Santiago de Cuba
Port Antonio, Jamaica to Santiago de Cuba, port of entry for Cuba, approx. 110 nm. We left Port Antonio at 13:30 on April 5, with a good 15-18 knot East wind. A dozen miles off Jamaica our jib halyard broke (Jen's "trainee splice") and the jib sagged. As we were not sure how to re-rig the jib, and night was coming, we sailed under main until the wind died completely, then motored the rest of the way to Cuba. During the night we had a few rain squalls and saw a few ships in the distance, but had no close contact.
Our first vision of Cuba was of mountains. We motored towards them on a windless morning after our first "overnighter" sailing together. As the sun rose, and the Cuban coast came into view, a pod of 6-8 dolphins approached Sea Quill -- another first for us -- and swam with us for a mile, jumping and crossing our bow again and again.
From miles away, against the backdrop of the mountains, we began to make out El Morro de Santiago, the stout fortress on top of the cliffs. It was an exciting feeling to slip through the narrow harbor entrance, with tall rock walls and El Morro looming high above...
And then, we turned the corner into an exotic, hidden world: Cuba!
At Punta Gorda, where foreign boats check in, we were faced with another first -- med mooring off a rough cement dock, in a heaving, swelly harbor, with a very expensive boat beside us, the Finnish yacht Anya. But Ulf pulled off the tricky maneuver like a true Cap, with some deft assistance (and super-sized fenders) from our Finnish neighbor. Soon Ulf and Mika, Anya's Captain, were deep into "Baltican" conversations concerning fine distinctions between things Swedish and Finnish. Meanwhile, Jen snoozed on the dodger.
Then the Cuban officials were upon us. We anticipated a thorough search of our food, electronics, clothing and papers from a phalanx of officers, plus a drug sniffer dog. But we did not anticipate how friendly the officials and La Guarda, the Cuban coast guard, would be. Invariably, in every port in Cuba, the officials we met were remarkably courteous. In Santiago, they were especially warm. Below are the health and food inspectors who had us all laughing. Elise, the food inspector, was particularly funny. For our check-in, she arrived on Sea Quill in a tight "Playboy" tee shirt, as if she were coming to a party. No one spoke English, so Jen attempted Spanish... to everyone's confusion. At the end of the inspection, Elise kissed Jen's cheeks and said in Spanish, "Jennifer, your Spanish is terrible. Do you understand?" Entiendo, Elise, entiendo.
Once we were cleared in, we took a cab into the city of Santiago, and promptly fell head over heels. Through winding streets teeming with antique American hot rods, Soviet jeeps, horse carts and bicycles, we passed block upon block of crumbling, sun-bleached colonial houses on hills overlooking the awesome Bahia de Santiago.
On one corner after the next, we stumbled upon live music. Here is the singer Maria Ochoa and her band.
And some choice classics, from a book and album vendor...
More Santiago scenes... plus an Ulf:
We began collecting pictures of the ubiquitous revolutionary signs that we would see everywhere in Cuba. They could be small, hand-written, "personal" statements on house doors, or larger-than-life, muticolor propaganda. Messages everywhere, but for whom? The authorities? The neighbors? Or maybe for us, the outsiders?
It was early April, and there were already many signs for el Primero del Mayo, Workers' Day, like the one above the city bus below... a crowded affair.
Other vehicles in the city...
Cuban boats, like Cuban cars, are remarkable products of invention in the face of an utter lack of supplies.
Several mornings, looking out from Sea Quill, we saw what looked like an enormous fishing net, with hundreds of black buoys being dragged up the bay by two rubber dinghies. As it came closer, we realized that it was people -- hundreds -- swimming in a group; they were military cadets, doing swimming drills under the gaze of their officers.
Evenings at the marina, we talked late into the night with Mika, and behind the facade of friendly conversation, the Swedish-Finnish competition ensued. Jen fell asleep on several occasions, while Ulf and Mika invited (i.e. challenged) each other to more drinks. During one of these casual evenings, Mika nonchallantly put on a CD of Finnish marching songs and the Finnish national anthem for ambiance. Mika is an expert sailor, and he modestly helped us to improve our anchoring (we were dragging), jib furling (all mucked up), and fendering (we had none to speak of), as well as teaching us that stone cold basic, the Bowline knot. In addition to Mika's proven skills and intelligence (he even writes poetry), it was furthermore incontestable that Anya is at least two and a half times longer than Sea Quill and also a bit more luxurious. Sweden was clearly behind. It was therefore Ulf's great pleasure to have captured these pictures of our Finnish friend in a rare, lazy moment...
Meanwhile, an un-natural disaster loomed. The wind backed to the north, the oil refinery purged its chimney and Sea Quill and the rest of the boats in the marina were "tarred and feathered" in a grimy, sticky, black oil. All the yachties woke up to this offense on our boats, and spent the entire day, and more, scrubbing and cursing. Two months later, we still have black stains on our bimini and sail covers. Below, blobs of oily gook in the water. It's the only bad thing we have to say about Santiago de Cuba.
The odd part was that the harbor master emotionally claimed how strange and completely unheard of the oil pollution was; he had never, ever seen such a thing happen at the marina in six years working there. But the tar pollution problem in Santiago is a well-known fact among boaters; we were warned about the risk by cruisers in Jamaica, and in his popular pilot guide, Cuba: A Cruising Guide, Nigel Calder devotes a couple of pages to it. The problem occurs somewhat regularly, and has done so for years; you just hope that it doesn't happen when you're there. The harbor master's lie was bizarre, but we didn't want to embarrass him with a challenge. Loving Santiago, but fearing another tarring, we decided to set sail for cleaner waters. And once again, Mika came to our aid with professional weather and wind reports that set us safely westward toward Marea del Portillo, another overnighter.
A peculiarity of checking out of Santiago is that we were expected to cast off as soon as our papers were stamped, without even 5 minutes for a final sail check. Sea Quill was thoroughly searched one last time by a polite Guarda officer, then the officials stood over the boat until we cast off, making sure (we supposed) that we did not acquire any stowaways as we left the dock.
As an afterword, although the wind was on our nose that day, we did choose the right day to leave. Further west, we saw Bernie and Yvonne on Australia 31, a couple we met first in Santiago. They reported that the oil refinery had cleaned out its chimney again the night we left, and the boats in the marina (including poor Anya) were tarred for the second time in a week.