22 March 2013 Long Cay to Cayo Largo, Cuba (Day 3)
By dawn, the wind had veered and I was able to alter course to a fast, close reach directly towards Cayo Largo, which was still over 200 miles away. The motion continued to be horrible all morning, but at least we were going at seven knots, so there was a chance that we'd get there the next day.
I downloaded a GRIB file via satellite email and there was no real change - the wind would be SSE20 knots for the next two days, it was just a matter of hunkering down and going as fast as we can to get it over with.
I had to laugh when we received an email from our son Craig asking for advice on varnishing wood and caring for the lawn in his new house, when we were struggling in horrible conditions in the middle of the Caribbean Sea - satellite phones are amazing.
Glenys went to the front toilet and, to her horror, found about ten gallons of water sloshing around on the heads floor. A bit of an investigation revealed that I'd left the toilet valve in the water flush position and the pounding motion of the boat must have been pumping water through the seacock into the toilet bowl, which had then overflowed.
During the afternoon, the wind slowly dropped to 15 knots and by three o'clock, I had shaken out all of the reefs. We now had only 120 miles to go, so there was a good chance that we'd get to Cayo Largo before dark tomorrow. It had now become a race against time because we didn't want to spend two more nights at sea.
As usual, the wind started to pick up at dusk, so I put a reef in the main and four wraps in the genoa before I went to bed at seven o'clock. I'm still puzzled why the wind always seems to increase at night in this part of the world. At the start of my 10-1 watch, we put in another reef because Glenys had been getting 25 knot gusts.
By midnight, we were going along nicely at 6.5 knots with only 65 miles to go, and were looking forward to making landfall in the morning.
23 March 2013 Long Cay to Cayo Largo, Cuba (Day 4)
The wind continued blowing 15-20 knots all night and we arrived at the entrance through the reef just after nine o’clock. We passed between two buoys and headed north until the depth dropped to six metres then turned east towards the marina. Some friends had told us that the dredged channel into the marina was different from that shown in our cruising guide, so we were a little tense as we made our approach.
I could see various marker buoys, but couldn’t make out the entrance until I saw a tourist catamaran heading out, then it all became clear. Once at the entrance markers, it was simple to follow the red and green buoys into the marina. We passed a tug towing a barge loaded up with containers, which must be one of the ways that they get goods to this isolated island.
We were soon tied up in a berth in Cayo Largo Marina, which is very pleasant, with stunningly clear water and palm trees everywhere.
We went through the usual tedious checking in process, but at least here they all came to us and arrived swiftly. We had the Doctor, Guarda Fronteras, Immigration, Customs, Port Captain and Agricultural Inspector. The only unusual thing was that the customs came with a dog to sniff out drugs - a very nice cocker spaniel. The Agriculture Inspector really gave our vegetables a good looking over with a magnifying glass and insisted that we throw away a couple of onions and eat our eggs today.
I went to bank to get some cash and then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around to see various officials to pay fees. It’s only $10-$20 for each official, but there were so many of them that we ended up paying out $115.
We had a wander around the place. There's not a lot here; just the marina, a small hotel and some tourist shops. Bus loads of tourists come from other hotels on the island to go out snorkelling and diving, so there’s a steady procession of boats moving around, packed with punters. Not really Cuba more like Disney land.
We stopped off at a bar and had a couple of beers, then retired back to boat to try to have a nap, but there was too much going on. At five o'clock, we gave up and went back to the bar with Stan & Lynn from “Homers Odyssey” and Pat & Ebba from “Melodrama”.
We had pizza and fried chicken & chips for dinner at a huge cost of $8. It’s nice to be back in Cuba where beers are only $1 at bars instead of paying $4, which we did in Mexico and Belize.
24 March 2013 Cayo Largo, Cuba
The time in Cuba is two hours later than in Belize, so the difference in the time and our tiredness made for a late start to the day.
We'd taken a lot of waves over the decks on the passage here, so Glenys was looking forward to using the free water at the marina to wash the salt off everything. Unfortunately, the water pressure was so poor that it dribbled out of the hosepipe and she had to fill buckets and lug them on deck – very frustrating.
I spent most of the morning sorting out our boat insurance. I had to use a computer at the hotel to access to the internet - $10 for an hour. After getting our email and saving the insurance proposal form to a USB stick, I wandered back to the boat. I filled in the form, scanned it and copied it to the USB stick, then walked back to the hotel to send the form to the insurance company. It took ages, but at least we're now insured.
I talked to the Port Captain and confirmed that we can’t clear out at Manzanillo, which buggers up our grand plan. We were hoping to slowly cruise east, get our international exit zarpe at Manzanillo and then sail south to Jamaica. The only place that we can check out near Jamaica is Santiago de Cuba which is 200 miserable miles up-wind and up-current of Cabo Cruz – it’s not going to happen.
