Cuba 1 Arrival Santiago to the Garden of the Queen part 1 (mile: 7377)

Only four star divers can do this... nice photo Doros!

And so to Cuba after three nights at sea, we begin with 5 hours of engine then we tack downwind on broad reaches trying to keep the boat comfortable for the off watch crew. Winds typically 20-23 knots peaking at 30 so not too bad as seas are ok. We motor the last 24 hours as winds go light and arrive in Santiago bay just after first light. The marina is near the mouth - the town is off limits to yachts and a $10 taxi ride away.

The bay has many little inlets and ferries and small boats go to and fro

9 people commuting to work.

We have seen many pelicans - here are a few organising their lunch.

Peter is found of reciting...

“A wonderful bird is the Pelican.
His beak can hold more than his belly can.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week!
But I'll be darned if I know how the hellican?”

We arrive at the marina - a couple of docks, the concrete is not in great shape but it has good cleats. There is a good anchorage too. Clearing in is straightforward but slow. Halfway through entering the data on the computer the power cuts off - or the air conditioning goes off anyway and we adjourn until it returns. It cost 150 USD to clear in and $21 to let Peter go... disenrol him from the boat, a new word for me! The harbourmaster calculates the dockage fee and then asks me for $171. I only work our later that this does not include the berthing fee - $28 a day which is a bit steep for no electric, suspect water and cold showers where the water comes out of a copper pipe - no showerheads!

The Cat on the left is captained by an Armenian Turk and his wife. Doros engages in conversation and they invite us aboard - lovely cat/floating apartment.

We book a taxi and head to Santiago - we use several taxis over the next few days - Peter books one to take him to Holguin Airport on Tuesday - he has had to return home a week early for family reasons. His taxi driver is Noel - a cuban radio ham and he and I talk "anorak" quite happily.

A few shots of buildings and cars of course...

Ok, I cheated, that's a bicycle not a car.

We notice a few cinemas - Films are important for Cubans

All in all the city is pleasent - busy place with people getting on. I find it difficult to find food shops, nearly impossible in fact. We do find a vegetable market and I buy some onions I pay in CUCs and get CUPs for change. CUCs are convertible Pesos and CUPs are just Pesos. CUCs have a fixed relationship to the dollar (used to be 1:1 but is now 0.87) and is used to buy imported goods (I think). The CUPs are the locals currency and used for food shops (rates vary! but maybe 20 Pesas to the CUC) In the old days we might have used the phrase "tourist dollar" and "residents dollars" but it is much more blurred now. In fact they may be unifying the currencies soon. One rumour is April 19th, that was on facebook so it must be true!

You will recall the Barcardi advert, we take lunch at a restaurant and see...

In fact he is a street magician and mime artist - works the tables beautifully. We visit a hotel in the evening and have a good $10 meal from the rooftops

There are three cruise ships in  - you can see two of them in the background above.
The meal has music too, shake those carambas - apologies to anyone who knows what they are talking about, Maracas?

The city also has one horse cars too. No shit... (it is kept in a bag under the cart, technology in action)

All too soon we say goodbye to Peter, he has been a delight to have on board, good watchkeeping, good dishwashing, good company, reasonable cooking... We will miss him. Come back soon.

And then Doros and I head West for the open sea. We had hoped to go at 10.00 am, we check out with the Guarda and start the engine, and then are invited onto the big Cat. We rush at noon to get away and a mile out are overtaken by a ferry - they shout at us to go back <sigh> I had forgotten to pay the dockage fees. To be fair the harbourmaster had sat and calculated the amounts and then took 171$ off me when we arrived and said he would bring me the receipt which he never did so my mistake is understandable. (I think) The bill ends up at 40 CUCs a night. And then we are off.

