We came to the end of our stay in Santa Marta with heavy hearts. We have only just scratched the surface of this country and have an appetite for much more. Reflections include great music, smiling people, rain forest, waterfalls, good cheap food and amazing street dancing.

Having completed the final paperwork for our exit, we retrieved our passports and prepared the boat for another short offshore passage. BTW �" Colombia probably has more paperwork for boat entry than anywhere we have been to. But no worries �" we have plenty of time.

We departed yesterday for the San Blas Islands with the Word ARC fleet and sailed over the start line at noon in a fairly light breeze. We soon discovered that we were pushing a totally unexpected 3 knot counter current �" ouch. In the end we motored through the night just to make some progress but it was painfully slow, at under 4 knots over the ground much of the time even with the engine. We want to be careful to preserve fuel for the later part of this trip up to Panama so are reluctant to motor too much. Thankfully dawn came with a little more wind and we now have the lovely colourful Parasailor up pulling us along; however, we will have a day less in the islands than originally expected. Oh, and we caught a good sized tuna at dawn so are looking forward to a nice nicoise salad for lunch.

We are now reading up on the San Blas islands and the Panama Canal. Looks like an interesting couple of weeks ahead.