DESTINATIONS

Southwest Cuba
Part One: Uncrowded and Unusual
 

by Christopher Price

Now, I want you to think carefully about what I am going to tell you. The south coast of Cuba is approximately 780 miles long. That is roughly equivalent to the distance from Cape Hatteras to Miami and 200 miles more than from Lands End to John o’Groats by fast crow. It is also about 200 miles more than the distance between St. Thomas and Grenada. This lengthy coastline has but three marinas, which are also the ports of entry for visiting yachts. Therefore, you might think that the marinas would be crowded, with space difficult to find.

On December 26th 2006, the marina at Cayo Largo, the only one in 300 miles between Cienfuegos and the western end of Cuba, held precisely six yachts. Yes, that’s right, six boats, and of these, four were local charter cats based in the marina. There was one other visiting British yacht -—and us! We had arrived that morning from Antigua and, having been used to the crowded routes and harbors of the Eastern Caribbean, it was immediately clear to us that Cuba was going to be completely different.

Planning
The idea of going to Cuba had first taken root a few years before and this had given us plenty of time for homework. We started by looking at the available pilot books — two in number — and opted for Nigel Calder’s Cuba: A Cruising Guide. We also bought the Lonely Planet Guide, as well as making a visit to the Cuban Tourist Office in London to collect a load of info.
Calder is quite emphatic that the only charts worth considering are those produced by the Cuban Government, and although this 1998 opinion may be somewhat outdated, I have seen nothing of later publications that has caused me to disagree with his view. Therefore, by a devious route that would take an order plus money from Florida to Havana to London to Mexico to Havana and finally Antigua, the relevant south coast charts were ordered about six months before our planned departure date.

Our original intention was to leave Antigua early in December because, for us, the window of opportunity for sailing Cuban waters was a fairly small one. Our usual annual pattern is to remain around 12°N during the summer and, in practice, this means Grenada or thereabouts. In November we join the northerly migration and base ourselves around Antigua for the winter. The north coast of Cuba, frequently hit by “northers”, is not considered an ideal cruising area until April or May and this led us, at a fairly early stage in the planning process, to decide that our objective would be to cruise the south coast during the first two or three months of the year.

By mid-November our charts had not arrived. Upon “chasing” the order we were told that they were out of print. Our friend Bill, who had already given us a considerable amount of useful advice about the Cuban south coast, told us that they were available in Toronto, but by then it was too late to re-order with any hope of them arriving in time. In the end, Bill lent us his charts and they proved to be invaluable.
Shortly before our departure it became necessary for us to have some fairly extensive electrical work done on the boat, this took twice as long as anticipated and cost two to three times as much, but as the man said when he presented an extremely painful bill, “That’s boats!”
Throughout the extra week spent on anchor at Falmouth Harbor, the tradewinds blew at 20 to 25 knots, but predictably, very shortly after leaving on December 15th, they dropped to gentle breezes and our fast downhill run became a gentle amble. This included a total of 72 hours motoring when our speed dropped below two-and-a-half knots; our overall average for the passage was barely five knots.

Isolation En Route
Bill had already warned us that on the Cuban south coast we would have to get used to being on our own. Therefore, we were not entirely surprised by the very small number of boats we found on our arrival at Cayo Largo.
However, our isolation started much earlier than expected. On leaving Falmouth, we headed west towards the bottom end of Nevis with two or three other boats within a mile or so of us. They then turned north towards St. Kitts while we carried on towards our next waypoint, off Cabo Beata, the southernmost tip of the Dominican Republic. We did not see another sailing yacht, or small vessel of any description, for the next nine days! As we passed to the south of the Mona and Windward Passages we saw a handful of large merchant vessels heading north or south, but apart from those — nothing.
We were, in fact, lucky to be in these waters at all. On our second night out, while motorsailing in a very light breeze, our autopilot failed totally and refused to communicate in any way, either with us or the rudder. The prospect of carrying on without “Otto” was unthinkable and an immediate decision was made to divert to Marina Del Rey in Puerto Rico. This was thought to be the nearest and most likely place to have repairs carried out.
We altered course to the north and shortly thereafter the wind rose to 30 knots. Most of the rest of the night was spent hand steering, but at least we were making good speed.

