Lazy days off the coast of South America

On a five-day sailing trip from Colombia to Panama, Catherine Jarvie saw dolphins, picture-postcard islands and traditional life

IEMERGE from my cabin on to the deck on the first morning of a fiveday sailing trip from Colombia to Panama with little expectation. It has been suggested to me that this section of the journey — 36 hours on the open sea with nothing to do but stare at the horizon — might be something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Something, in fact, to be got out of the way before the main event: three days and nights of snorkelling, swimming and general frolicking in the palm-fringed San Blas islands.

It takes about eight seconds for my sense of wonder to kick in. I thought I understood “remote”. I’ve stood on top of Himalayan mountains, driven through vast, barely populated deserts and slept under canopies of stars but it turns out that the experience of being in the middle of the ocean with no hint of another boat, let alone land, is what really gives me a tangible sense of how infinitesimally small my place in the world is. While that might be enough to kick off an existential crisis in some, to me it feels like freedom. And it’s just the beginning.

A little after breakfast one of our party lets out a shout — he’s spotted something big moving in the water. As we rush to the rails our skipper, Goeren, turns the boat in the direction Simon is pointing to. Minutes later an adult sperm whale breaks through the surface just metres ahead of us and entertains us for a few lazy minutes before flipping its tail high in the air to plunge deep into the ocean. It is an astonishing sight.

Moments later a pod of dolphins races towards us, jumping and diving alongside the boat as they surf the bow wave. Their disappearance is shortly followed by another cry: someone has spotted a pair of sea turtles. So much for “nothing to see”.

Welcome to life aboard SY Quest, one of several dozen boats that ferry passengers on the five-day journey between Colombia and Panama. While it’s a year-round route, Quest’s Swedish-born owner and skipper Goeren Perrson only travels it during high season, roughly December to March, spending the rest of the year on dive charters in the Caribbean.

Looked at on a map, there isn’t much separating the two countries. However, terms such as “notorious”, “lawless” and “world’s-most-dangerous” are frequently used to describe the region. As a result, the near-impenetrable swathe of jungle that makes up the Darien Gap — so dense that it remains the only break in the Pan-American highway which runs 19,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina — remains largely off-limits to travellers. Hence the evergrowing popularity of the journey by sea.

Recent years have seen an influx of professional travel agencies, such as Blue Sailing, which I booked through, now vetting and recommending the best of the many boats that ply the route. This has helped turn a trip that was once largely the preserve of backpackers into a destination adventure of its own.

We had left Cartagena a little after 10pm the previous night. As the city skyline gave way to a light pollutionfree night sky I started to get to know my fellow passengers. We’re a diverse