We decided that instead, we’ll go to Cienfuegos, stay there for a few days and then clear out for Jamaica. We can then slowly sail east through the outlying cays and pray that nobody checks our papers. If they do, well, we had a problem with our engine didn’t we…
We dropped off our laundry and an empty cooking gas bottle and went to the bar with “Homers Odyssey” and “Melodrama”.
25 March 2013 Cayo Largo, Cuba
It was another late start to the day – still catching up on sleep. This two hour time difference between here and Belize is playing havoc with my sleep pattens.
There’s a cold front arriving in the next couple of days, so we’re trapped here until it goes through. It’s only 80 miles to Cienfuegos, but it’s a little awkward because we have to go east for 40 miles then north east into entrance to Cienfuegos. The wind will be north east veering to east for the next five days, so we’ll have the wind against us, so our only choice is to pick a day when the wind is lightest.
Glenys dug out her sewing machine, repaired our cockpit seat covers which are getting worn and did some more work on the storm drogue bag. I worked on the broken block on the main sheet traveller. The clevis pin was seized solid in the traveller, so I had to borrow a blow torch from Stan on “Homers Odyssey” to heat it up and crack the corrosion. It worked quite well and I soon had the block replaced with a spare one I had lying about.
We had another evening of beer and pizza in the bar. The humid heat was oppressive today, I'll be glad when the cold front comes through.
26 March 2013 Cayo Largo, Cuba
I managed to drag myself out of bed at eight o'clock. The weather front has arrived and the cold north wind is making itself felt – it was lovely and cool this morning.
I spent most of the morning planning ahead and looking at information for Ecuador – Stan and Lynn from “Homers Odyssey” have been there twice and have lots of information about the place, so it’s an ideal time to pick their brains for local knowledge.
It was such a lovely, cool day that we went for a walk in the afternoon. There's not much on the island, just a long straight road that connects the marina to the airport and to a handful of big hotels. We started walking, but after a mile it was so boring that we hitched a lift on one of the coaches that run tourists around. The driver dropped us off at a big hotel where we had a quick wander around before starting to walk back. Fortunately, we were able to bum another lift on a coach back to the marina.
We went to the bar with “Homers Odyssey” and “Melodrama” as usual for beer and pizza. I’m not saying that this has become a habit, but the barmaid came over and shook all of our hands when she arrived on her shift at six o’clock – it’s the fourth night in a row. It was so bloody cold that I had to go back to boat to get a fleece.
Pat & Ebba have recently spent eight months in Panama, so I picked their brains for local knowledge. They love Portobello, so we’re going to make that our landfall and clear in there. It sounds like June to August are hot and humid in Panama with frequent lightning storms, so we’re thinking of going back to the UK in July rather than September. We can then spend August and September in the San Blas when the weather should be nicer.
27 March 2013 Cayo Largo, Cuba
It was nice and cool again this morning, with a 20 knot north east wind, so we decided to stay another day – no point in having to bash into a strong wind, especially as it’s so cold.
I chilled out playing my guitar and looking at how to play one of the songs from the Buena Vista Social Club album. It would be cool to be able to play at least one Cuban song. Glenys read up on Ecuador, went to see the turtle sanctuary & played her concertina.
We went to bar again - it's definitely time to go.
28 March 2013 Cayo Largo to Cienfuegos, Cuba (Day 1)
I rushed off before breakfast to tell the officials that we wanted to clear out, expecting that they would want to come out to the boat. However, it was all very efficient - half an hour later, I'd paid our marina bill and had a Despacho to allow us to go to Cienfuegos. We took our time getting the boat ready and left just before midday.
The wind was against us as soon as we cleared the reef, but at least we were able to hold a more or less easterly course. The wind dropped briefly, but came back with a vengeance when we passed to the south of Cayo Guano del Este. Unfortunately, it was from the north east - exactly in the direction that we wanted to go.
There's a huge sunken reef called Jaguar Bank which is eight miles wide and is a nasty place with the ocean bed rising from 1,000 metres to 10 metres causing horrible seas. I decided (in my infinite wisdom) to pass to the west of Jaguar Bank between it and another shoal area called Banco de la Jarnine, so we headed north-west as darkness fell.
The whole night was horrible. The wind picked up with large, confused seas. We were having to beat to windward into 25-30 knot winds and, unless we kept the boat powered up, we'd get stopped by the steep waves. This meant that we were heeled over at 25-30 degrees, which was very unpleasant with the slamming and pitching motion.