At about 0430 I pressed the button again and was enormously relieved to find that Otto was working perfectly. Obviously we had experienced a temporary withdrawal of labor rather than a full-scale strike, but as we had both been up all night we decided to divert to Puerto Patillas in southern Puerto Rico in order to catch up on some sleep and check the steering thoroughly. We anchored at 0800, hit the sack for three hours and I then carried out a detailed inspection and test of the entire steering system. I could find nothing wrong, Otto was working perfectly, so we hauled the anchor and set off again along the south coast of Puerto Rico towards Cabo Beata.

Arriving in Cuba
Approaching Cuba from the east, across the Windward Passage, the first 200 miles is mostly steep-to with mountains rising to nearly 4,000 feet very close to the coast. There are, however, the odd little hidey-holes, such as Guantánamo Bay and Santiago de Cuba. I will keep to myself my opinion of what goes on at the former. The latter is Cuba’s second largest city, is a port of entry and also has one of the very rare south coast marinas. It has been described as the Cradle of the Revolution and as such is considered a “must” from a tourist point of view.
However, Nigel Calder describes the harbor as the filthiest he has ever visited, with the marina being “a beat-up affair with bits of steel re-bar sticking out and threatening to damage your topsides every time the boat is hit by the wake of a passing vessel”. While recognizing that things might have improved since Calder reported, we were not so attracted by the cultural delights of Santiago to risk either damage or degradation to our boat and we decided to give it a miss.

After 200 miles of rocky coastline with very few decent anchorages, the south coast of Cuba curves away to the northwest, ending in Cabo San Antonio more than 500 miles away. This long coastline forms a huge bay, the outer or southern edge of which is marked, for all but 150 miles, by an outer fringe of cays which stand on the edge of a near-vertical drop to 14,000 feet.
Between the cays and the mainland, sometimes a distance of 60 miles, is a vast shallow shelf, rarely more than 50 feet deep, which is also scattered with hundreds, possibly thousands, of cays. In the middle of this huge shelf is a deep inlet which carries depths of 6,000 feet almost to the mainland coast. There is a further narrow inlet called the Bay of Pigs (Bahía de Cochinos), of which some readers may have heard.
As cruisers, we have a taste for lonely deserted places and it was these vast shallow areas that really tempted us to Cuba. Hence our decision to begin our cruise towards the western end of the island, at Cayo Largo, which is also a port of entry.

Clearing In
Before leaving Antigua we had attended a talk given by Commodore José Miguel Diaz Escrich, Director of the International Yacht Club at Marina Hemingway, Havana. His main objective was to encourage the owners and skippers of mega-yachts to cruise in Cuban waters. He was anxious to emphasize that Cuban entry regulations are no different from those anywhere else. On the afternoon of December 26th, we were about to find out for ourselves.

The first official on the scene after we made fast was from the Ministry of the Interior. He just hung around on the pontoon, but clearly he was there to make sure we did not go ashore. Shortly thereafter the procession started, and between 2:30PM and 10:30 the following morning we were visited by nine men and a dog. It seems we got off very lightly, because other visitors writing in Compass a few months ago reported that it took 30 men and three dogs to clear them into Cuba! [See “Cuba: Fair Winds and Friendly Faces” by Bernie Katchor, September 2007.]

All our visitors — from the doctor, to the coast guards, the frontier guards and the Ministry of Interior and Agriculture personnel — were courteous, friendly and helpful. As they came aboard they removed their shoes, shook hands and introduced themselves before getting down to some very serious form filling.
This was the huge difference we found between Cuba and anywhere else we have visited on either side of the Atlantic. The forms seemed to be endless in number, but they fill them in! Before leaving Antigua we had prepared data sheets, in Spanish, which gave every detail we could think of about ourselves and the boat, from place of birth to height of mast to type of outboard fuel. Copies were handed to the officials as they came aboard, received with gratitude and they then sat at the cockpit table and laboriously filled in their forms.
Our cruising permit, or despacho, was prepared, the appropriate stamps were obtained from the local post office and we were then asked if we had any glue, because the stamps were non-adhesive. Fortunately, we did. They were duly affixed and cancelled with an impressive rubber stamp, and we were almost ready to start cruising. But not quite….

