The first night in Panama we spent in David close to the border, not a nice introduction to Panama, as it was a very unfriendly and noisy city full of "Everything for a Dollar" shops.

From David we cut across to the Caribbean part of Panama and caught a boat to the Isla Colon of the Bocas Del Toro archipelago, a favourite stop for backpackers, surfers and surfing backpackers alike.

Unfortunately, it was raining 24/7 and consequently Bocas was very quiet with the exception of a few dedicated surfers hanging in there.

We stayed at Mondo Taitu, a great, laid-back surfers hostel, run by three guys from the States. For nearly a week we just hung out with an international surfer crowd, learning a hell of a lot about waves and boards, and listening to their debates about upcoming swells.

One day it miraculously cleared up and the whole hostel went for a surf to the neighbouring "Isla Bastimento". I had my second go on a surfboard after Nicaragua but the surfing conditions were very poor that day - no swell, you see?!

From Bocas we travelled in one go to Panama City from where we were hoping to organise a sailing trip via the San Blas archipelago to Colombia.

We checked in at the Voyager International Hostel (apparently the place to meet all the skippers) and emailed/called pretty much every captain that advertised sailing trips to Colombia at our hostel - to no avail!

At the Voyager we also met Tui again who had been more lucky as he had managed to secure himself a space on a yacht that was supposed to leave Panama within the next 48 hours.

We liked Panama City - a very clean and modern city and a refreshing contrast to all the run-down Central American cities we had been to. And surprisingly for a big city, the people were very friendly.

Naturally, we visited the Panama Canal at Miraflores, watching gigantic cargo ships crossing the locks, and we took advantage of Panama´s free port (Kate bought herself a great digital camera for peanuts).

Most nights we spent together with Andreas and Shantell at the "Unplugged-Bar", owned by Itav, a great guy from Israel. Unplugged is probably the only bar in the whole of Central America that doesn´t play cheesy Latin American pop, but international 70ies and 80ies rock classics. Plus it has a great pool table.

For about a week we were just waiting for captains to get back to us, or new notices to appear on the Voyager´s notice board. One afternoon, the four of us checked out a yacht club in Panama City. There we met a couple of US yacht owners who informed us that sailing conditions were very bad at present and that all the sane and safety-conscious captains were waiting until April before crossing over to Colombia. One of the skippers advised us to go and talk to the boat owners at the yacht club in Colon, the Atlantic gateway to the Panama Canal.

Andreas and I arrived in Colon the following morning and caught a taxi to the yacht club. Our hopes went up again when we saw the many sailing boats parked at the marina. The yacht club itself was nothing more than an old, tatty pub.

We were just about to put our own notice up on the pub´s notice board, when we heard a very familiar voice coming from the pool room. There we found Tui, playing pool with Nicole, a girl from Austria, Craig, another OZ surfer, and Jimi, their Algerian skipper.

We were very surprised to find them all there as we´d expected them to be in Colombian waters by now. As it turned out their sailing trip had been delayed because of various "problems" aboard Jimi´s 38ft yacht "Miltred":

A young Canadian couple who had already paid the fee for this trip had bailed out, as they had found a different captain in Colon who was sailing his very posh yacht to Peru via the Galapagos Islands. This meant that Jimi had two places to fill on his yacht.

Secondly, Jimi had fallen out with his deckhand, a young German guy and he was about to kick him off his boat. The Algerian skipper explained that, with the German deckhand gone, there would be enough room for Andreas, Shantell, Kate and I if everyone squeezed together a bit. Desperate as we were Andreas and I gave our verbal agreement there and then.

Back in Panama, we delivered the news to our women and despite lots of concerns about this, that and the other we decided to buy the only sailing tickets to Colombia that were offered to us.

It had been a very awkward afternoon at the yacht club in Colon. Lots of dramas, a slightly subdued crew, intriguing and whispering... obviously much more stuff was going on than we were told about.

Things only got worse when the German deckhand entered the pub, as by that point everyone except him knew that he was not sailing to Colombia anymore, at least not on Jimi´s boat. I felt a huge relief when we eventually left the yacht club that Friday afternoon.

All of this reminded me very much of a soap opera of which we were about to become a part of. Click here to read the script.