Not only did we have to keep tacking to sail between the two shallow banks, but we also had to contend with a prohibited navigation zone around the Bay of Pigs. This no-go zone is 40 miles wide and unfortunately was directly in our way, so we were restricted where we could sail, which was not helpful.
It was one of those nights where you wish that you were somewhere else. If I tried to read, I'd feel seasick, so all I could do was to hunch up under the spray hood, which gave some protection against the walls of water that kept crashing over the deck. Occasionally, one wave would find it's way into the cockpit and then a small stream of water would flow along the cockpit seat and wet whatever part of my anatomy was touching it at the time. In addition, our spray hood leaks slightly, so drips of sea water were continuously falling down.
When Glenys went off watch at eight o'clock, things were bashing and crashing in the lockers, so she spent ages jamming towels to hold the offensive items in place. She'd only been in the sea berth for five minutes, when a load of folders and music books catapulted from one of the shelves and hit the floor with a loud bang. Then a particularly large wave crashed against our windscreen and some water found its way past the seal in the opening window. This then ran down the inside and dripped onto her head - she was not a happy bunny...
29 March 2013 Cayo Largo to Cienfuegos, Cuba (Day 2)
By midnight, if anything, the weather was getting worse. We had to tack five times to get between the shallow banks and avoid the no navigation area, so there wasn't time to get much sleep. Once clear of the dangers, we continued to tack every couple of hours, just entering the no-go zone before tacking away.
I was getting frustrated with the position of the no-go zone because it would have been a preferred tack to enter the zone, but I didn't dare, especially since Glenys saw a very fast vessel heading along the zone perimeter at about 20 knots - a Cuban naval cutter, I guess.
At four o'clock, the wind died down to 10 knots in the space of ten minutes and left us lolling about in the big seas. All we could do was to turn on the engine - at least we were able to head directly north east towards our destination instead of tacking. I went to bed and managed to get to sleep for an hour before the wind picked up again with a vengeance.
We were back to beating in 25-30 knot winds, which lessened slightly as we approached land, but we still had 20 knot winds as we sailed up into the harbour entrance at eleven o'clock.
We motored in through the narrow channel past a small castle and a rough looking ferry, before the harbour opened up in front of us. Cienfuegos Harbour must be one of the best harbours in the world, being totally surrounded by land, but with sufficient depth to take large ships. We gratefully anchored off the marina just before noon - it took us 24 hours and 125 sea miles to travel 80 miles on the rhomb line.
After lunch, I untied the dinghy from the front deck and discovered that it had been moving around in the heavy seas and the transom has smashed one of our deck vents to pieces. We now have a huge 3" hole in the deck above the front heads - another little job for me.
I went ashore to clear in, which was a little tedious because I had to see the Immigration, Customs and Guardera Fronteras even though we've already cleared in. At least they all have offices in the marina. I then had to go and sign a contract with the marina because we have to pay $8 per day to anchor. I'm afraid that I had a sense of humour failure and whinged about paying it all the time that the guy was filling in the contract.
Not surprisingly, we chilled out for the rest of the afternoon and tried to catch up on sleep.
30 March 2013 Cienfuegos, Cuba
We had a late start to the day and then wandered into town. It was a pleasant two kilometer walk along the Malecon. It's Easter Saturday and there was bike race going on, so there were lots of locals wondering around.
We walked down the main shopping street looking for the local market, but it evaded us until we started to spot people walking along with bags of vegetables. It was then simply a matter of backtracking along where they had come from to find the town market.
Glenys went into a frenzy of buying vegetables, which she hasn't seen since we were in Belize two weeks ago. None of the stalls were selling potatoes, but a guy sidled up to us and asked if we wanted "patatas". We followed him around the corner to a room down an alley where he sold us 10 kilos for $2. Are potatoes a black market commodity?
Glenys bought some smoked pork chops from a guy selling them out of a plastic bin and we bought some lovely bread from a small pandaria. Weighed down with fresh food, we walked to the main avenue and bought some street pizzas - not bad value for 75 cents each, before catching a bicycle taxi back to the marina for $3. (I should only have paid $2, but he was a nice guy.)
We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon.
31 March 2013 Cienfuegos, Cuba
We wandered into town in the morning, hoping that there would be something happening because it's Easter Sunday, but it was all very quiet. Just for something to do, we walked to the railway station, but it wasn’t very interesting – just full of taxi drivers touting for business.
We had Sunday lunch in a small restaurant behind an even smaller bar. It was packed with locals and we had a good time. The food was typically Cuban - meat with rice. The best I can say was that it was filling.
We chilled out for the afternoon. Mike and Claire from “Siga Siga” came for a few beers.
- << Prev
- Next