At 10:30 the following morning, we were visited by two men from the Ministry of Agriculture, who apologized for their late arrival. Our onions were inspected with a magnifying glass, we were instructed to eat our vacuum-packed salami without delay, and we were allowed to keep our thyme plant on the clear understanding that we would not take it ashore for a walk. At the end of the entry process we concluded that Commodore Escrich may have been right in arguing that Cuban requirements are no different from those elsewhere. On the other hand, nowhere else have we seen the requirements applied in such detail, with such rigor — and with such charm.

And so to provisioning. After 11 days at sea, we were virtually out of fresh fruit and vegetables and needed to do some shopping. At this point we began to realize that our decision to make a landfall at Cayo Largo was not, perhaps, our smartest move of the year. Although one of the larger offshore cays it was, like almost all of them, uninhabited, at least until the mid-1960s. Castro then decided to create an international tourist resort there, which now boasts eight or nine all-inclusive hotels and, of course, an airport. There are no permanent Cuban residents, although there is a dormitory village for the hotel and service staff who fly in from the mainland for two- to three-week tours of duty. As the staff are all fed in their canteens and the hotel guests stay on a full-board basis, who needs food shops?

We were saved from starvation by the marina manager, who gave us a list of fruit and vegetables that might be available from the central store. Having made our choice we were promised delivery the following day. What arrived bore little relationship to that which had been ordered; however, there really was no alternative.

We then discovered a small, closed “supermarket”. It opened at our request,  but the only stock consisted of a limited range of canned fruit and vegetables, mostly of Chinese origin. Anyway, with a combination of stuff from the back doors of hotel kitchens, Chinese tins, and the contents of our freezer we felt that we could keep starvation at bay for another week or so.

Cayo Largo to Siguanea
Three days after our arrival at Cayo Largo we headed west with the declared intention of proceeding to Marina Siguanea, about 150 miles down-wind. I say “declared” because that was what it said on our despacho. But, as we were to discover, this was by no means as restrictive as it might appear. We were free to make as many stops and take as long on the way as we wished, providing that we didn’t go into an undeclared port. Had we done so, I think so I think we would have run into problems simply because it wasn’t on our despacho, but we were very pleasantly surprised by the degree of freedom we had.
When we arrived in Cayo Largo there were seven other boats in the marina. There were four 35- to 40-foot catamarans operated by a local bareboat charter outfit, three other cats doing day trips for hotel guests, and one cruising yacht. Twelve miles west of Cayo Largo we saw the last of the charter boats and during the rest of our six-day, 120-mile journey to Siguanea we saw only three other vessels. One of these was a shallow-draft landing craft taking containers to the hotel complex at Cayo Largo; the other two were ferries that we saw on the horizon en route between Batabano on the mainland and Nueva Gerona on Isla de la Juventud.

We sailed in a leisurely way across the shallow turquoise waters between and to the north of the cays; we anchored in the lee of large sandy islands and others that were nothing more than clumps of mangroves — and every day and every night, from horizon to horizon, we were alone.
Well, not quite. There were a few zillion other inhabitants to contend with. While moored in Cayo Largo, we had noticed the large, ancient Russian crop-spraying bi-plane that flew low over the hotel complex each evening. Crop spraying was, of course, unlikely, so it had to be anti-mosquitoes. Obviously the treatment worked — in Cayo Largo. But out among the cays it was an altogether different story. Every evening we had to retreat inside, with doors and hatches closed, for at least two hours in order to avoid being consumed alive, slowly and painfully. Fortunately, the major assault was limited to a relatively short period around dusk, but anyone thinking of following our track should be warned that, in January, mosquitoes are a major problem in the western cays.

We both love swimming off the boat when at anchor and this was also problematic in some of the overnight anchorages between islands where there could be a tidal flow of a half to one-and-a-half knots. However, this was not the case everywhere and we also found plenty of anchorages where the swimming was superb.

