La Havana… Cultural Expedition

 

Dear Friends,

So, by taxi to La Havana. From Cienfuegos it was aprox 2 hours drive. Not a lot of traffic and the road took us through sugar cane fields to La Havana. Through our taxi driver guy in Cienfuegos, we were recommended to stay at Nuria`s Casa Particular (a  licensed bed and breakfast) Adress: Calle Habana no 623, apt 2, Habana Vieja. Email: nuriadannel@yahoo.es. Telephone: 053-7-8621471. . It was a great recommendation. Neat, clean and well kept old colonial style house in La Havana Vieija (Old Havana). Old, indeed, and very narrow streets. Some streets in good conditions, others not so… All in all, a nice atmosphere. People want to sell you things, but are very educated and if you show that you don’t want anything, they leave you alone.

We just strolled around in the busy streets in downtown La Havana. A mixture of music, smell of food, street vendors. We talked to a bike taxi driver, a young guy, a degree in civil construction, but no job ofcourse, and so he makes some money with his bicycle taxi. It is sad to hear that for him there is almost no other way, with all the restrictions, rules and regulations. We hope that soon, things will improve.

We learned that in more sophisticated Hotels there was some wifi internet possible. In the center we found Hotel Sostorga, and so we could access the net to get the admin things sorted out (rental agreements for the apartment in Florianopolis, bank issues etc etc). Expensive, slow but at least working.

Of course we went to see a live music show (Buena Vista Social Club – cover) great stuff, Mojitos, local snacks and of course a Cuban Cigar.. (for me.. as Dora was happy with her Mojito). Check out this great clip…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGbRZ73NvlY

We also took a bus tour (hop on and off) through the city, and ended up at what was supposed to be THE Supermarket… A lot of products from Spain (SPAR), also a lot of empty shelves as well. And rather pricy..

We were not lucky as far as restaurant choices. At the state controlled (some actually looked very promising) ones, the service is bad, the quantities minimum. At the private paladares, more expensive, but questionable quality. A cold front from the North, made the temperatures drop dramatically, and so we ventured out to purchase some ingredients so that Dora could make a nice soup in Nuria`s casa particular. Our visit to the local farmers market was an experience. However, managed to get the major items and so Dora and Nuria cooked up a great hearty soup.

 

Also made friends with Ivan, a souvenir shop owner. Great person, very kind and wanted us to have some souveniers. It seems that Che Guevara is more popular than Fidel (judging by the amount of pictures, tshirts etc etc) sold on the streets.

After three days, we returned to Cienfuegos. Our visit to La Havana was great, met great people and got more appreciation for the hardship and struggle the Cuban people have to endure.

The taxi driver on our return trip was a different guy.. and we folded ourselves in a Fiat Uno (with diesel motor…) and raced back to Cienfuegos.

We found Onda Boa in good shape at the marina, however as it turned out the Victron power inverter was busted, corroded and oxidiced.. meaning, we couldn’t charge the laptops etc anymore. Luckily I still had a very small inverter still and so became handy.

 

Be good

Pieter

Montego Bay (Jamaica) to Cienfuegos (Cuba)

 

Dear Friends,

We left Jamaica after a typical cold front had passed the region...The 250 miles to Cienfuegos in Cuba was ahead of us, and all seemed going nicely, were it not for a sequence of silly mistakes by the captain (trying to get from reef 3 to reef 2, whilst not really navigating close to the wind, and still having the fishing line in the water, and starting the motors in order to help steer into to wind, and then noticing that the fishing line got stuck in the port engine propeller, and ... and... and...). This is not the first and won’t be the last time... It is always amazing to see how in a few seconds one can get from a bad situation into a worst situation... And I thought to be experienced enough.. Ok, enough about this... Dora’s comments were spot on: Just stay focused and solve the issue at hand one by one (and not all at once together.. )..

After the initial stress (and me in mildly bumpy sea trying to cut away the fishing line, holding on with one hand on the safety line and the other the fishing knife... took a while, but managed...) on our way again.. Winds increased somewhat, and died out as well, so it was playing with the sails but all in all we did decent mileage... Hardly any traffic around so it was a calm night, and half way through the second day, the wind died again so had to motor sail for a while.. then winds picked up and at this rate we were going to arrive at the entrance of the channel in Cienfuegos way too early (around 3 in the morning), and it is always better to arrive in a new location by daylight.. so, had to figure out how to safely slow down the boat speed... Furled the genoa to just a small triangle, and had the main back to the third reef, plus the boom pushed into to windward side.. this kept the boat speed at around 4 knots and would put us at around 9 in the morning in Cienfuegos...This tactic worked well.. According to information we hailed the GuardaFrontera on VHF channel 16 but to no avail... No worries, we continued to move to our destination... Then a call on the VHF by a boat asking for a tow to the marina, as they had motor problems.... Ofcourse helped them out (Karma) and slowly we entered the huge Bay of Cienfuegos... We tied up the Onda Boa at the píer of the Marina and waited for the things to come. All very friendly people, and we had nothing short of 9 different people on board (a doctor, the custom guy, the imigration guy, the port authority guy, the drug sniffing dog guy, the transportation guy and so on.. various papers, documents and stamps), but all very friendly and as Dora had kept the Onda Boa in tip top shape, they all were kind of surprised to find everything so neat and clean... To stay tied upo n the píer of the marina was going to cost US$ 24 per day, and on anchor only Us$ 8, so we left and anchored out, calm waters, light breeze. Another dream realized... being cleared in in Cuba... what a great feeling.. As we needed both to check some e-mails and internet related issues, tried our luck at a hotel nearby...They had run out of prepaid internet cards so, nothing possible... On our way back we met with Sr Condido who told us he could arrange for a taxi ride to La Havana etc, so that was great. Tired but satisfied went back to Onda Boa. New adventures awaiting in Cuba.

… Hasta la Victoria, Siempre   (Che Guevara)..

Pieter

… And we are back…

Dear friends,

Too much time has passed since my last post, and I wont bore you all with reasons, but just to name a few: little or no internet access in Cuba, a madening voyage of intotal  over 900 nm to get from Cuba to the BVI’s beating against the Tradewinds, which included the total loss of our Genoa sail… and yes, also severe engine issues (picture this: dirty diesel tank, bad quality diesel and so clogged up primary fuel filters, and all this in a fresh breeze of 28 knot winds of the coast of the Dominican Republic).

Anyhow, we will get to the details… In the next coming posts, I will try to play catch up without omitting the essence of the places we have been and the adventures and events that took place.

As a final conclusion: Sailing back from Cuba (Cienfuegos) to the BVI’s, yes it is do-able (have to have smooth engines and prepared to motor sail most of the time), however we won’t be doing that again. Just too much stress and discomfort.

 

Stay tuned for more detailed updates and loads of pics (and some movies)…

Have fun

Pieter