Cuba 2015

Such is the enchantment of Cuba that it took until lunch on my birthday for me to realize what day it was. Cubans have clearly lost track of the time, and they could impart no finer gift to me. Five days in country and I can't shake the sensation that I am a new castmate in an episode of Lost.

Everything seems familiar on the surface but upon closer inspection something is seriously off. Baseball diamonds with no outfields, a horse and buggy with automobile tires driving down the highway alongside tourist buses and pristine cars from the fifties, a book at the local bookstore titled "Obama and the Empire", in English and written by none other than Fidel Castro. I doubt you can order it on Amazon.

We sail from Grand Cayman north into Cienfuegos on Monday after 30 placid hrs under sail in 15 kts of wind with high humidity blurring the stars at night. As we frontrun the opening of Cuba, Sham and I recall feelings of nervousness 5 years ago almost to the day on the eve of our entry into Tunisia a few months before that society closed.

When we enter the large pocket bay at dusk it is lined at the mouth with a small community of shanties stacked atop of each other, Cubans out on their porches watching the American flagged vessel approach. No one is waving and our anxieties highten. Then we arrive at the marina and Sham loses his bet–it turns out we are the only Gringos among the 60 boats in the harbor.

Clearing customs abroad Marlow includes props all around–for their part, two shifts of uniformed officers and a drug sniffing spaniel who didn't seem like he would know cannabis from oregano, and for us, Che's biography laid tableside and Buena Vista Social Club cranking on the airwaves. As in Tunis, we declared the 9mm handgun by checking a box on one of their forms but if they noticed they never mentioned it. It quickly turned into a boozy affair and ultimately the dog handler showed us a few moves on the salon dance floor. At this point, we knew we were going to get on famously around here.

We head ashore and meet Jordan on the street wearing a Yankee hat and he welcomes us into his pack. By 10pm we are being whisked down the central boulevard along the waters edge in a bike taxi, people all over the place as if lined up for a parade. Pretty solid turn out for a Monday. We drive down a sketchy alley where Jordan has arranged for us to buy a box of Cohibos, and then we head to the town square for live music. By 3am Doc and I drag ourselves home feeling like celebrities. The people are extremely good natured, certainly to us but also to each other. It is a city of 200,000 where everyone seems to know each other, and it and the surrounding countryside are very well kept. There are plenty of signs of serious poverty but it doesn't seem to be getting anyone down.

When we depart 48 hours later heading west for the island of Cayo Largo, we have new found confidence in our stature on the island, and so we take the initiative to wave at the shantytown porch dwellers. They all wave wildly in return to our shouts of thanks.

Love,

STS

I had been enjoying Che's biography but the last 100 pages have been difficult to stomach. He started as asthmatic Ernesto Guevara, upper class Argentinean doctor from a no longer well to do but close knit family, with a sense of adventure and deep empathy for the common man. By the time he caught up with the Castro brothers in Mexico City he was philosophically primed to join their revolution, and his skills and leadership qualities propelled him to the fore. Among his many talents, Che played the heavy with peasant informers, deserters, traitors and cowards–when it came time for someone to pull the trigger, Che was first in line. On a raid in 1958, Che ordered a puppy dog who had straggled along strangled to keep it from blowing their cover. Che's photo is everywhere in Cuba, because of course he a "Hero of the Revolution", a Benjamin Franklin of sorts, minus all the blood on his hands. As I would come to learn, Che is celebrated in equal parts pride and fear.

75 miles out of Cienfuegos we stopped for a night at a pleasant resort island of Cayo Largo, 40 nm south of the Bay of Pigs, which is a prohibited zone we were forced to navigate around. I don't think it was a coincidence that goodnight calls on the sat phone to the girls kept getting cut off after a minute or two. Castro was clearly listening, paranoid that plans for BoP2 were in the works,"sweetdreams Jemima" code for "seals are landing". Rather, we spent a night at anchor off a gorgeous white sandy beach drinking home made rum punch and cooking lobstertail alla linguini, which we had purchased earlier on the dock.

