I did the "Yacht Route" that a bunch of people here are talking about. Well worth it!
We had backpacked North from Peru and ran out of North in Cartagena, so we headed down to the local yacht club to see what we could find out. As luck would have it, there was a woman standing on the dock chatting to some friends. She was single-handed, heading to Panama in about a month, and didn't like the idea of doing the overnight journey without a crew.
The only downside? "Well, I'm not going straight in to Colon. I was planning to spend a few weeks sailing around the San Blas islands first. Would you be OK with that?"
Uh... I guess.
The San Blas are amazing. There's absolutely no way to visit the place if you don't have your own boat. There are no hotels. The locals won't let you sleep on the islands or let non-Kuna run tours there. But for something like $5/month (depending on the local village) you can moor your yacht anywhere you want. Just don't take any coconuts off the islands.
Most of the islands are completely unpopulated, of the white-sand & palm tree variety that you think of when you think South Pacific tropical paradise. The locals clump together on just a few islands, with ridiculously dense concentrations of thatch huts piled on top of one another and overhanging the sea. 200 yards away might be yet another tropical paradise, but they'd prefer to be next to one another, so you can have that one to yourself if you'd like.
They have little shops (and solar powered cell towers supplied by the government), and they'll row their dugouts out to your yacht in the morning to sell you Kuna bread and fresh fruit.
All in, we spent 5 weeks on the boat. It was rather pleasant. Enough so that I often find myself pricing yachts online when I look back on the experience.
You can rent a yatch, no need to own :) (though it's nice - but yatchs are costly to maintain!).
One of my uncles rented a yatch to sail on northern Australia (the Whitsunday islands), from his description, it sounds amazing (much like you described, white sandy beaches, awesome weather, nice sailing). He does own a yatch and a sailing license back home though, I think at least the designated captain must have a license.
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I did the "Yacht Route" that a bunch of people here are talking about. Well worth it!
We had backpacked North from Peru and ran out of North in Cartagena, so we headed down to the local yacht club to see what we could find out. As luck would have it, there was a woman standing on the dock chatting to some friends. She was single-handed, heading to Panama in about a month, and didn't like the idea of doing the overnight journey without a crew.
The only downside? "Well, I'm not going straight in to Colon. I was planning to spend a few weeks sailing around the San Blas islands first. Would you be OK with that?"
Uh... I guess.
The San Blas are amazing. There's absolutely no way to visit the place if you don't have your own boat. There are no hotels. The locals won't let you sleep on the islands or let non-Kuna run tours there. But for something like $5/month (depending on the local village) you can moor your yacht anywhere you want. Just don't take any coconuts off the islands.
Most of the islands are completely unpopulated, of the white-sand & palm tree variety that you think of when you think South Pacific tropical paradise. The locals clump together on just a few islands, with ridiculously dense concentrations of thatch huts piled on top of one another and overhanging the sea. 200 yards away might be yet another tropical paradise, but they'd prefer to be next to one another, so you can have that one to yourself if you'd like.
They have little shops (and solar powered cell towers supplied by the government), and they'll row their dugouts out to your yacht in the morning to sell you Kuna bread and fresh fruit.
All in, we spent 5 weeks on the boat. It was rather pleasant. Enough so that I often find myself pricing yachts online when I look back on the experience.
You can rent a yatch, no need to own :) (though it's nice - but yatchs are costly to maintain!).
One of my uncles rented a yatch to sail on northern Australia (the Whitsunday islands), from his description, it sounds amazing (much like you described, white sandy beaches, awesome weather, nice sailing). He does own a yatch and a sailing license back home though, I think at least the designated captain must have a license.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitsunday_Islands
Edit: remember the quote "A boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money"
The other aphorism about boat ownership is something like "the two happiest days are the day you buy it and the day you sell it".