No:7 Our sail to and time in Havana, Cuba

👉Our time in Cuba 

Our sail to Havana was the longest sail to date that Mel and I had ever done. Previously our longest sail had been 4 days from the Cayman Islands to Guatemala, back in June 2018.

We knew that a major part of the sail to Havana would require us to motor as we were easting out of the Bay of Honduras, and the prevailing winds were coming from the east. We never enjoy putting the engine on but there are times when it is unavoidable.

It takes us a while to settle into a routine so our first night of sailing is always a bit unpredictable and lacking in sleep but as the following days progress, we start getting into a routine when one is on watch while the other rests or sleeps. This sail, we decided to see if we could each be on a longer watch – 6 hours at a time.

This was our schedule: 5.30pm – dinner (I usually have prepared some frozen dishes, like what I do at home in Perth – when cooking mince, I make a huge quantity for a few meals and then freeze it.)

While Mel is washing up, I shower – the boat is on Auto pilot, we have an AIS (Automated Identification System) – this alerts us if any ship or sailing vessel (with AIS) is within 2 nautical miles of us. However, despite having this, we still do a 360 degree scan every 15 – 20minutes, regardless.

I then go on watch while Mel showers and has a snooze until 8.00/8.30pm. If we are in the cockpit on our own, we always wear our life jackets and at night, we attach ourselves to the safety cleats in the cockpit.

8.00pm – 2.00am it is my sleep time, while Mel is on watch. He sets his watch alarm to go off every 20mins so he can shut his eyes for a while.

Sometimes, we sleep in the cockpit while other times, we sleep down in the main saloon/lounge/living area. Our seating area can change into a double bed. It is in the centre of the boat so is quite stable and comfortable to sleep, although I struggle with the glare of the lights on the main switch board and the AIS, so I wear an eye mask which certainly helps.

2.00 – 6/7.00am it is Mel’s sleep time although if I am in doubt of anything, I wake Mel up.

A few people have asked what I do while on watch. Well, I usually read. I have found reading a book on my Kindle so much better than reading a paper book, as I can increase the size of the font. I found through a bad experience that if I read a paper book while sailing, I tend to become quite seasick. This sail, I read two books (Ken Follet) and started another book. I can’t do any hand sewing while we are sailing as it makes me seasick having to concentrate on such a small, precise area.

During the day, as mentioned earlier, we take turns to sleep and to be on watch.

For our second, third, and fourth days, the wind was a beam reach – the wind was coming from the east and we were sailing north, so the wind was coming from our side, our starboard/right side, which made for comfortable sailing.

 

We had a little bird visit us on the second day. It looked quite tired and seemed keen to get out of the wind and so hid behind our dodger (a windscreen).  A few times, when we were not watching the little bird, it flew into the cabin and made itself quite comfortable on one of the shelves. We shoed it outside and it seemed happy to have somewhere to rest.

After about half an hour, it flew away across the water. We were not sure where it was heading but at the same time the following day, we think the same bird paid us a visit and once again made its way into the cabin.

We didn’t see it on our fourth day of sailing although a bird similar to the little one, flew by the boat early on our fifth morning.

While we were sailing, we saw and passed quite a few cruise ships, mainly at night, and container ships. They look so big out in the ocean, so we usually make sure we are at least 2 -3 nautical miles away from them.

The night of our fourth day of sailing we reached the western point of Cuba and knew as we slowly made our way around Cuba’s NW coastline, heading eastwards the wind would die and become easterly, forcing us to put the engine on if we wanted to maintain our average of 5 nmiles an hour.

We eventually arrived at the safe water mark outside Marina Hemingway early Sunday morning and waited for the Marina and Customs to respond to our call for permission to enter the channel and marina. We went round in circles, admiring the skyline of Havana.

After waiting for quite a while and going round in circles, we just took it upon ourselves to enter the marina, as nobody responded to our request and we could end up waiting for ages.

We were grateful for the fact that the depth of the channel and marina were clearly shown on our navigational charts as our depth sounder was not working.

We tied up at the Customs and Immigration dock as we knew this was the correct protocol and procedure. The Officials were all very young and helpful but all I can say is ‘Sheltered employment’. We had the customs, immigration and health official – who changed us each $US35 just to have our temperature taken, another health official making sure we didn’t have anything illegal like fresh fruits and vegetables.

