The Cuban Adventures Part 1: The passage from Columbia and our Déjà Vu at Santiago De Cuba…..

The passage from Santa Marta, Columbia to Santiaga De Cuba was not fun….It started innocently enough with a forecast of 15-20 knots and a quiet motor for a few hours during our (mostly) windless first day out. After dinner on our second night we got hit by some squalls. We assumed they were ‘just’ local, isolated weather patterns but they didn’t give us a break until just before we arrived in Cuba 2 miserable days later…

The seas were sloppy and with 30-35 knots, Tika’s hulls slapped violently making it almost impossible to do anything much inside the saloon. Approaching the channel between Jamaica and Haiti was the worst and our 3rd day was windy, squally and bloody unpleasant all day.  Our 3rd night out we found ourselves careening on 3-4 meter waves and at one point saw a reading of 21.3 knots boat speed before we reefed …yikes!!!!

We were all tired after days of rough weather and Russ particularly was sleep deprived…. We were very happy to approach the massive, ancient fort (San Pedro de la Roca Castle) that looms like a silent sentinel above the entrance to the bay into Santiago De Cuba…

The UV strip that runs along the edge of our jib sail was in tatters, our mattress was sodden from a leaking hatch (Russ and I had been hot-bunking in the kids beds when not on watch), and Tika’s saloon was filled with wet jackets, soggy harnesses, life jackets, breakfast dishes and God knows what else after 3 uncomfortable nights at sea…

We still had to go through the arduous checking in process and we were busy ringing seawater out from many of our belongings and cleaning up the saloon as the first of many Cuban officials arrived; a health officer, to take our temperatures! We had been instructed to anchor across the Bay at a safe distance from the marina just in-case we were infected with a nasty disease (at this point, I was relieved that we had recovered from the tummy bug we had all suffered in the days before we left Santa Marta) Luckily, we passed the temperature test with flying colours

Above left: when I was not on watch, I spent a lot of time in this position on the Columbian/Cuban passage! Right: Kai and Jaiya just curled up in bed during most of the rough weather….and here I am bunked in with them in between watches..

More visits from hair-nesting birds! This one took a fancy to Kai…

Everything was wet after the slam-dunk passage! Jaiya and I hanging out the towels used to mop up water from Tika’s many leaks from wind, rain and sea…Happiness is coming into port after our uncomfortable passage! Hola Cuba!

Above: The Fort welcoming us to Santiago De Cuba..We didn’t know it at the time but later on Russ and I discovered we had visited this historic relic many years before…..Below: houses lining the bay…

Once we were deemed healthy enough to enter Cuba we were allowed to move over to the rough, concrete jetty at the marina. An immigration official and two of his off-siders were next aboard. We dutifully completed the pile of paperwork, produced passports, stamped our ships stamp in duplicates and tried to avoid answering the off-siders curious question “how much did you pay for this yacht??” (it is such an amazing amount of money for the average Cuban- who aren’t allowed to own a boat bigger than a row boat anyway- and it is just such an incomparable currency/unattainable goal, that we don’t want to engage in these types of conversations)

The officials (as with all Cubans we have met) are super friendly and a joy to deal with despite the frustrating, long-winded process. They remove their shoes before climbing aboard, are patient with us as we stumble through our Spanish vocabulary and are genuine in welcoming us to their country.

The next officials to board Tika were the customs team complete with a flappy drug dog. He seemed more interested in the treats his handler was slipping to him and the pats Jaiya and I were giving him than he was in sniffing our floor boards in search of Columbian cocaine..

Next we traipsed off to visit the port captain who asked us a long list of questions essential to Cuban national security (questions like “….and how many kilos of oranges do you have on board?) Poor Russ in his Zombied, sleep deprived state, endured at least 2 hours of these types of inquiries.…”and where did you purchase these 5 oranges?’…

Above: We tried to take this happy puppy seriously but he just didn’t quite pull off the lean, mean, well trained, obedient, professional customs drug dog image…

Below: Tika safely anchored in the Santiago De Cuba International Marina. We didn’t notice the brown/orange spots all over our decks until after we left this bay but have since been told that there is a concrete plant that operates at night and spews this horrible substance into the air- At the time of writing we still haven’t managed to scrub it all off and are searching for the right solvent  

Finally, after hours of paperwork,  we were granted our cruising permit for 30 days in Cuba. We grabbed a few hours sleep and hit downtown Santiago De Cuba. It turned out to be a day of déjà vu…

…Russ and I traveled through Cuba from West to East by car 12 years ago. As soon as I saw the central Plaza I remembered that we had once sat up on the balcony of the Grande Hotel overlooking the plaza and had lunch. I remember we witnessed a groovy and impromptu street party take place…It started with two old guys who were playfully jamming with old car parts as instruments. They sounded like professional percussionists! Not long later another muso with a guitar wandered past, stopped to listen, started tapping his feet and was soon strumming along to the beat and singing at the top of his lungs….. A couple of teenagers started dancing in that effortless, Latino style, twirling themselves around with their hips moving in sync to the bongo drums that had appeared from nowhere and integrated seamlessly with the beat of expert hands on an old brake drum.

