorts, surf dude hair and thick beard were all nods in my direction but despite his "coke and a smoke" diet he couldn't quite match me in the paunch stakes.
With it being 1500 hours before we were all in situ Loic announced that we couldn't make the San Blas islands today so we would instead sail 30 minutes to Isla Grande. This caused amusement given Leandro had just left there and the Frenchies had had a brush with death on its shores but it was a lovely island and a gentle introduction to life on-board.
Kerry and I were glad of the opportunity to get off the boat and have a bit of space to be honest. After so many months being largely isolated and self-indulgent it had come as something as a shock to be in such close quarters with others.
That evening was party night with Arno's playlist plumbed into the boat's sound system and the beers and the cocktails flowing. To be honest it's all a bit of a haze but odd things I do remember include Frank dancing around the deck in his budgie smugglers and a small, bald man wearing buddhist type clothing (think MC Hammer's trousers) leaping onto our boat from another tender and joining proceedings.
We set off next morning and I remember thinking that we'd already been on the boat for 36 hours and had so far travelled only around five miles.
I immediately began to feel seasick so sat on the bow with Jerem and Leandro to get some air until a violent rainstorm forced us under cover. The back of the boat was open and we all sat there looking at the foul weather and swelling sea wondering what we'd signed up for.
At about 1700 we arrived in the San Blas, an incredible place with around 360 islands of screensaver type beauty. An indigenous tribe called the Kuna Yala live here and eke an existence by selling crafts or fish to boats such as ours.
There's quite a market for them. Despite initially thinking that there is only one boat or so per week it turns out there are loads, it's just that there is not one central point of reference for them. There must have been 20 vessels anchored up with us that night and that was off just one of the 360 islands.
With the boat anchored up Loic and Frank were free to indulge themselves once more and with everyone else loosening up somewhat it was to be a humdinger of a night.
There were celebratory cigars for finally getting underway, gallons of cocktails and more beers than any of us would care to recall.
Seeking a bit of peace towards the end of the evening Kerry and I sat on the bow for a while looking at the incredibly starry sky.
A short time later we heard a cry of "Agua" (water), squealed protestations and then a loud splash; Hannah, fresh from her shower and change of clothes, was in the drink.
Soon after Kayla was in, then Drew and then everyone else.
We had escaped their attentions but had to pass them all to get to bed. We toyed with the idea of bowing to the inevitable, stripping naked and leaping off the roof but boring old farty caution won the day so we instead attempted to slink past them all and go to bed.
I was grabbed by Arno and Frank but managed to wrestle myself free, careering into Hannah and Kayla as I did so and knocking them flying.
Frank insisted we pay a "tax" in lieu of not going in the sea; neat vodka was poured down our throats and I had another tot poured down my shorts.
Such was the lunacy of life on-board.
Next morning we officially exited Panama, our passports being stamped by the most relaxed looking border control I've ever seen. The office was on a tiny island and the officer was playing volleyball on the beach with some tourists when Loic presented our passports. We then hoisted the Colombian flag and made for Capurgana, a laid-back Carribean town just inside Colombia and the point where all on-board with the exception of Kayla, Hannah and Drew planned to disembark.
The thing was we were all having such a whale of a time we didn't want to get off. The boat was heading to Cartagena on the north coast of Colombia, we were all headed there eventually so we did the logical thing and cut a deal with Loic for us to stay on.
Arriving in Capurgana on Sunday Morning Loic decided we'd stay all day and night and set sail again on Monday after breakfast. To give us a change of pace from life on-board he took us on a two hour hike into the jungle to some natural swimming pools and also put us up for the night in the town, albeit in a $5 hostel with mosquitoes, bed bugs and a leaky roof.
Despite all of the above we slept well, though that had as much to do with the fact that we attended an impromptu party and had another night on the grog as anything.
During the evenings exchanges Ed had pressed Loic on storms and whether his mast had ever been struck by lightning. This visibly upset Loic and he had walked off rather than get angry with a fare paying passenger.
Next morning we awoke to tremendous wind and rain and later learned that the swell in the bay had been such overnight that anything not fixed on the boat had been knocked onto the deck and the boat had been tilting at around 80 degrees. Only Loic, Frank and Arno were aboard and at one point a boiling pot of coffee tipped off the hob sending the three men scurrying.
Ed's name was mud after this.
Leandro remained in Capurgana, his next step to collect his motorbike from the aptly named town of Turbo and make his way to Cuba. All he needed was a beret and to start a military uprising in a developing country and his Che-Dom would be complete.
It was sad to break up our little group and we were all quite melancholy as we set sail again, this time on the final leg, a twenty hour open sea crossing to Cartagena.
That night it was stiflingly hot in the cabin so in an effort to get cool we threw all the covers off and I elected to sleep in my birthday suit figuring that any encumberance, however miniscule, would only serve to make me hotter.
I'd asked Frank yesterday what the sunrise was like at sea and, remembering this, he came and woke me at 0545 to watch that mornings sun break through.
I quickly donned my shorts and sat on the bow and watched and it was wonderful. Frank brought me coffee, then pancakes and then two dolphins joined the boat and swam playfully at the bow for ten minutes or so. A morning to treasure despite the ignominy of being woken from my naked slumber by a weathered Frenchman with a penchant for dancing in 'nuthuggers'.
Later that morning we anchored in a bay and were given the unexpected choice of going to the beach, staying on the boat or taking a trip into the mangroves.
As our little cliques had developed over the past few days the Frenchies and Hannah and Kayla went to the beach, Ed, Drew and I went with Loic into the mangroves and Kerry stayed on the boat and read.
It was a great little trip and testimony to Loic's determination to make our experience as memorable as possible and not just take our money and get us to Cartagena as quickly as possible.
And so to the final knockings, a two hour sail into the awe-inspiring natural harbour of Cartagena and, to a man, all feeling very sad that this wonderful experience was drawing to a close.
In six days we'd gone from being total strangers to being firm friends via copious amounts of alcohol, shared meals, jungle hikes, flea pits, Arno's limited music, playing cards and leaping off the boat roof.
For Kerry and I it has probably been the most memorable experience of our five months on the road and we extend an open invitation to any of our ship mates to come and stay with us if you're ever in Blighty, you only have to ask.
Arno, your offer to show us around Paris will be taken up some time next year.
So here we are in South America at last, for so long my personal Mecca.
But first, priorities. Sleep; our creaking bones need rest after a week on the sauce and then I need to get to the bottom of my financial situation.
Just where the hell is my money and why is my account frozen?
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