A Passport Issue

Flip back 7 days. To the rip-off lying ''Santa Marta'' coach that actually dropped me off on a busy Barranquilla roadside as if this was what I paid for. 15 minutes into the trip, Cartagena city limits. A police stop. My passport handed over, a nervous couple of minutes, passport return. Breathe.

Wonder what the Colombian stamp looks like. Flick through. Continue to wonder. The passport is not stamped. Flip back a couple of days more.

Saturday morning, just off the boat. Hand my passport to Michel, the ship captain. Arrange a 3pm dock return to pick up the stamped document. Then it's 3pm, we're at the dock, our passports are not. Michel says he'll return direct to our hostels once stamped. I shrug, okay, par for the course, carry on.

It gets dark. Half a bottle of balcony rum into the evening. Evelien hands back my passport that she was handed in reception. A cursory glance at the front cover, throw into the top of my rucksack. Think no more.

Forward again. To Taganga. E-mail Michel, in a ''fuck, what do I do'' type way. He responds quickly. There's a guy in Cartagena who does this for him. David. I need to get back. But first the nightlife, the Lost City trek, the forgetting.

Shuttle back to Cartagena first thing next chance. Taxi to DAS office, immigration, a shambles in organisation. Sit in the waiting lounge, with no ticket and no identifiable queue. On occasion a man enters from a room, picks whoever has been waiting the longest, or his version of this. The Cartagena hostel assured me everyone speaks English here. Nobody speaks English. A French scuba dive instructor explains the system, and so I move chairs and this helps.

Finally into the room. The decision room, or whatever it is. Explain the above as best I can. Hand over the passport. This prompts giggles, laughter, an incredulous attitude towards me. I am returned to the waiting room without passport.

Half an hour passes, then someone who looks official beckons me over and says I have to wait an hour for David to turn up with the stamp. Find street food to kill time, small fried things, I haven't eaten all day. Sit on a step outside to gorge. A gigantic Colombian appears. ''Stephen!''. ''si'' ''David''. Shakes me hand. ''No stamp?''. I agree to this. He flicks through my passport. He confirms there is no stamp. He has not brought the stamp.

We get into his car. It is tiny and thus clown-like. A homeless guy seems to jump in too. I'm pretty sure this is something warned about in the guidebook. I try not to panic. We drive into the Cartagena slums, nearly sideswiping a motorcyclist into onrushing traffic on the way. This causes genuine laughter throughout the car.

Off the main road, onto some deserted backstreet. Wait.

A large and expensive German car swings onto the street from the other direction, pulls up next to us, rolls the window down. ''Passport?'', I hand it over. ''What date?''. ''The 27th''. The driver then wheels out the stamp, whack!, then signs the stamp. It's over. I am legal again.

The next 24 hours:

I get an overnight bus to Medellin. It's a warm night, so I get on only wearing a t-shirt, the rest of my clothes in my backpack stored in the luggage hold. The AC starts up. Frostbite inducing. I end up having to put my hands in my shoulder bag to keep them from falling off. A thin, half-crazed Colombian woman starts singing gospel songs acapella. Somehow I manage to sleep in spite of these distractions.

Smash! Sleep interrupted by the shattering of glass. Startled. 3 back windows out. It's 4 in the morning. The driver gets out, looks at the carnage, as shards of glass hang loosely around the window frames. He decides this is okay and carries on. A baby starts crying. The woman returns to her gospel singing. Every bump brings with it the sound of more falling glass. The broken windows at least curtail the AC chill, but sleep is unlikely.

A service station breakfast. I survey the damage, whilst standing in exhaust fumes for warmth. It looks horrendous, glass everywhere, the toilet exposed, the first window only two rows down from the crying baby. We apparently hit an overhanging tree branch. It gives the morning a surreal quality. I get back on the bus. We continue.

Sail away on a winters day/With fate as malleable as clay/But ships are fallible I say/And the nautical like all things fade

This entry should just be pictures. Pictures that still do not do sailing through 350 (well, 365, one for each day of the year) sparsely populated, ever shifting, sand islands justice. But there are no pictures of dolphins, and so instead there's this.

Repetition: To get a boat from Panama to Colombia is not completely free of difficulty. These are not chartered boats, there is no official advice. One way is to head down Captain Jack's bar in Portobello, talk to some sea captains until you find one who doesn't reek of alcohol or give the impression of being a complete scoundrel and start negotiating a price and date of departure. I have no experience of sailing, I can't tell a scoundrel from a hero, I have visions of sawdust floors, reptile skin and barely concealed weaponry. I have access to the internet. I can cheat.

So, instead I get to my Panama City hostel, the one I picked after hearing rumours of a boat departure schedule. I note the 3 boats going on my departure date. I google. I e-mail the only Colombian hostel that may have knowledge about boats. I wait. I get the information back, they've only heard of 2 of the boats, and recommend them both. I ring up captain 1. I ask a series of questions from my guidebook, without really knowing what the right answers are. The guy sounds good, the price is as expected. The deal is made. 25 minutes and little hassle.

Skip to the boat. (these are old battered notes that make no sense, even to me. They seem to be titled ''things to do on a sailboat between Panama and Colombia'').

Breakfast on eggs, toast, jam and coffee. Good coffee. French captain, figures.
Morning shower is diving from the boat into the Caribbean sea and hoping against sharks. Motor on to island destination #1, after swimming from boat to a beach hut immigration immigration office. Dolphins appear in a moment, swim alongside the boat, then disappear suddenly. Read until sea sickness starts to dizzy the mind and disorientate the body.
Lobster. Beef Bourguignon. Not the same meal. These are strange notes.

Drink obscene amounts of rum post-sunset, whilst Eagle Rays sporadically jump around our craft. I'm told Eagle Rays, I'm thinking Great White Sharks.

Snorkel around sunken ships, through a kaleidoscope of fish, hoping the mask doesn't steam and I don't die from breathing in sea water. Gag slightly but keep everything down. Lounge in shallow water just off beach islands deserted but for the occasional palm tree, only the starfish for company. Starfish that we pick up. Starfish that we should not have picked up.

Paddle a one-man kayak across the waves to see if a catamaran is the boat some friend's are crossing on. It isn't. Nearly smash into some rocks. Write messages of salvation in warm sand. Jump on fallen tree branches until the 6th falling off, the one that twists the ankle and causes me to sit in shade for a while.

Lie in bed listening to 'Mermaid' too often, hoping ceiling staring will stop the boat from rocking. Have a conversation about dream interpretation. Followed by sleep and nonsense dreams.

Attempt to free dive 9m to touch the bottom, panic at 7m, realise equalisation is an issue of mine. Back to the surface and then try again. Survive a squall, swimming in the crashing waves for fun, and then the sun comes out and the skies clear and everything's a postcard. Row a rubber dinghy to shore, to play 1 vs 2 volleyball, and then drink beer and attempt to talk to Kuna about fashion. Lie on the boat rooftop in sun so hot it burns eyeballs through closed eyelids.

Drunken talk conspiracy theories with a couple from Israel, until the rum runs out. Stare at constellations and other stars, in a sky so clear you can make out man-made satellites and space stations.

Watch the sun sink into the horizon, the sun with nothing but open water to obscure. 36 hours from the San Blas to Colombia, 36 hours of lying down to avoid jelly legs and vomiting. Lie on deck in midday heat, forgetting my shorts have been recently replaced by shorter shorts, meaning my upper legs go from dark brown to bright red to pale white, like neapolitan ice-cream. More dolphins.

Sail into Cartagena on a gorgeous late August morning, wondering how the time passed so quickly.