From there, let me tell you that the southern coast of Cuba is no place for mammals. There simply can be no hotter place on Earth. 50 miles off the mainland coast is the pristine Bay of Batababo, 150 nm east/west of shoals and shallow water. The water registered 87 degrees on the thermometer, creating a hot house of heavy windless air that sucked us dry of liquids, including our precious supply of diesel as we were forced to motor through it for two days and nights. It felt about as desolate a place as the Sargasso Sea in the middle of the Atlantic,but we pressed on determined to find some local culture.

We sought Nueva Gerona, an island city of 20,000 along a river on the north coast of the Isle of Youth, where Castro was imprisoned from 1953 to 1955, and where his cell is now a museum. The island is so named because 150,000 students came each year from all over Latin America to learn and participate in the grapefruit harvest. Sadly a hurricane in the mid 1980's wiped out the plantations, and so there isn't much happening on the island now outside of Nueva Gerona. We initially attempted to land along the southeast corner but the visitor center and meteorological office were abandoned, and there were no signs of life,so we reluctantly agreed to motor 30 nm out of our way to enter the city by boat. On our way in it felt like Marlow was sailing up the Congo as her namesake in Heart of Darkness–lush mangroves banked the river on either side as fisherman floated about casting from home brewed personal watercraft made of plastic crates and inner-tubes. This place was hidden and difficult to navigate to, and we were excited to be the only visitors in town. Workers on the industrial docks invariably waved and smiled as we came in, and lurking in the background on the hanger wall a 40 foot paining of Che. We continued a few miles inland to reach the city center and tied to the ferry dock to check-in with the local authorities.

With a nervous, friendly smile the uniformed officer asked us where we had been and where we were going, and then informed us we must leave, that no boats are allowed to visit Nueva Gerona, despite my showing him pictures of sailboats in our guide book at the very location we are now. His only word of English is a meek but genuine "sorry", and so we untie our lines and depart. Our attempt to see the real Cuba was thwarted. What had happened since 2013 when the guide book was written? Had there been too much illegal emigration? It was evident the people in town were happy to see us, but they were holding back and unwilling to bend the rules, Che's portrait perhaps a little reminder of what happens to puppies who don't behave, especially when conspiring with Yankee imperialists.

Twice the beers had been chilled for a landing party, and twice we were denied. Demoralized, tired and sweating, running low on fuel, Marlow and friends retraced our steps to get back on course for Cabo San Antonio, 150 nm to the west.

Love,

STS

10 hours later the wind finally freshened from the south, 10 knots abeam powering Marlow's new sails all through the night at a steady 7+ kts. The wind died at sunrise as we rounded the cape and headed for Los Morros, a remote outpost at the very tip of the island, where we expected to get diesel and rest up for the leg to Havana. We had been driving hard for 6 days now including 4 all-nighters, extreme heat, rapid cultural immersion in port, and it was starting to catch up with the crew. Cham, as he was affectionately referred to now, was holding his own in the heat, nothing short of astounding at 78, and thankfully David "Doc" Dougherty had decided to extend his trip all the way to Havana. Doc was Marlow family by now, and you could not have torn him away from the adventure, which he supplemented with a scuba dive in every port.

Two miles from the dock we saw three buildings and not much else. Hearts were starting to drop. We radioed the marina, "Marlow on final approach, we want to tie up and get fuel." "We have no fuel." Another whiff for the Yanks. Then two sail boats, one from France and the other from Belgium, beat us to the dock by 10 minutes, and take the only spots left. We are in the absolute middle of nowhere and we get out maneuvered by the only other boats for 100 miles for the one scrap of turf worth having.

Still down on our luck, we roll on. We anchor off the dock in 10 feet of water and I jump in the water which is cold and fresh now that we are on the north side of the island. We lower the dinghy and row in for a look around and to meet with custom officials who must stamp our cruising permit, even if we aren't going to stay long. Manning has heretofore been handling this chore with courage but he has reached his limit and announced he wasn't going ashore at all, so I take care of it. The buildings form a simple compound around a central courtyard, and much to our surprise we find a chill (literally–they actually have AC) little yacht club of sorts with a bar, tables for dinner, and signed flags from every country in the world dating back 50 years. There are 10 or so visitors, and many locals making it very hospitable indeed. We befriend Alex the agricultural officer and Dr. Lima who is the only doctor for 100 miles, and the next nearest town of 100 people is 60 km away. We learn that we can't get diesel because the pump is broken–in fact, whenever anything doesn't work in Cuba, it is always the pump.

