Heading to Havana

We were getting anxious to see the big city, so after about a month of Cay hoping on the south coast, we decided to set our sights on Havana.  We still had about 350 miles ahead of us, so we wanted to get moving.  We opted not to go ashore on the Isla de la Juventud, although we have heard it is pretty.  We sailed along the south coast of the island and anchored for the night in Caleta Puerto Frances.  It is a very pretty spot with crystal clear water and tons of sand dollars on the bottom.  We timed our departure so that we would round Cabo de San Antonio (the southwestern Cape) during the very early morning hours (i.e. 3 – 4am) because we had read that it can get quite nasty rounding the cape and the best time to do it is late evening to early morning when the winds are at their lightest.  We indeed had light winds and an uneventful passage. 

On the way north to Havana, there is a reef that runs for about 120 miles along coast line with some breaks where boats can get through.  Nigel Calder writes that if your draft is 1.8m or less, you can run the entire way inside the reef.  We draw just under 7 feet, and keeping an eye on the tides, we did the majority of the run inside the reef with a few passages outside. 

After rounding the Cape, we headed inside and tried to anchor by Los Arroyos.  According to Nigel Calder’s book, it is a pretty little fishing village with a nice main street to walk up and down.  We never got to see it.  Two Aduana (Customs officials) rowed out to see us in a sinking skiff and asked to come aboard.  They didn’t speak any English but were very friendly.  They asked to see our papers and started the clearing in process.  While one of the officers was completing this process, the other borrowed our VHF to call his boss on shore.  I heard some arguing going on and based on my limited Spanish, knew we had a little problem.  Evidently, we were not allowed to go ashore.  The officer had no idea why, and that was what he was arguing with his boss about.  “No problemo”, I said.  “Was it okay to just anchor for the night and sleep and leave in the morning?”  “Of course”, they said.  Just then, Sabbaticus, our friends, sailed next to us and dropped anchor.  We told the officers who they were and we were sailing together.  The official went back to the VHF and called his boss again.  After much conversation, we were told very nicely, that actually, we were not allowed to anchor there because there was much military around.  We would have to motor to an uninhabited Cay about 2 miles away and anchor there.  And then they say something in Spanish and pointed to their eyes.  I nodded and thought to myself, of course you can watch us leave.   The sun was going down as we motored over to Punta Mosquito and dropped the hook, giving the island a wide berth just in case it lived up to its name.  We cooked some dinner and it was pretty dark outside, so Maria decided to take a quick shower on deck.  We went to sleep and got up around 7 am the next morning to get going.  Don’t you know that pretty close to us, in their sinking dingy, were the two officers from yesterday, drinking coffee and eating breakfast!  They had rowed over some time the night before, slept in their skiff and watched our boat to make sure we didn’t get off of it and leave when we said we would!  As always, they were very friendly and gave us huge smiles and waves as we hauled anchor and continued on our way!  I hope they enjoyed Maria’s shower!!