Cuba is not totally free of course, we come across a few things. The guarda was a really nice guy, helpful. He points out a bay that is off limits on our next route West. He gives me instructions that make clear that you must go from certain marinas to certain marinas or ports that have guarda, you must check in at every port. You can anchor between ports but should not go ashore. Your tender can only be used to get from the boat to the marina/port and nothing else. You must winch your tender aboard every night, if you have AIS you must continuously transmit your position. We offer a young fisherman on the quay a rum one night and he stands on the quay chatting, he refuses to come on board and we discover it is illegal for Cubans to step foot on foreign vessels without 24 hours advance application for permission to the harbourmaster. I have clearance papers - Despacho that must be stamped at each port/marina and must show your next port. In practice some flexibility is possible - stopping for fatigue or getting food is ok, or at least involves a blind eye being turned. Interesting.

Doros and I have a 100 miles to go along the bottom of Cuba - we motor a lot in light winds which suits the 2 hours on, 2 hours off watches and we arrive early morning quite well rested. We will stay the day and dive inside the coral reef. The reef is interesting, its position varies with time of course and my chart plotter shows a very vague shadow - you can see the breaking water all along it and travelling west means going past the reef and then turning back, heaven help anyone who turns right too soon.

We anchor some distance away from a couple of dutch boats as we need to run the noisy diving comressor. We then get visited by the guardo - an older guy with no english and a very young guy serving national conscription perhaps.

There is also a dog onboard but they leave him in the rowing boat. The Guada stamps my dispacho and fills in an entry for Trindidad de Cuba our next major port 180 mile away - we will take 3 days to get there and anchor in the "Jardines de la Reina" (Garden of the queen) which is a national park and uninhabited pretty much - hundreds of miles of coral cays and mangrove forest.

We dive - photos in a moment - the Conch prove difficult to get at - no youtube videos or google out here! not much phone signal at all in fact, and we will be off grid for 3 days. I put the conch flesh in a fish soup bisque and it was quite edible. A longer steaming of the flesh would have helped - a bit like tough scallop meat, but I prefer scallop. The yellow bucket was much more filling and we get dinner and lunch from it.

 As you can see it is a bit shallow - snorkelling would have been better, there is a current though as water continually is blown over the reef (50 feet away) and has to get out of the lagoon.

 Massive box fish hidden there.
Across the way is a wreck in the turtle grass, I have a quick look and leave Doros to photograph the fish. We had read an article about Cuban Crocodiles but do not see or feel one - yet.

On route the next morning we see big fish jumping and I set the cuban fishing reel, 2 minutes later a 4lb fish arrives. Unfortunately he is an ugly bugger.

Barracuda.

Really bad eating, cooking barracuda is supposed to stink  - and being the top of the food chain they can be riddled with ciguaraterra - a nerve toxin that makes you very sick and can kill. Given our remoteness from help we cannot risk it and release him.

We have a pleasent 55 mile sail to the cays and arrive at the East end - there is an old fishing station and we try to find it, the area is not well charted and it is difficult to reconcile the pilot and the various charts I have (Garmin and Navionic electronic and 1995 Cuban paper charts). 

Now hands up who sees two white markers  - there are supposed to be 3 or 4 poles but I assume many have fallen down. I also am somewhat gobsmacked when my markers fly away.

Well, it is nearly a buoy with a pole sticking up. The echo sounder shows shallowing water and we touch the mud, reversing off works and we have another go down the coast a hunderd yards, this time we nudge our way in, between birds standing on one leg!

 The water is clear enough for Doros to pilot us in. - the old shipwrecks mark the entrance

In and turn right.

Not quite right - we are actually much more to the right and better sheltered.

As well as anchoring I run a stern line ashore. In the event despite some current we spend the night is absolute total calm and quietness. The stars are incredible, we are 50 miles from any other humans. Total peace. A magical moment.

The mangroves have suffered here, presumable hurricane at some stage.

 |I suppose this is a healthy patch

In the morning we motor out at tickover, I touch again despite having a reverse track on the chartplotter and again we reverse off, nice sticky mud. And go searching for a dive further down the coast. We go 20 miles thinking we might get a coral wall. in the end we get a beautiful coral garden - clumps set on white sand. We anchor the boat and dive in its vicinity - it would be dangerous to go to the dropoff as there are only two of us.

I'll post the next part soon., I will also edit the blogs with cumulative distances - but I need to edit them in order or the chronology of the different blog entries will be confusing. Bye for now

BVI to DR (Dominican Republic)

View from the government Docks at Barahona in the Dominican Republic - our second port of call.