After filling out triplicate forms for each official, we were allowed to make our way to the marina, which was literally around the corner. Once we were all tied up and secure, we had the same amount of people come on board with the same type and number of forms to fill in. We were advised that we had to apply for a visa. This was new (compared to 2018) and of course just a money-making exercise.

The Marina Captain was a gentle giant and said we had access to water and electricity. Great as we could wash down Passages after 5 days in salty water. Mel proceeded to wash her down, using quite a bit of water – Later we learnt that the marina has two large water tanks, and the water is brought into the marina. If we wanted water from the water tap at our berth, we would have to ask for the water to be ‘switched on’. We were happy to be on land so settled down for the afternoon, going for our usual walk to explore the place.

I will not go into too much detail except to say that we found the whole experience in Cuba quite stressful. We knew from experience (2018) that there were shortages – that’s okay as we had enough food on board, but the lack of Wi-Fi and Internet access was extremely frustrating. In 2018, we could visit the local hotel, pay for a log in/sim card and all was fine, even though the Wi-Fi was slow.

We need the Internet to check the weather. It is our lifeline. Yes, thankfully there are new developments in this area (Starlink, etc), but these are still very new and extremely expensive. Who knows what Elon Musk will do in the next year or two with SpaceX – all very exciting for us yachties.

Marina Hemingway is about a 30 min/ 25km drive outside of the city centre. We knew there was public transport but the people at the marina were eager for us to use the ‘taxi’ service into Havana. We tried to find out about the bus system but hit a brick wall all the time. Not knowing enough Spanish was also an issue. We can get by with the Spanish we know but we are by no means fluent and confident to follow a long and involved conversation and discussion. Translator on our phones is amazing but you require the internet/Wi-Fi.

We tried to find out some information from the two hotels on the marina. It was so sad to see, everything was like a ghost town. This huge development with apartments, restaurants, shops – a lovely community but nothing was open. It did have some interesting and creative statues around the place – see in video. If it was open like one of the hotels (the other was closed) there was a skeleton staff. We asked for Wi-Fi connection. We needed to go into town/the city to get a card. We asked how we could get into Havana city centre, take a taxi. The taxi ride would cost us $25US one way and even then, it was dependent on fuel. I said many times to Mel, this so reminded me of my university days, when I would go home to Harare, Zimbabwe for the holidays and spend most of my time in petrol queues, helping my parents to get some petrol that would allow them to get to work the following day.

We noticed that many people now had electric bikes, scooters which is the way to go, especially if there are fuel shortages, however at the marina, the electricity was quite inconsistent.

We relented and arranged for the ‘taxi service’ to take us into the city centre on the Tuesday so at least we could organise some internet connection. Our taxi was an old car which I think was older than Mel and myself. 😊

It was lovely to be back in the city centre of Havana as it is suc

h a mixture of old, new, modern, and outdated. We were approached by many people to exchange US$ into the local currency.

We noticed that some places had had a revamp, while others had either closed their doors or the building was being torn down. We knew from our time in 2018, that squatters’ rights and privileges dominated the whole city centre – basically if squatters were staying in the building that is in the prime real estate area, tough. They could stay there. However, we noticed – remember this is our perception, that the city centre is being redeveloped and ‘cleaned up’. Unfortunately, our favourite pastry shop was no longer open.

Please remember that what I write is our observations and opinions…… There is certainly money to be made in Cuba although we have often said; “who is making the money and how is it being distributed”. There were certainly some very wealthy local people around.

Anyway, we managed to find the mobile phone / Wi-Fi shop so by mid-morning, we were feeling a bit less stressed as we had downloaded the weather and were able to respond to some messages that were on Mel’s phone.

We saw that the weather looked good to cross over the 90 nmiles to Key West, the following day, Wednesday and that the weather would progressively get worse as the week progressed, only improving a week later – Tuesday. We made the decision to leave Cuba on Wednesday arriving at Key West, Thursday morning. We were desperate to get to the States, as we wanted to start working on all the modifications and upgrades, Passages needed and to instal all the new goodies we had bought at the Miami boat show in February.

After enjoying a lovely afternoon walking around Havana, we caught our taxi back to the marina and advised the necessary authorities about our decision to leave Cuba. There is still a lack of toilet seats and toilet paper in Cuba – please refer to my previous blog entry about our time in Cuba, June 2018 – after this blog entry.

Wednesday morning arrived and we thought we would check the weather as we usually do before we set sail. If the weather is still good to sail, then off we go, if it is not, we stay put. Once again, the Wi-Fi at the marina was not working despite us having bought the necessary cards, so we thought bugger this, we ‘re still going.