Our next run took us about 25 miles inside the reef until we got to Cayo Jutias and we had to pop out through the reef for 6 miles to get around the Cayo as there is no passage inside.  We exited at Quebrado de la Galera with no problems.  It wasn’t too bad outside, maybe 6 -7 foot swells, about 8 seconds apart.  We knew the weather was forecasted to pick up, but so far, it was very comfortable.  We motor sailed around the Cay and Sabbaticus called us up on the VHF and said it was only about 18 hours to Havana and did we want to just go for it on the outside.  Like I said, at this point is was fairly comfortable – the waves were on our forward quarter so we were bucking a little bit, but not that bad.  As we got into late afternoon, the winds picked up and so did the sea state and the wave period shortened.  We knew we were running low of fuel but had enough to get to Havana.  We weren’t making great time beating into the seas and was considering going inside to find and anchorage and try again in a little better weather the next day, so we started looking for a break in the reef to go through in case we decided to do this.  We were on a port tack which had us heading toward land when the engine quit.  Great.  Since we were motor sailing, we only had the main up, so we hurried to get some more sail area up.  The wind was at the wrong angle and the seas had built up and we were getting pushed towards the reef.  We were about half a mile away from the reef and we tried to tack (go through the wind), but we did not have enough power under sail alone to get our nose through the seas.  Bugger.  We were now about a quarter mile from the reef and could hear and see the waves breaking.  We had to gybe.  We did a controlled gybe, but the wind was pretty strong and so it was not so controlled and I ended up with a nice rope burn from the main sheet, but we got her around and started sailing as best we could away from the reef.  With that under control, Maria went down to try and get the engine started.  It seems that we had a clogged fuel filter from the all the sludge in the bottom of the tank getting sloshed around and not much fuel.  She switched over to our second racor and then had to bleed the engine – not fun when you are getting tossed around a bit.  Finally the engine started and we let our friends on Sabbaticus know that we were okay and were heading in.  They had put their engine in idle and were waiting to see if we needed help, and they said they had drifted half a mile toward the reef in 20 minutes in those conditions!  Anyway, the break in the reef was pretty wide and we decided to sail in just in case the engine failed again as we were trying to get in.  The bottom went from about 600 feet to 50 feet to 15 feet in no time as we were sailing through the cut, the waves were heaping up to about 8 – 10 feet and breaking on our beam.  Sabbaticus actually called us up to make sure we weren’t on the reef because the waves were breaking so badly by us!  We sailed in with adrenaline flowing but no incident and made our way to the calmest spot we could find and dropped the hook.  We fiddled with the engine for a while and decided that we would go as far as we could inside the reef so the seas would be smaller and hopefully our fuel filters wouldn’t get clogged again!

Our track during our engine problems!

Our friends on Sabbaticus were good enough to go along with our plan.  They are a catamaran and so in some of the shallower spots where the chart showed only 6’6” of water at MLW, they would go ahead of us and using their depth sounder, would find a path we could make it through.  Around Cayo Arenas and Cayo Paraiso the water was the skinniest.  Sabbaticus sounded a 7’2” spot and we held our breath as we skimmed over it.  We were lucky our fuel and water tanks were almost empty! 

We had pulled down a weather fax and saw that it was supposed to be pretty crappy for the next two days, so we decided to anchor by Cayo Paraiso and wait for the weather to pass before we carried onto Havana, as the next passages were all outside the reef.  Our mojitos would have to wait a few more days.  Cayo Paraiso was a nice place to be stuck, with a great beach for Niko to run on and a good reef to snorkel on.  After the weather broke, we exited the reef at Querbadode la Mulata at 2am – it is a wide open channel through the reef and we had no problems doing it in the dark.  We had a nice motor sail up to Havana and made it there later that afternoon.

Archipielago de los Canerreros, Cuba

Dinner!

The next week or so was spent sailing around the Archipielago de los Canerreros.   The cruising here is second to none, with pristine reefs, picture perfect islands and water of incredible color.  We left Cayo Largo and sailed on the outside (rather than inside the reefs) to our first island stop, Cayo del Rosario.  Here, you have the choice of anchoring in the Canal Rosario or inside the reef on the southwest end of the Cay.  We chose the reef anchorage, as well had settled weather, thought it would be a bit cooler and we read there could be crocodiles in the Canal!  The reef entry is straightforward and we anchored in about 10 feet of water.  There was a light chop in the anchorage, but that doesn’t really bother our heavy girl.  The snorkeling here is good, lots of fish and lobsters and the beach was very inviting to go for a walk.  There were lots of iguanas and juntas that tempted Niko to chase them.  We stayed here for two nights before heading off to Cayo Campos. 

Cayos Campos

Cayo Campos was about a 30 mile sail from Cayo Rosario, and again, we chose the outside route due to our depth constraints.  We entered the reef on the western end of the island and anchored to the east of the opening in about 8 feet of water.  Be careful of partially submerged steel stakes that are used to house grouper when in season.  The stakes are pretty easy to see.  Again, we were anchored her in pretty settled weather, and only experienced some light chop in the anchorage as the reef breaks up most of the seas.  There is a more protected anchorage closer to the island but we could not get up in there because of our draft.  Nigel Calder’s book has a good sketch of the two anchorages. 