The high quality of the Cuban charts means that navigation is not a problem, although we did find that there had been a tendency for some sandbanks and shoals to move about a bit since the last update. Therefore a certain amount of care was necessary.
However, pilotage was a different matter. Calder is generally good on such matters, but he also suffers from being somewhat out-of-date. A number of the passages between islands vary between tricky and downright difficult. This is due to two main problems. First of all, marks and beacons get blown away by the odd passing hurricane and, secondly, the failure of the Cuban authorities to carry out maintenance means that the surviving marks and beacons can cause confusion.

In some areas, local fishermen have tried to replace missing marks with sticks and branches, but their meaning and reliability is highly questionable. In other channels, where substantial beacons remain, they can be impossible to identify positively. My wife and I both have particularly vivid memories of a difficult dog-leg whose marks appeared to us, as we exited a well-marked channel, as an evenly spaced line across our bow. They had no distinguishing characteristics and were all the same color — rust!

Isla de la Juventud
After a leisurely week, we arrived at Marina Siguanea on the western coast of Isla de la Juventud, the Isle of Youth. It used to be called the Isle of Pines until the regime decided to build a large number of boarding schools there. Today upwards of 10,000 Cuban and foreign teenagers go to the island for their secondary education. It really is quite extraordinary. Here is an island roughly twice the size of Martinique, sparsely populated, and yet scattered all over the countryside are what look like long, four- or five-storey apartment blocks which are in fact, the boarding schools.
Back to Marina Siguanea, which is something of a joke. A narrow shallow channel leads past a Guardia Frontera post where eight or ten men cultivate their vegetable garden and practise baseball. Beyond is a long narrow dock, on the outside of which is a crumbling concrete quay about 200 meters long. Parked inside was a large, elderly dive boat and on the quay were a very basic dive shop, a compressor for recharging scuba tanks, a marina office and a deserted workshop. For three days this hive of industry was also home to Hummingbird.

Each day the staff of four arrived, were searched by two security guards, and then supervised the departure of the dive boat with a dozen or so tourists on board. They slept until the boat returned, shortly after which they were again searched and departed. During the day as many as three cars may enter the marina for some reason or another and all this activity required that two security guards should be on duty 24 hours a day. The shift system involved at least eight individuals, most of whom did nothing other than walk around or sleep.
From the marina we walked a mile and a half up the road to the Hotel Siguanea, a relic of American development in the early 1950s. The reefs and walls on the west of Juventud are among the best dive sites in the Caribbean and the hotel receives a steady trickle of enthusiasts. An English visitor told us that, during her four-day stay, all food came out of tins, although fresh fish had been served the night before — with powdered mashed potatoes.
We caught the hotel bus into Nueva Gerona, the capital and main town on the island. This was our first contact with the “real” Cuba, as opposed to the artificial community on Cayo Largo. The town was fairly scruffy and seemed to have little of interest to detain us. Calder talks of bringing a yacht up river into the town; having inspected the “facilities” we decided that there was no way in which we would (a) follow his advice or (b) leave the boat if we were daft enough to do it.

The food shops seemed to stock little other than high-priced Chinese canned vegetables and fruit. The permanent market was deserted except for one stall offering nothing other than a pile of dried beans. However, the townspeople looked well fed and healthy, so clearly, food was available through channels not immediately obvious to us. Our lunch consisted of one of the worst pizzas we have ever endured.
Upon emerging from the restaurant we were accosted by a hustler, who asked, in English that was as good or bad as our Spanish, if we wanted some fruit and vegetables. In spite of our misgivings, we were desperate and it was agreed that we would meet again half an hour later under a tree in the town square. He duly arrived followed by an elderly man wheeling a tri-shaw which was fairly well loaded with a curious mixture of grapefruit, beetroot, onions, potatoes, cabbage and papaya. We had no idea of the origin of these goodies, but had a suspicion that they fell over the side of a supply ship in the docks. We thought it best to leave town as soon as possible, so our hustler friend found us a “taxi”, an ancient heap of unknown origin which, with wandering steering, poor brakes and no top gear, delivered us back to the marina.
Next month: Heading back east.

Christopher and Jeanette Price live aboard their 50-foot catamaran Hummingbird. For the last 6 years they have sailed the Eastern Caribbean, mostly between Tobago and Puerto Rico.