👉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.
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).
