What a relief to finally get away from the "Club Nautico" (Cartagena) on October 21, 2008. We chose (well chose is not the exact word since there is only one other marina in Cartagena, the "Club de Pesca" which charges twice the price and is far too snob) to stay in Cartagena to work on GeoEdu, the Atlas and educational game on the worldwide geography that Benoit wanted to finish programming. I was going to take care of the promotion of the game by developing a database of journalists both of the "paper" and internet media.

In total, 4 months spent in Cartagena, 3 of which at the "Club Nautico" to work on the 2 Macs permanently powered by the 110V on the pontoon, to use the Wifi connexion, have permanent access to water and to a small supermarket at 5' walk. Everything we needed to work 10-12 hours a day to launch GeoEdu for Macs on October 1, 2008.

We hated the "Club Nautico" which is not a club nor is it "nautical". The Colombian owner makes this marina a very unfriendly place to be. Never a Hello, a smile, a short conversation and it's not the language barrier since 60% of the yachties speak spanish. We really didn't feel welcome except when we went to pay the very high fee to stay in the marina, well if we can call the "Club Nautico" a marina.
The pontoons themselves look like they have been designed by a mad architect who never saw a boat before. The main pontoon features smaller pontoons which are placed at a 60° angle of the main one making them extremely dangerous for the boat's hulls. Moreover the same architect no doubt managed to have tiles placed at some places on the main pontoon making the pontoon slippery as soon as it rains…Well, we had no choice, we were trapped.
Moreover, we needed a permanent internet connexion for our research and there we can call our experience very very frustrating. Not only is the internet connexion slow but it's often unstable making us loose the connexion right in the middle of our work and for hours. No matter how kind John was (he calls himself a facilitator in the marina and he is responsible for internet), we were really struggling to make internet work!

On October 1, we launched GeoEdu for Macs on www.geoedu.info. The press release was picked up by all the internet media specialised in Macs. The feedback is excellent, the comments left by the first buyers on Kagi are very positive and on October 17, we received our first order in the educational field, a field where GeoEdu should score high since it can be a precious tool to teach geography. The order has been placed by an association of schools in Switzerland. In all, 1,100 Macs will be equipped with the GeoEdu software. 1,100 Macs, quite an achievement and also a nice business card to promote GeoEdu in the educational environment and also to trigger the interest of families.

The next step is the programming of GeoEdu for Windows but the "conversion" from GeoEdu for Macs to GeoEdu for PCs is not that easy and we must admit that the unfriendly environment at the "Club Nautico" is starting to affect us badly. It was high time for us to leave on October 23 after having left this horrible marina on October 21, leaving behind our ropes (it's the first marina in the world where you have to provide your own ropes to serve as moorings to be attached under water to a few poles which don't really look very solid…) covered with shells, barnacles and black from the chemical spills of the factory located in the bay, to be cleaned at our own cost, of course.

We headed for the San Blas Archipelago also known as the Archipelago of the Mulatas which is owned by Panama but the Kuna indians manage them in full autonomy.

As soon as we got out of the Bay of Cartagena, the water was blue again, what a relief! We spent a first night in the Archipelago of the Rosario (still in Colombia) then a short overnight sail and we arrived at our first Kuna, island, Isla Pinos. The scenery is splendid and there is hardly any noise just the birds singing in the morning. Unfortunately, we didn't like the village. The chief (the Sahila) is a real dictator. He doesn't want his people to come and say Hello to the yachts, doesn't allow the women to come and sell us "molas" which are beautiful embroideries. He is the one collecting all the money, the anchoring fee of $ 8 and the $ 2 for the guide who will come with us for a walk up the hill.

After Isla Pinos, we decided to anchor near reefs far from the mainland, the Cayos Ratones. It's beautiful out there but the weather conditions will oblige us to leave, the swell making the anchorage very uncomfortable. We headed to two small islands with a bridge in between, Nargana and Corazon de Jesus. Here, the Kuna indians chose modernity and there are just a few women from other islands wearing the traditional costumes to sell molas mainly. We just arrived when there were three official holidays: the independence of Panama (from Colombia), the National Day and Day of the Flag and the Day of Colon. Flags are displayed everywhere and we hear the drums playing as early as 4:00 am but we chose to stay because we found the Kunas here so welcoming and friendly. We finally stayed one week and even had access to internet at the local school.

After a week, we headed to the beautiful San Blas islands. It's a true paradise and we loved them. All the islands are superb and the reefs protect us everywhere from the swell. Time to enjoy swimming, snorkeling and walking on the white sand beaches. Time also to continue working on GeoEdu, writing articles for the newsletter @minuit.net and also to meet again friends like John and Nicole on "Taraïpo" whom we met in the Maldives in 2006. Time to meet new yachties. In other words, we really enjoyed the San Blas islands!

Let us finish by just saying "Nuedi" in kuna which means both Hello and Thanks, a word which nicely summarises the kindness the Kuna indians.