Letter from the Indies- Santiago de Cuba to Cienfuegos (Cuba)
by Andrea and Ian Treleaven on 25 Apr 2009
Sun setting in the west in Cuba Ian & Andrea Treleaven
Friends Geoff and Pip Lavis have now joined us for the 350nm sail west along the south coast of Cuba to Cienfuegos, passing the very high Sierra Maestra Mountains and on through the many cays of the Archipielago de los Jardines de la Reina (Royal Gardens).
Provisioning has been an interesting exercise. Eggs are allocated at 10 per person per month; we manage to acquire someone’s quota and also acquire more on the black market.
We don’t feel guilty about this; they are all eager to get some tourist dollars
(CUC). A taxi driver buys for us the bread but of course there is no choice with just one style of loaf available. Cakes we wouldn’t even consider buying; again just one style of sponge coated with mock cream. Fruit and vegetables are limited to what’s seasonal but no problem to buy and very cheap.
The two currencies are confusing and it’s creating a class difference not only for the tourist but also for the locals. Only those that have managed to acquire CUC’s may enter the Dollar shops ( the national peso is used by locals).
A lot of educated people have now turned to the tourist industry, as it is their way of getting the more valuable currency.
We enjoyed our two week stay at the marina with very nice staff and more services than we expected. Cruisers come and go… some to Jamaica others to the Dominican Republic or heading west like us. Our only problem was acid rain leaving small yellow spots on the deck from a refinery near by.
We continued our sightseeing and particularly enjoyed visiting Moncada Barracks, the site of Fidel Castro’s first failed attack against the ruling corrupt
Batista government on the 26th July 1953. The bullet holes are still present on the outside of the building while inside the history of the uprising is shown in detail. Castro was finally successful on the 1st January 1959.
The local cemetery, Santa Ifigenia, is full of history especially of the martyrs of all the many uprisings over the centuries.
Every half hour there is a changing of the goose stepping-guards for the tomb of Josef Marti (1853-95), the most revered of all. The Bacardi Rum family are also here plus the original Buena Vista Social Club band member Comay Segundo.
There’s not a lot of wind under the protection of the mountain range for our departure but it’s a perfect day for fishing, and there are many whales and dolphins.
The mountain is 1200 metres high and the sea below is 7000 metres deep; a record height in the world for such a short distance. Many barracuda are thrown back but we keep four tuna, hooking two at a time on separate lines.
Pilon is a night stop and next day we are onto Cabo Cruz, anchoring behind a breaking reef with lighthouse which is at the most southern part of Cuba. This is a superb swimming bay with a beautiful
sunset while fisherman row out to get lobster. We have never felt more secure.
Next morning, as we reach for our beach towels, we find them missing. Also gone are Ian’s old but treasured Sperry sandals. For the first time in our seven years of cruising we have that horrible feeling of someone being on board while we slept.
We don’t report it as what is taken is only petty theft and there were more valuable things around like our fishing rod etc but it still leaves an uneasy feeling. In a country where we have felt safer than anywhere else it is quite a
surprise but definitely an isolated experience.
Even with no change to this glorious no sailing weather, the boys hoist the spinnaker but it’s mostly motoring. We don’t really mind, as it’s really very relaxing. The Royal Gardens are a chain of hundreds of small uninhabited cays with white sand and covered in mangroves. The only people out here are the fisherman and us. For the next nine days we day hop to different cays, entering shallow bays surrounded by coral and see only three other yachts.
What we have really come for is the culinary delight of the sea and it doesn’t disappoint us. A fishing station is approached by Geoff and Ian in the dinghy inside a mangrove inlet. Here they find old rusty ferro-cement fishing boats (some floating and others washed ashore), lobster cages piled high and men working out here for days on end. At first they don’t catch anything but then Ian pulls out a bottle of rum. The results are magic. Suddenly seven big lobsters appear and Ian also finds three cans of coke for ten smiling men.
BBQ lobster served with garlic butter for dinner and we already wondering if we will get any more. Our next anchorage, Cayo Anclitas, is the perfect horseshoe bay with one other yacht. It doesn’t get anymore natural than this ashore; live conch shell line the waters edge and strange trail marks leave the water and disappear into the bushes. Analysing that they look like bike tracks or maybe the roll of an anchor chain, we ignore and explore. Bugs send us back to the yacht after a stroll in the evening heat while picking up shells.
Not long after we get back to the yacht we have a visit by
fishermen and we request ten lobsters for two bottles of rum (at only USD4.12 a bottle). With smiling faces they set off to find them. In the meantime the other cruising boat comes over and asks if we saw the crocodiles on the beach….. instantly there are four very stunned, very still people with mouths open on the deck of Finisterre.
After half an hour the fisherman return with 23 lobsters! Lobster omelette for breakfast, lobster salad with Thousand Island dressing for lunch and lobster green curry for dinner. In fact out of eight
consecutive meals seven included lobster. We have now gone from healthy hearts to high cholesterol.
We sail onto where the prawn fishing fleet are based in Cayo Cuervo. Once again the big ships are approached and the heads are shaking no until the rum comes out. Ian is asked onboard and points to the prawns. Six kilos of prawns later, we have five meals of crustaceans and finally, a very welcome pork chop. Rum has been our best friend to date.
Every cay and anchorage we visit is superb and all recommended by Jesus the local skipper of the charter catamaran we met in
Santiago. On arriving at Cayos Machos de Fuera we find a cay that’s a natural habitat for endangered mammals.
Ashore a caretaker takes us on an amazing circumnavigation of the island, in and out of mangroves, sighting birds, iguanas and jutia (tree rats the size of cats) all living with no fear of humans. Fortunately there are no crocodiles. A lot of animals became endangered, especially the tree rat, as they were eaten by Cubans when food was scarce during Castro’s special period of austerity after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
After nine days of near isolation at sea, we look forward to returning to civilisation. With a 55nm sail on to the classic city of Cienfuegos we awake to a 20 knot North easterly for a perfect sail along the mountainous coast. Entering another narrow entrance we sail across the big enclosed bay to the marina. Very interesting architecture awaits us.... and what else?
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