Well, there were moments over the following 24 hours we regretted our decision to set sail without checking the weather as we had the worst ever sail!

Not many people like to sail close hauled, that is when you are sailing very close to the wind and the boat is healing a lot. I dislike it immensely, however, after this sail, I am cured of being scared that the boat will ‘tip’ over. At midnight, Mel even said ‘maybe we should sell Passages!’ IT WAS THAT BAD!!! We hardly slept! AND it was EXTREMELY uncomfortable.

It was awful because it was like a washing machine, a situation no sailor wants to be in. Wind against current as it can be quite dangerous at times.

When we were halfway – literally – 45 nmiles, we received a call on our radio from the US Coast guard, requesting details about us and the boat and where we were heading. It was a slight comfort to know that we were being watched by the US Coast Guard.

What should have taken 18 hours, took us almost 30 hours! I nearly hugged the girl at the fuel dock of the marina we had booked into at Stock Island, Key West, when we tied Passages and switched the engine off.

As we sailed closer to the US coastline, we informed the US Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection about our intentions and where we were going. We were told under no circumstances, were we allowed to step onto land but to stay on the boat until some officers from Customs and Border Protection had visited us at the marina’s fuel dock. We had arranged to meet them at the fuel dock at a time we knew we would be there, so we didn’t have to wait very long.

By 6.00pm, Passages was all secure in a pen at the marina, Mel and I had a wonderful shower, a bite to eat and we slept for over 12 hours as we were exhausted.

The following day, Friday, we made our way to Key West Airport, to the Custom and Immigrations Department to complete the necessary paperwork for entrance into the USA. It went much smoother than anticipated.

Our goal now is to have Passages taken out of the water for a few days while the new prop, depth sounder, and windvane are put on. This will be taking place at 3D Boatyard which is right next door to where we are staying at the marina. We know many of our packages are waiting for us at 3D Boatyard, so..., until the next update of our adventure, take care and enjoy whatever you are doing.

Bye for now. 

Mel and Caryn

sv Passages

If you want to see where we currently are – press on the "Latest Location" link at the bottom left of the page. This may not be accurate and is dependent on sites with access to AIS (automatic identification system).

No 6: Guatemala - Life on the Rio Dulce.

 

Click here: 👉Life on the Rio Dulce, Guatemala

I thought I would put together a video showing Life on the Rio Dulce.

While on the docks at RAM, every night when the lights came on, the May flies would descend on us. They were an absolute pain as every morning we would hear the birds enjoying their breakfast on Passages as she would be covered in mayflies.

Since Passages was on the dock, we saw all kinds of boats being taken out of the water and put back into the water. One of the largest we saw was a motorboat worth over $3 million. It was quite nerve wracking to watch.

When we were making our way down to Livingston, it was wonderful to watch how the communities along the river functioned. We saw many parents taking their children to school in their boats or canoes.

We enjoyed our time on the Rio Dulce and hope one day to go back there, as there were so many other places to see and visit.

The Rio Dulce, like the whole of Guatemala, is certainly a hidden gem and a country that is worth visiting.

So, until the next update of our adventure, take care and enjoy whatever you are doing.

Bye for now.

Mel and Caryn

sv Passages

No 5: Guatemala – Preparing to leave the Rio Dulce

 

Over the past few days, I have been singing the song “Tomorrow” from the film, show, etc., ’Annie’ – you know the one – ‘Just thinking about tomorrow the sun will come up tomorrow’. I think Mel is tired of hearing my attempts at singing.

I have also had moments when I remembered what my dear Mum would say ‘Things will look better in the morning once you have had a good night’s sleep’.

But first let me go back a bit. We arrived back at the boat after spending 6 days in Antigua and Lake Atitlan ready to do the final preparations of Passages before we leave RAM Marina after 4 ½ years.

We had also completed all the necessary forms and payments for the boat’s insurance. Mel was keen to do some of the suggestions Chris, the surveyor, had made, so he set about working on the solenoid of the gas bottles for the stove/oven. A simple modification.

However, when it came to switching on the gas to make a cup of tea, there was no gas. A simple modification, as this modification had caused a domino effect on the workings of the whole gas system. Mel had started working on this modification just after lunch time, Saturday (1.30pm) but by 6.00pm, I said to Mel ‘Stop, we can try to find out what is going on tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a new day’. One bonus is I didn’t have to cook as we went out for supper. There is always a positive to a negative.