About half an hour after we anchored, two men from the island came out to greet us.  They spoke only Spanish but we understood that they were inviting us to the island.  They were also out of gas.  We didn’t have any to spare, but sent them up to our friends on Sabbaticals who gave them some.  We got in our dink and away we went to the island. 

Cayo Campos is a monkey sanctuary and there is a small house which is home to 3 men who stay on the island for three months and then go back home for three months while another shift comes on to take care of the sanctuary.  I could never remember their names, so we just called them the “Boys of Cayo Campos”!  They were so nice and funny!  As soon as we got there, they got out their bucket of dog food and we went outside as they threw the food on the ground and called out to the monkeys.  Before we knew it, there were about 10 monkeys looking at us with caution as they scooped up the food and shoved it in their mouth.  A little while later, mama monkeys with their babies hanging on to their chest came out for the feast.  One of the Boys was able to hand feed one of the monkeys, but it is clear they are still very wild.  We got a tour of their meager hut and made plans to come back in the morning for another feeding. 

The next day, we went in again to see our new found friends.  We hung out with them for about an hour in their hut, chatting away with them and their only neighbor who is a fisherman who also lives on the island during a three month rotation.  They invited us to stay for lunch and cooked us up a delicious rice and conch dish.  They waited for us to eat before they did, as they only had a limited number of plates!  I was continually amazed at the generosity of these people who give so much and yet have so little.  After lunch, we went back to our boat but not before making them promise to have dinner with us that evening.  Later that night, we had a great pasta dinner and lots of rum.  I think it is the first time they ever had a meat sauce on their pasta!  They were so grateful that they promised to take us to their favorite snorkeling spot the following day. 

Conch lunch

We trucked in again to the island the next day and the Boys made good on their promise to take us to a great snorkeling spot.  They pointed out all kinds of fish and collected Flamingo Tongues (small shells) for the Captains of the two boats.  They apologized they couldn’t find more, but the shells are fairly rare.  They escorted us back to our boat and we gave them some old rope, garlic and an old pair of fins in exchange for the promise of some fish the following morning before we had to head out.  The next morning, they came out, fish and all.  They then proceeded to clean the fish in their skiff, so we didn’t have to do any of the work!  We said our farewells and made our way to Cayo Matitas, about 5 miles away.  We were sad to leave our friends and this island paradise.

We were very used to reef entries after cruising the southern coast of Cuba and getting behind the  reef on Cayo Matitas was another straight forward entry.  We anchored in about 10 feet of clear blue water in front of another beautiful sandy beach.  We did our usual routine of snorkeling, hunting for fish and lobster and a walk on the beach.  Life is pretty good cruising the south coast of Cuba!

Another dinner!

The Boys of Cayos Campos

The view at anchor

Our fish being cleaned and delivered!

Cayo Largo, Cuba

 Our plan was to go from Cienfuegos to Cayo Guano del Este and then to Cayo Largo.  This route takes you through the prohibited zone that is around the Bay of Pigs.  We cut a pretty good edge of the zone and didn’t have any problems as we never saw anyone patrolling this area so far out. 

We got to Cayo Guano del Este in the afternoon and it was ROLLY POLLY, so we looked at the guide book and decided to continue on another 5 miles to Cayos de Dios, which turned out to be a really nice Cay and not nearly as rolly.  We only stayed the night and continued on our way the next morning, but later learned that the Cay had some of the best snorkeling in the area, and wished we had stayed there at least another day. 