Dr. Lima is a very educated man who speaks the best English of anyone we have met so far, and we spend several hours talking throughout the day and over a dinner of grilled lobster tail. Some of Cuba's mysteries are revealed as Doc and I pepper him with questions:

We exchange emails and hugs and head back to Marlow for a night of sleep before the final leg to Havana, grateful to have made a real connection with a most civilized man in this remote outpost.

STS

It is 170nm north turning west up the coast from Cabo San Antonio to Havana. We're still roughly on schedule despite the detours to get into Havana with a few days to spare before we run the gauntlet of the Gulf Stream and US customs to get back in the States. The export license for Marlow from the Commerce Department still hasn't come through via email so we're not 100% on the appropriate protocol for re-entry but we can worry about that once we make it to Havana, and we still have a solid 24 hours at sea to navigate. There will be no stopping along the way, even for emergencies–for another mysterious reason, this entire section of the coast is closed to cruising boats.

We raise the anchor at dawn to the smell of burning sugarcane and depart, having officially signed out of the port the previous night after promising not to come ashore again. It is blowing 15kts from the southeast which is expected to remain steady for the duration, so fuel isn't going to be a problem. We navigate northwest, to edge Marlow out to sea in order to catch the 2+ kt Gulf Stream current racing past the Yucatan Peninsula, and to avoid a 1-2 kt counter current that runs down along the reef lying 10 miles out adjacent to the coastline. Two hours later we are well out to sea and riding a positive current so we alter course to the northeast and prepare to angle along the coast for Havana. An hour later as the wind tops out at 30 kts and the seas are churning we realize we turned too soon and have gotten ourselves back in the counter current which is running in the opposite direction of the wind and the seas are starting to foam like the onset of rabies. This is more adventure than anyone is dialed in for at the moment, and there are sighs all around. Can't this ever be easy?

We turn northwest again to head back out to sea in search of the correct current and to find a smoother ride, and 10 hours later we finally escape the negative drag and start angling again for Havana. The wind cooperates by coming south and dropping as we motor sail through the night. The smell of the city ripens with the morning as we approach the 3 million castaways stranded together. It feels like the trip thus far has merely been a primer and now we are going to see Cuba with her eyes wide open. Bring it on.

STS

People who have traveled aboard Marlow know of our fondness for highly corroded Italian espresso makers. You can therefore imagine our delight upon seeing hundreds of them stacked in such a way at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, just one of many touches that made us feel as if fate were drawing us to Havana.

We arrive at 8am and sidle up to the customs dock at Marina Hemingway, which is a series of parallel canals with boats tied lengthwise along each fork, and among the largest marina complexes I've ever visited. It is rumored the Chinese are building a 1,000 slip marina down the coast, but we'd never turn our back on this decaying gem of salty kitsch. Speaking of which, maybe that's why the political tide is finally turning on the embargo–because we hardly need the Chinese taking over for the Russians in our backyard.

The minute we hit the dock we are greeted by our man in Havana, a smiling Cuban named Arian who promises to fulfill our every need. For starters, he has $5,000 worth of Cuban tourist currency in his pocket ready to exchange for dollars at the government sanctioned rate of $100 for 87cuc, which saves us from one of the dreaded hassles of the trip. Then its a box of Montecristo Torpedoes ("not the imitation crap you bought in Cienfuegos, man, I'm talking fresh cigars from here in Habana where they come from") and being chauffeured around town in his blue '54 Dodge, along with plenty of survival advice on life inside Cuba.

Doc heads to a hotel to meet his wife Roberta who has flown in, and Sham and I hit the town for 72 hours. We start with an eerie retrace of the revolution in a museum housing artifacts including seized American assets such as signage from Westinghouse and Esso, and plenty of anti -CIA propaganda to go with it. I have to keep reminding myself this was 50 years ago, and I look behind my back from time to time to see if I am being followed. We do the usual daiquiris too many and head to bed early.