The sound drew people in and within an hour the whole plaza had been swept up in the musika while Russ and I snapped piccies and watched the party unfold from the balcony just above street level. The memory flooded back as we ambled through the plaza and we told the kids the story as we lingered on the marble steps of the Grande Hotel. Way back then I was 6 weeks pregnant with Kai…..

Left: The Grande Hotel today and Right: 12 years ago- the beginnings of a street party in the plaza with the hotel balcony behind

The ‘Cathedral of our Lady of Assumption’ today (left) and 12 years ago (right)

We stopped for an ice cream in the state run Coppelia (ice creamery) which we had to argue our way into (it was 20 minutes to closing time but, interestingly, businesses don’t have the same enthusiasm for customers in a state run shop as they do in a capitalist environment!) It had an elaborate menu with many ice cream flavours and options…but when we came to order it turned out they have 1 flavour only- easy decision!  We had a great conversation about communism and all it entails over coconut ice-creams with sugary biscuits….

We had read about a hotel across town that had a pool and allows non-guests to pay, swim and lounge.. it was hot and we were tired (Russ who had taken the graveyard shift that finishes at 6am had still not slept) A swim, a lounge and even the promise of WIFI sounded good so we jumped in a taxi and headed that way. Another memory surfaced and I realised that yet again we were retracing our footprints from our previous Cuban adventure. …

…Fidel Castro was speaking in the plaza on our last visit in 2003. There was excitement in the streets as crowds of people coursed into the city central to hear their charismatic leader speak. We jostled along trying to get a good spot but were stopped at a street barricade and  told ‘no foreigners’…. ‘really?? cant you just fleece us to make sure we don’t intend to execute him and then just let us through so we can have  a listen?” Apparently not.

It was Russel’s idea to head to the Santiago De Cuba hotel. “It’s the tallest building in the city..it is a little way away from the plaza so we wont be able to see Fidel himself but we can get a feel and a visual of the crowds…oh and they have a pool so we can cool off” We headed for the elevators in the lobby and chose the button for the highest level- only to be greeted by a security guard as the elevator doors opened! “Our leader is speaking in the plaza and no foreigners are allowed above the first floor today” he explained politely….damn! foiled again….we were at least 15km away from where he was speaking- they must have cleared all above ground rooms of foreigners just for this one day….

Oh well, we headed to the pool instead- the same pool we found ourselves lounging around with the kids in 2015. And it hadn’t changed much… pleasant, but a tinge reminiscent of a scene from ‘boogy nights’ complete with tacky cocktail umbrellas, thick, glass, 70’s style ashtrays and scores of fat, cigar-smoking, middle-aged, Eastern European men wearing gold chains and hanging around the cabanas in the company of young Cuban girls…

Our lovely taxi diver picked us up back at the plaza and we headed out to the San Pedro de la Roca Castle for the daily sunset firing of the canon. ..

As soon as we arrived the déjà vu hit us once again! The doorway out from the main entrance was the most familiar and later that day we dug up some old pictures of a me (slightly green with morning sickness) standing under the arch 12 years prior. We had a ‘pinch me’ moment… to think if someone had told us back then that we would one day be back, not one, but two kids in tow, overlooking a bay that just that morning we had sailed our yacht into…we would never have believed them…

Left: 2003 and only just pregnant with Kai. Right: 2015 who would have thought it??

Two young travellers (who just discovered they were to be 3) at San Pedro de la Roca Castle in 2003

We poked our head into the Morro lighthouse (built in 1840) and were invited up the freshly painted, glossy, red stairs by the lighthouse keeper… Most lighthouses in Cuba are not automated and the keeper told us he had to wind up the mechanism every 5 hours. The revolving glass reflected light from a tiny 70 watt globe and is visible 8 miles out at sea! Apparently a 300 watt globe can be seen 26 miles out. What a treat.

 

next post: Cruising the untouched South Coast of Cuba

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