We got to Cayo Largo around noon and was greeted with a Catamaran high and dry on a reef about 500 yards from the entrance.  Evidently, the cat had mistaken the green buoy they had put out to mark the reef with a green channel marker – a good reminder that in Cuba, sometimes they use markers to mark the reef themselves, and not necessarily the channel, so you have to navigate with your eyes and to read the water around these parts and not just rely on your GPS.  Having said that, and earlier stating the channels are usually well marked, we found the entrance to Cayo Largo very confusing.  Now, remember, we draw just under 7 feet, so boats with under 6 feet draft wouldn’t have the same problem that we did.  But basically, as you come into the entrance, you can either go straight, which has channel markers, or you can go to the starboard, which also has channel markers, and there is a sand bar in between the two.  We have a forward looking depth sounder, so we are pretty comfortable going into shallower water, as long as we go slow and there is enough room to maneuver out .  So, looking at Nigel  Calder’s guide, it looked as if we could go to either side, and it looked as if we should go to starboard, so  we started to do that, and we were reading 6 – 6.5 feet.  So, we backed out of there and took the straight path.  It was pretty narrow and led us down a channel with mud flats on our port side and a concrete pier ahead of us.  Then there was a 90 degree turn that we had to do that brought us in front of the marina.  It is a pretty small marina and really tucked back in there and looked buggy, so we made another 90 degree turn and kept coming around, essentially making a giant U shape and anchored on the southwest side of Punta Sirena in about 8 feet of water.   We dignied into the marina to clear in and they tried to tell me that I had to take my boat into the marina to clear in.  I told them that I was not comfortable bringing my boat in there as there was not much room to maneuver and we don’t have the best turning radius.  They insisted that I bring my boat in and I insisted that I would not do that and that I was happy to dingy them out to the anchorage to clear in.  Finally after talking to 3 people and a little more convincing, they got in the dingy and came out to the boat to clear us in. 

There was a beautiful white beach just off of our beam where we had anchored and Niko loved to go over to it and run free.   The water was a beautiful turquoise color and is deep right up to the beach.  The sand is the softest I have ever felt and so white and clean.  It is a great anchoring spot!

We dignied to the dock and bar, where they have the dolphin enclosures, to walk over to the beach.  The immense span of white sand gave our calf muscles a great workout as we made our way to one of the many palapas lining the beach that gives much needed relief from the sun.  The water was beautiful, the people watching entertaining and the pina coladas, brought to us by the bar waiters, refreshing.  It was a great day.  Once it got later in the afternoon and everyone cleared out, we went back to get Niko so she could romp on the beach as well.  On the way back to the boat, we stopped at the dolphin enclosure, which was closed but there was a roped off walkway that you could get over and get right up to the water.  We stood there with Niko and tapped the water and called to the dolphins.  Two swam over to us and Niko had the time of her life, nose to nose with her favorite animal.  She was whining and barking and making all kinds of noise, but the dolphins didn’t mind and just stared at her.  It was pretty cool.  After a little while, one of the workers there asked us to leave, but did so very politely!

The next day I had the unenviable task of trying to renew our visas.  Canadians’ get a 3 month visa, but Americans only get a one month visa.  You can only renew in points of entry, and the next point of entry for us was going to be Havana.  Our visas’ would have expired before then, so I had to get it done in Cayo Largo.  I was told that I had to go to the airport and see immigration there.  I walked the mile or so to the airport in the heat and asked to see the immigration officer.  I had to wait for about an hour before I asked again, and finally was brought into see him.  Again, he asked me for proof of health insurance, and I explained that I had an international policy, but he said they would not accept it because I was American and no one would insure me if I got hurt in Cuba.  I tried to argue that I was covered, but he told me I had to go back to the marina and talk to the head of Immigration there.  If he would accept my insurance policy, then he would have to call the airport Immigration and I would have to go back to see them.  So, I walked back to the marina in the heat and hunted down the head of Immigration there.  I explained my problem and he told me not to worry about it.  He took my passport and about-to-expire visa and said he would go to the airport and take care of everything and to come back that afternoon.  I was a little hesitant to leave my passport with him, but in the end I did.  That afternoon, I came back to his office and true to his word, he had my passport and a renewed visa!   I chatted with him a bit and he pulled out a picture of his boy and told me it was his birthday.  I caught his drift and gave him a few CUCs to buy his son a birthday present.  Next I had to go to Customs to renew my cruising permit.  All boats only get a one month cruising permit.  This time, everything went smoothly and I received a renewed cruising permit and luckily, the customs officer did not have any children!