We did sleep on the matter although I know Mel was thinking about ‘gas’ the whole night. By 8.00am the following morning, we were enjoying a nice cup of tea. All was fine and well. For the moment…..

We had arranged to join Rob and Jole and a few other cruisers for a dinghy float later that day, Sunday afternoon. A dinghy float is when we all meet somewhere on the river, join the dinghies together and float merrily, wherever the wind or current may take you. One obviously brings along something to drink and nibbles to share. It is a fun way to spend an afternoon, with like-minded yachty people discussing the usual topics. Very gender-based topics of course.

Rob and Jole were going to drive past our boat to make sure we knew where to go. Thankfully we had arranged this as when it came to starting our dinghy, the engine would not start. We hopped into Rob and Jole’s dinghy and thought ‘well, we can deal with this later’.

We had a wonderful time on the dinghy float. We started off just past the main bridge, upriver and floated all the way into Lago de Izabal – the largest lake in Guatemala. We bobbed passed the Castillo de San Felipe which is one of the main castles along that Rio Dulce that was built by the Spanish but was invaded and later occupied by actual Pirates.

Unfortunately, in my haste with the problems with the dinghy, I didn’t take my camera/phone with me. The sunset was beautiful across Lake Isabel – you’ll just have to take my word for it.

When we arrived back at the boat after a wonderful afternoon, Mel looked at our dinghy again. He couldn’t get it to work so decided that in the morning, he would try to take it to the main dinghy guy in the Rio who was close by. If he had to, he would row there.

Luckily, in the morning (Monday), he managed to get the dinghy engine started and let rip until he arrived at the dinghy man’s workshop. Mel was back at the boat less than half an hour later with the dinghy in working order.

We had decided that we needed to get going and to make plans to leave RAM and Guatemala. We were also keen to see how certain aspects or equipment on Passages would work and function when we cut the umbilical cord from RAM. Would the batteries and solar panels work? How were the electronics. Remember, Passages had been out of the water and hadn’t been used for almost 4 1/2 years! At RAM we had power as we were connected to the shore power.

So, the week starting 27 March, we decided that by Friday 31 March, we would leave RAM, go down river to a place called Cayo Quemado and see how everything faired. From Cayo Quemado, it was a relatively easy journey, about an hour, to Livingston where we would check out of Guatemala, pay whatever fines we had to pay ☹ and sail to Punta Gorda, in Belize. We would spend about two weeks in Belize enjoying the world’s second largest barrier reef, then head for the States – Key West, to be precise, where all our new electronics, wind vane and other goodies we had ordered and bought while at the Miami Boat Show, were waiting for us.

Mel started checking everything over again, while I spent a large part of the week, cutting and preparing veggies for the freezer and stocking up our food bank. The vegetables and fruit in Guatemala are so fresh and cheap, I sometimes felt as if I should have paid the vendors more than what they were asking. For example, half a dozen HUGE mangoes cost the equivalent of $2 Aussie! The HUGE heads of broccoli and cauliflower and the size of the carrots and avocadoes! HUGE!

Passages was looking so clean and shiny after the amount of scrubbing and polishing we had done on her. We were very proud of how she had scrubbed up!

On the Thursday evening, we went across to MAR Marina for movie night and to say our farewells to some of the lovely people we had met while at RAM.

(FYI RAM and MAR marina were once owned by the same couple – unfortunately they got divorced. She got MAR and he got RAM).

The movie showing on Thursday movie night was called ‘The Swimmers’. It was based on the true story of two sisters who lived in Syria and who were training, under the guidance of their father, to compete internationally in swimming. Unfortunately, their plans were thwarted due to the awful war that happened in Syria. It is a thought-provoking film about refugees and their desperate attempts to make a better life for themselves.

Friday 31 March, we said our final ‘Byes’ to RAM and off we were heading down the river towards Cayo Quemado. The first thing we noticed on the boat was the depth sounder wasn’t registering the depth. Mmmm an important function to have on a boat. Thankfully, we knew that the Rio Dulce was consistent in its depth – at least 6 metres, plus we had our track to follow from when we arrived in the Rio on our navigational chart plotter, from 2018.

It was a lovely feeling being back on the water and for Passages to be in the water. Our depth sounder was still not registering so we thought we would get a chance once we were anchored in Cayo Quemado. We had to motor as we were heading east, and the wind blows from the east.