The next day we visit the beautiful art museum which includes an installation in the lobby featuring anti-American propaganda calling attention to the supposed false imprisonment 15 years ago of the Cuban Five in the USA who were held for 17 months without due process. For such an exhibit to be placed here, I gather the liberals running the place must still be afraid of Castro, who apparently hasn't softened much with age. We then meet a team of scientists at the Ministry of Science, who are thrilled to gain access to Slooh's telescope network. There is only one telescope in Cuba, and it has no camera attached, so Slooh will really make a difference for them.

After the meeting Sham and I step out into Plaza Vieja amid one of the most dramatic thunder storms I have ever witnessed. As we later learned, it was the first rain in three months, and suddenly the streets are canals under a foot of water with waterfalls coming off the buildings. As transportation grinds to a halt, it feels like New York City in a snowstorm. We idle in a bar for an hour but then need to get across town to meet Doc for dinner, so we jump into the back of a bike driven covered rickshaw amid the maelstrom and head downriver. 10 seconds later as I film the magic around us our fair driver runs over a pothole he can't see below the rushing water and the whole apparatus comes tumbling down on top of Sham who finds himself for a moment or two suspended in the fresh muck of Havana. Bloodied and bruised, we hop back on the horse and our intrepid driver gets us back to the Hotel Sevilla, famed locale of Al Capone, the lobby of which is 6 inches under water. We ride out the storm with Doc and Roberta over a few more drinks and dinner, filthy wet and laughing.

We wake up the following day to news the weather for crossing the stream to Florida is less than ideal, and I am getting pressed for time. We either decide to brave the waves or trust the Cubans with my most prized possession. I judge we are all ready to move on from the past, and so off to the airport we go, where we purchase a seat on one of the planes leaving for Miami every 30 minutes and clear customs in the US without even a second look. Marlow sits tied to the dock inside Marina Hemingway under the care of our new friend Arian Puig, awaiting our return and the official grand opening of Cuba.

STS

Marlow's been back Stateside since the summer, doing the usual rounds, Newport to Cuttyhunk, Martha's Vineyard, Block Island. True to his word Arian took great care of her, not so much as a clothes pin went missing, which I am taking as a symbolic gesture that all American asset claims in Cuba have been restored and the country is hereby declared open for exchange. Go to Cuba with Arian as your guide. leyani.sanchez@nauta.cu

As feared, the only hiccup bringing Marlow home was courtesy of the US Coast Guard. Upon crossing over into US waters 20nm from Havana, Marlow was intercepted and interrogated via radio for 90 minutes as if Kennedy himself had given the order. Having taken pains to secure an export license for the vessel from the Commerce Department, it was expected the crew would be given a pass upon relaying this information via VHF, but there would be no such show of mutual respect from the Coasties. Instead Marlow was boarded and given a further three hour inspection in five feet seas which fortunately caused one of the coast guard trainees to hurl over the side. As reported by Courtland and Sherry who flew to Havana to sail her home, "At one point they found a cigar box which was paraded over to the commander who opened it to reveal a supply of broken crayons. Their interest in the chase eventually gave way and they never did locate your illicit cigars hidden elsewhere." So I recounted to myself over a summer spent puffing the last embers of contraband smuggled across a war long overdue to be extinguished.

Gentlemen,

A book arrived in the mail today which enabled me at long last to complete the inquiry of Nueva Gerona. I submit Nigel Calder's Cuba A Cruising Guide into evidence. You will recall this is the cruising guide I had intended to bring to Cuba as a second opinion to Sheryl, except Sham failed to remember to bring it after it was loaned to him in advance of the trip.

Page 92, I quote "However, it may be easier to visit the city [Nueva Gerona] in a rental car from the Hotel Colony, particularly given we have received reports that cruising boats are intermittently not allowed to enter the river and sail to Nueva Gerona."

CONCLUSION

IT WAS SHAM WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE WAYWARD EXCURSION TO NUEVA GERONA. PAOLUCCI AND DOUGHERTY ARE HEREBY EXONERATED WITH PREJUDICE

With this issue finally at rest, may I wish you all a happy new year and Cuban caliber adventures in 2016.

Warmly,

Captain Paolucci