Cienfuegos, Cuba

We had an easy downwind run from Casilda to Cienfuegos.  As soon as we sailed into the entrance of the harbor, we were greeted with a huge painted wall that read “Bienvendios a Cuba Socialista”.  Even with my bad Spanish, I knew that it said “Welcome to Socialist Cuba”!  The anchorage is quite a ways into the Bahia de Cienfuegos, but it is a well-marked channel.  We anchored outside of the marina and dignied in to clear in.  All of the offices are right there at the marina and was very easy to check in.  As always, the officials were very friendly and respectful.  We did have to pay to anchor outside the marina, but it was only about $5 a day.  The marina had a nice bar with cold beers and appetizers.  They also have a small convenience store which sells eggs, some canned veggies, juices and of course, rum!  We didn’t find their prices to be much more than the stores in town.

After clearing in and having our necessary cold beer at the bar, we decided to go hit the town.  We walked a little way toward town and came across a local watering hole.  Wanting a little local culture, we decided to stop for a beer.  This was a local joint, with local beer from a keg, and thus local prices – 6 local pesos per beer, plus 5 pesos for the cup, which equaled about $0.25 US for the beer.  To be honest, you get what you pay for, but nevertheless, we stayed for another before we moved on!  We continued to walk in the general direction of town and found ourselves on the Malecon, which is the wide sidewalk that runs along the seawall.  It seems as if the entire population of Cienfuegos was hanging out on the Malecon, so we decided we were in the right spot.  We did as the thousand or so other locals did – bought a bottle of rum, or two, and sat up on the wall and watched the young and old Cubans strut their stuff.  What entertainment!  The guys were mostly dressed all in white – tight white jeans, a loose fitting white shirt and a styling belt and pair of shoes to finish the outfit.  The girls were dressed to kill in the tightest, sexiest dresses or skirts they could find.  And everyone just paraded up and down the sidewalk, stopping to talk to friends and then continued to saunter along.  It was quite a site.  When we got hungry, we walked over to the local Rapido, (their version of McDonalds and KFC combined into one) and fed our bellies.  Then we decided to parade up and down the Malecon, but not as successfully as the locals.  We did met some really nice people though.  We got wind of a concert going on and went to find it.  It was basically pretty bad music set up in a parking lot with a ton of people milling about, so we decided to head back to the Malecon and then back to the boat as it was getting pretty late. 

The next morning, we took a horse taxi to the center of town to go exploring.  It was a Sunday so not much was open, but we sat in a pretty courtyard for a while and admired the government buildings.  We walked around a bit and then headed back to the marina.  The following day, we went back to the center of town to see what it was like on a weekday.  It was definitely much livelier.  We traded some of our goods (old clothes, tooth brushes and tooth paste) for some fresh veggies and fruit.  We got some of our much loved street pizza, and then took a bike taxi back to the marina for about $2. 

Yacht Club

Every time we walked to town, we would pass by a beautiful colonial style building that turned out to be the Cienfuegos Yacht Club.  On our last night we were walking by and all decided we needed to see in side of course we weren’t really dressed for what event they had planed . We to put on our best high class attitudes and face. And made our way up the red carpeted stairs to the entrance of the Yacht Club.  No one even questioned us and we went inside to have a beer.  It was beautiful inside with all old pictures of Cuba and old cups and other trophies from the winners of yacht racers.  They were having a concert at the club later that night, but we decided not to stay as we had to get moving early the next morning, and no one wanted to sail with a hangover!  So, we made the mature decision to boogie home and got an early start the next morning.  The officials are at the marina 24 hours, so we were able to clear out at 6am and be on our way by 7am for the 40 or so mile run to Cayo Guano del Este, which was just a jumping off point to Cayo Largo.

Malecon during the day