We arrive in the Dominican Republic (DR) after a long motor and short (good) sail. 325 miles, three nights at sea, but the stars were fantastic. We had headed South from the BVI until we could turn right (West) halfway between St Croix and the rest of the USVI – it was important to keep more than 12 miles from the US as Peter and Doros had no Visas. The seas were low and the winds light for 36 hours and we motored. The wind (and Sea!) arrive off the tip of San Juan as we head across open sea to the DR. We arrive in Boca Chica some way along the DR coast. We are now rushing a little bit to get to Cuba as Peter has to fly home a week early, although in truth the sooner we get to Cuba the sooner I can get around to Havana for the Family arriving in April. John has suggested adding distances to the blog and I will do this as best I can – a quick play with Navionics online charts seems to say I have travelled over 6,800 miles since leaving Belfast, the boys have done 3,500 since the beginning of January, wow, seems  a lot – I will check the figures later.

Boca Chica marina is a few miles from the town and is a modernish marina with a posh looking yachtclub in half of it (through locked gates). When we arrive no-one speaks English. Eventually 5 guys come down the quay - one in Military fatigues and the rest in different coloured T-shirts. One speaks English the rest studiously avoid English. Victor is an "agent" we pay him to work through the paperwork of the other 4 in English. This is a bit of a game as when we eventually get to the marina office we get instructions on how to clear in without using an agent, but we had been told to stay on the boat until the customs, immigration, military intelligence and drugs enforcement people arrive.  Clear in costs 265 USD of which I think 45 USD went to Victor and it seems to cover cost of clear out too - domestic clear out to the next port - you are expected to check in with at least the Guarda at each domestic port you visit and you must have a Despacho from the previous port. <sigh>. We find the next port, Barahona, simpler. Marina harbourmaster Rico is a pleasant englishspeaker who unfortunately was away when we arrived otherwise our experience might have been simpler.  

At one stage we dress up Peter in long trousers and send him off towards the yachtclub to blag his way in  - who can resist an Englishman in his finest. Before he gets there we change our mind and decide to absorb the local ambience. Leading from the Marina ,which has security guards at the gate, is a well potholed road running from the sea. After a block of reasonable houses the road becomes crowded with little stands selling fried food, chunks of meat, rum or beer - and the odd place selling oil and motorcycle maintenance - the place is absolutely humming (roaring!) with small motorcycles and mopeds - at any moment of time there might be 20 buzzing about. The stalls are basically each a single room with a wall missing. Some have chairs and tables outside but not many and the "street| is packed with scores and scores of locals. The motorbikes and bike repairshops and street foods give the street a bit of a "Mad Max" feel to it but the locals are busy chatting and looking and seem happy enough. If we were more paranoid we would clutch our wallets and maybe after 1 a.m. it is not a place to be.  We did not take any photographs (it was dark anyway).

Heading up the road we come to a modern multi-lane carriageway with a "pedestrian" footbridge across it. Most of the footbridge traffic is mopeds and motorbikes of course - we learn later that the DR has 10 times more road deaths than the UK per capita. (The DR is a self contained country of 10 Million people and is unlike the other bits of the Caribbean we have visited).

At the junction we see a "proper" shop - an off-licence with an armed guard. Surprisingly he has a pump action shotgun hanging from his shoulder. Why we ask, because this is a bad place he answers. He kindly arranges a taxi to take us to town - we suspect he phoned his brother who then quotes 600 DR Pesos - twice the going rate we discover later. To add insult to injury he then suggests 20 USD as a suitable fare. (should be 12 dollars but we have not yet got any DR Pesos).

We drive along the modern(ish) road past a mixture of reasonably modern (10 year+) buildings and some small houses and lots of bigger houses. Perhaps the road from the Marina is unusual...

