Cuba; Part one

Jan 22 2012

Greetings,

We’ve been in Cuba for a week and a half now and I haven’t had a chance to keep up the log. So I’m going to try to remember all that we’ve done so far (which has been a lot), and after this I’ll try to keep a daily account.

First of all, the machine shop in Isla Mujeres didn’t get the water maker parts back on time and when they did come one part wasn’t right, so we are without a water maker for the time being. We decided to go ahead and leave for Cuba while we had the weather window since Bob’s (now Burro Bob because of all the stuff we have him bring when he comes) visiting time was short.

We headed out on Wed the 11th. The trip across the Yucatan channel was good. Not too rough with helpful currents. We tried to go to Isla Juventud first but it’s not an international check in point ( they told us on the radio “Not Possible!”) so it was on to Cayo Largo. Checking in there was easy because of Pire, the marina representative there that coordinates all the officials (thanks Abi for the contact). Pire was very helpful with everything we needed and made the whole process painless. We also met Nelson there, who has worked for our friend Tim. He loaned us his charts for the Jardines de la Reina (Gardens of the Queen) and gave us his brother Lamar’s (who also works for Tim sometimes) contact info in Havana.
After rinsing the boat, a few other chores and a little rest we had a huge lobster, shrimp and fish dinner (lots of leftover lobster) to celebrate our first night here.
In the morning we went to the hotel to get online, check the weather and send out a quick message to let everyone know we’re okay. There was a front come in with strong north winds but, being on the south side of the land we hoped it wouldn’t be too bad. We headed out to Cayo Dios with the plan to anchor there and do some fishing and diving, but the anchorage is on the north side of the cay and it was clear when we got there that it would be rough and not easy holding. So we went to plan B, which was to go on to Cienfuegos. Unfortunately the wind and waves continued to increase. The wave period was very short and we had to slow down to decrease the pounding of the head sea. Slowing down makes it a bit less rough but the trade off is it’s rough for longer. So for about 10 hours it was the kind of ride we keep saying we aren’t going to do anymore. The good news is, the new bulbous bow did a great job through the bumpy night and is holding on strong.
We pulled into the bay by Cienfuegos about 0500hrs and, on the radio, they told us to anchor and come in by dinghy to check in (in Cuba you have to check in everywhere you stop. They want to know where you are at all times). So we anchored, had a nap and then got Tink in the water so Capt. Johne and Bob could go in and do the paperwork and find out if there was a slip available. We moved into the marina in the afternoon and, after washing all the salt off the boat again, walked into town.
It was interesting to see all the 1950’s American car bodies although none with original engines. Most of them have been converted to diesel. The young people were out along the Malicon (the sea or bay side walk) in couples and groups as youth do all over the world. We observed that the Cubans, over all, seem to be a genetically slender people. Not that there aren’t fat Cubans but there are a lot more, taller, slimmer people here than in most of Latin America.
We had an enjoyable dinner out where I discovered that even in “nice” restaurants, seats on the toilets are rare here. After dinner we went in search of night life but we were a bit early. Night life doesn’t start until around 2200hrs and we were all still tired from the rough trip in, so we were off to bed.

The next day we took one of the horse drawn carts (taxis in Cienfuegos come in 3 forms; cars, tricycles with two seats behind the driver and horse drawn carts) to go in to town and explore. The driver put me up front with him and handed me the reins which made for lots of commentary from the back as Bob and Johne expressed that they were taking their lives in their hands going for this ride.
We walked around the parque central which, as with most Latin American cities, has an old cathedral, a big government building, shops and restaurants. The art gallery was very interesting and the architecture is beautiful although it’s not being maintained and is starting to deteriorate badly. It was fun sight seeing and for lunch we had our first of many ham and cheese sandwiches here. We have since come to find that in most quick-food places here you can get ham and/or cheese on your sandwich or “pizza”. It will be a while before we’ll be wanting ham and cheese again.
That night we stayed up to go to the disco and experience the night life. Very interesting people watching and some really good salsa dancing.

