Hi Dave! We never got the pleasure of anchoring there, but we understood from friends that there was a great bay to anchor in very close to Cartagena. We stopped at the Rosarios, the San Fernando's, skipped the next island that I can't remember it's name and anchored for a week in Sapzurro -- the little town on the Columbia/Panama border. Sapzurro was one of our favorite places anywhere -- altho' there's not much in the way of provisioning and the anchorage is open to the east. We tucked into the southern part of the bay, only room for 2 boats, but the swell was wicked at times - we dropped a stern anchor to keep our bow into the swell and were comfortable.

We really enjoyed hiking to the top of the little trail behind town - literally to the border station between Panama and Columbia -- we have photos of us with hands widespread, one in each country. There is a little checkpost up there, so take your passports. You can hike down the other side to the tiny Panama town on the other side, can't remember it's name, but we did it & chatted with the locals for awhile. Ask the local authorities where it's safe to walk, when we were there there were Columbian Marines, local policia and also the Columbian Coast Guard -- we were even boarded by a CG guy with a drug sniffing dog -- what a delightful, professional visit .... after we got over hoping that whoever owned Winterlude before us hadn't stashed something we knew nothing about!

We wanted to hike over into Carpurgana, but the local authorities said it wasn't a safe idea, so we waited for a flat calm day & dinghied around. If you have a fast internet link, try visiting my website below, scroll down the sidebar until you see 2008 Bocas Del Toro to Cartagena. It'll load the old website, which takes forever, but if you scroll down, there's a slideshow labeled Sapzurro.

Photos of the places we visited. I am so jealous, you are going to love it! Enjoy & be safe!