He drops us in a tourist street in Boca Chica - parallels the shore behind beachfront stores. This is an eyeopener. Packed with Cafes, tables and chairs - pedestrian only; there are roving bands of young girls, packs of 3,4 or 5. We get accosted by a pack who make it clear what they are selling. I am reminded by a friend who travelled in Asia who heard the phrase |"50 dollar, 50 dollar, long time good loving". They grab Doros's wallet and then I get grabbed by my testimonials by a pretty young thing. Why D's wallet and my testimonial's I can only guess. I get released - maybe quicker than my pride would like but I am relieved. We then notice much of the street is male tourists (70%) either single men or groups of 4. We retreat to a restaurant and take an inside table to avoid the hustle and get a good meal.

We exit and try for a taxi - the taxi stand is shut (at 9 pm) but we see a fresh young youth dressed in chef whites coming down the road - clearly off duty and he kindly trys to get us a taxi, he finally takes us to a nearby road which is full of bright, modern hotels and plazas with trees and seated areas, the receptionist of one hotel gets us a taxi - modern air conditioned and cheap! (300 Pesos). He takes us back to the marina past mostly middle class housing and good roads, the last mile was maybe more potholed and had people out on the street enjoying chatting, beer and street food. Fair enough, had we turned right out of the marina instead of going straight we would have felt a bit safer and more comfortable - though in fact we were wrong to be nervous I suspect, the unknown is stressful at times. The DR is a country of two halves but at least it is not tainted by tourists, it is its own place. I don't think Boca Chica is a good starting point. We move on to Barahona.

So after getting Fuel and checking out we head for Barahone. After an easy overnight passage we arrive at 8 a.m. to a delapidated government jetty with few "cleats/bollards" and lots of bare reinforcing rods poking through the concrete. We tie a cats cradle of ropes as an occasional surge comes in that is very severe - we rig all our fenders to port and rig a fender board and still manage to pop a fender, ropes get a hammering as well but it is more convenient than running around in  the dinghy.

We see what looks like a whale (when we all have our glasses off) and take a photograph for Alan Doyle - who crossed the Atlantic hoping to see one. Here it is Alan...

Barahona is bit more like a normal town, poor but ok. Its trademark appears to be motorbikes, thousands (9 million?) Many clapped out and under 125cc or tiny mopeds. They wait an street corners and ask to be "taxis" we decline.,

I didn't want to seem I was photographing at the zoo so I have fewer shots than I would like - there are motorbikes with three on board - often a kid wedged between two adults, I even saw them 4 up.

By the way it is hot - use shade intelligently !

We walk the town and can't find a coffee shop - no starbucks here, in the end we find a small stall in a garden with 4 tables and 16 chairs. Phew, coffee fix. I take myself off to a "gran" hotel and use their free wifi for the cost of a coco cola (see last blog - this one is being typed in Cuba were you pay for a voucher to use the internet and spookily I can't use paypal or amazon to pay for phone topups of kindle purchases... ).

Peter and Doros take a 5 hour (75USD each) taxi ride/tour of a national park - and the Haitian border. D wil do a guest blog separately for that.

It is still hot when they return, a decision is made that it is beer oclock

(spoiler alert - this photo is Fake! well, not fake exactly but it is from Beer o'clock in Cuba a few days later - sorry)

There are two other foreign boats in Barahona, one on the quay like us - a swiss boat SARDINI has Michael as skipper and Ulrich and Evonne as crew - they are heading to Panama and I suggest we have dinner together to hear of their adventure. They know of a nearby restaurant (with free Wifi!) and we have a good evening.

We leave at 8 am towards cuba, heading south for 40 miles down a peninsula 

and then west through an interesting channel - shallows to 3.1 metres in a 3 mile wide by 5 mile long channel, luckily wind was from the North and the shallow part had little swell - could be rather dangerous here - we see a few wrecks on the shore!

And then onto Cuba - being careful not to stray into the 12 mile territorial limits of Haiti. Peter and Doros on the helm heading towards Cuba - their endpoint.

After three days and three nights we have travelled 365 miles and arrive in Cuba just after first light. Santiago is a very sheltered inlet and is convenient to Holguin airport where Peter has managed to bring forward his flight by one week, he has urgent family matters to attend to and we will miss him, he has been on board for over 2 months and has travelled 3,500 miles from the Cape Verde Islands to  Cuba, an adventure. Bon voyage Peter, thanks for all your hard work, some cooking, lots of dishwashing and good company. Come back soon.