On the 17th we hired a car for the day to take us to Trinidad, a beautiful old Spanish colonial city about 80 kilometers east of Cienfuegos. It was a beautiful drive, part of which went right along the south coast and made me excited for some of the cruising to come.
The town has lots of bars and restaurants all of which seemed to have live music. There was really good, traditional Cuban music everywhere we went. The place we had lunch had a father and son with a guitar that were delightful. Later we had drinks at a place with a seven piece band and they were wonderful. On their break, we bought them a round of drinks and they all came to join us at the table and signed the CD’s we’d gotten. It was so much fun we’re planning on going back there with the boat on our way back from the Gardens of the Queen.

On the 18th we hired another car for the trip to Havana. It was almost as inexpensive as the three of us taking the bus and much better with the driver, Roberto’s, personality. Johne had gotten a hold of Lamar before we left and he’d arranged for rooms in a nice, very clean(but no toilet seats), private home for us. Tim had arrived in Havana the night before so we spent the afternoon visiting with him and some friends of his. That evening we all (Tim, a couple of his friends, his wife, Lamar, Bob, Johne and I) went out for dinner.
The next day was our exploring-Havana-day. It’s a very interesting city with lots of great history, and again, great but deteriorating architecture (you can‘t walk on some sidewalks because of the danger from pieces falling off the buildings). We started by having the taxi drop us off at the grand national theater, where the Cuban national ballet performs. As luck would have it, they were scheduled to be performing that weekend so we got tickets for the performance the next night. After that we started to wonder in search of breakfast. We found a little place with a great coffee menu that had sandwiches (ham and/or cheese). After breakfast we decided that the horse drawn carriages with a guide would be a good way to start seeing the city. The first carriage driver to accost us with his sales pitch was Leonardo, who turned out to be a jewel. He spoke very good English and knew the history of the city very well and he, and his horse Picasso, gave us a fantastic tour. After a couple of hours we invited him to have a drink with us by the end of which he had invited us to his house for dinner. He called his wife to check with her and she said, just bring the beer. We continued our tour which ended with Leonardo taking us to the bus station so Capt Johne and I could get our tickets back to Cienfuegos, then we went back to the house to rest and get cleaned up before dinner.
Dinner at Leonardo’s, with his wife Milagro and their daughter Briana, was one of the best things we’ve had the opportunity to do in Cuba. They opened their home to us with such warmth, and everything, from the food, to the conversation, to the Cubano café, to the dancing in the living room, was awesome.
The next morning Bob’s had to fly out, so after breakfast (omelets. Would you like ham and cheese, or cheese and ham?) we sent him off to the airportL. Johne and I did some exploring around Marina Hemingway and met an interesting Canadian guy and had a nice visit aboard his boat. We also spent some time after lunch visiting with Lamar. He gave us some good insight on “gift” giving with the local fisherman we might meet while cruising. Then we had a little rest before it was time to get ready to go into town for the ballet. We had eaten lunch late and we were just planning to have coffee and dessert before the show. When we got to the restaurant by the theater that had been recommended to us, there was a 40 minute wait, but the maitre’d, after starting to give us directions and realizing it wasn’t going to work, walked us about three blocks to another restaurant (now that’s service) that had very good coffee and something like a tiramisu.
We returned to the theater with great excitement to be getting to see a world class ballet company (Capt Johne’s first) perform. When we got the program we found that they were doing excerpts from Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Coppelia, Don Quixote, Swan lake and an original piece choreographed by Alicia Alonso (the director of the company and a legend in the ballet world) for Cuban National Ballet. For those of you not familiar with ballet, that’s a lot of good stuff. Before the lights dimmed, the audience started to clap and, looking around to see why, we saw Ms Alonso herself ( now over 90 and blind) making her entrance to “watch“ the show. I was surprise by what a thrill it was just to see her. The performance was absolutely phenomenal. All the pieces were wonderful. The corps work was excellent, and the couple that did the Don Quixote pas de deux were as good as any dancers I’ve ever seen anywhere. (There were, however, no seats on the toilets in the Grand National theater.)

We got up early to catch the bus the next morning. Not a bad trip back. The seats on the bus weren‘t uncomfortable and reclined so it made napping easy and the bus did have a toilet seat.
When we got back to Cienfuegos we started doing prep to get underway. The rest of yesterday afternoon and most of today were spent getting all the laundry done, going to the mercado for produce, topping up the water tank and re-securing things. We’ve moved out to the anchor and are ready to do some cruising.