We arrived at the lovely quiet anchorage of Cay Quemado just after lunch time as it was about an hour and half motor down the Rio Dulce, across El Golfete – the second lake that forms part of the Rio Dulce.

At Cayo Quemado, there is a well-known character and place called Mini Mikes. Mike is a Texan who has been in the Rio for over 15 years and set up a restaurant called Mini Mikes. It is very rustic but the hospitality and tasty food is wonderful.

 Our depth sounder was still not working properly and our windlass, the equipment that helps us to drop the anchor instead of doing it manually, was also problematic.

Well to cut a very long story short, Mel spent the whole weekend trying to fix the depth sounder with no luck at all. To add to our woes, the batteries were not doing too well either, so we were having to switch the fridge off at night-time when the solar panels were no longer effective, for obvious reasons.

By Monday morning, we had decided that we could not go to Belize without a reliable working depth sounder and that we needed some new batteries (two minimum) to get us back to the States. It was a pity that we wouldn’t be going to Belize, but we knew that it was far more important to make plans to head to the States as soon as possible, so we could give Passages all the upgrades she so desperately needed.

Mel caught a water taxi back to Fronteras – RAM on the following Tuesday, 4 April 2023, to buy two new batteries, which made a huge difference to our power supply.

We started watching the weather to see when we could make plans to leave Guatemala but, in the meantime, we tried to enjoy the lovely surroundings around us. We would watch the local Mayan people take their children to school in their dugout motor boats, the young boys after school would
catch fish by casting huge nets. A few times during our stay, we would have people come around to the boat selling fruit, lovely carved bowls and lovely weaved baskets, or fresh baked goods.

We also spent a few evenings enjoying the tasty food at Mini Mikes and getting to know Mike. To add to our woes, our outboard motor for our dinghy still wasn’t working as well as we thought it should. Mel serviced it and did everything he could. Thankfully we were close enough to Mikes place so we could row to his place. It seems the guys at the fuel station added double the amount of oil to the petrol when Mel filled up (2-stroke engine). The excess oil kept on clogging the spark plugs.

Every day, I kept on thinking that tomorrow will be better, and we had been expecting a few issues with Passages, but we had underestimated just how many.

We saw that there was a good weather window from Tuesday 11 April for the next few days, as we knew it would take approximately 5 days to read Marina Hemingway, Havana, Cuba. We kept our eyes on the weather as things always change.

We were unable to use our water maker as the Rio Dulce is fresh water and the water maker only works in sea water, plus we needed the new membrane which was on its way to Placencia, Belize. We decided to head back up to RAM Marina where we would be able to fill our water tank, so we raised the anchor on Monday 10 April and headed back to RAM.

(Thankfully, we were able to have the membrane redirected to 3D Boat yard in Key West, where most of our other goods were being sent, waiting for us to get to Key West, Florida).

It was lovely to see some of the wonderful people we had met while in RAM and to hear how they were progressing with their boats. We were anchored back in Cayo Quemado by mid-afternoon, preparing for our sail to Havana, Cuba. We had also contacted the agent, Raul, who was dealing with our paperwork to leave Guatemala.

Mike came to pick us up from our boat so we could have supper at his place on our last evening in Guatemala. The food was excellent!

Tuesday 11 April arrived, and just as the sun was rising Passages’ engine was switched on and Mel started taking the anchor up, preparing to motor down to Livingston to finally check out of Guatemala.

I was still singing the song ‘Tomorrow’ as we knew we are very fortunate to be doing what we are doing but there are times when one does become a bit despondent, when things keep on breaking. Mel and I kept on reminding ourselves that Passages had been in storage for a very long time and if we had had the opportunity to sail her during the past 4 ½ years, we would have maintained her, preventing some of the issues we were experiencing. However, the main thing is that her structure and ability to sail and keep us safe, were in good working order, so we would be fine out in the open seas. As far as the depth sounder was concerned, we kept to the path we had come in on, on the Rio Dulce down to Livingston and knew the charts to Havana and Key West were accurate, if we kept to the marked channels, we would be fine.

So, until the next update of our adventure, take care and enjoy whatever you are doing.

Bye for now.

Mel and Caryn

sv Passages

A video: Cayo Quemado

If you want to see where we currently are – press on the "Latest Location" link at the bottom left of the page. This may not be accurate and is dependent on sites with access to AIS (automatic identification system).