Apologies for the delay all!

We left Baracoa about five days ago and are now in Santiago de Cuba!

I didnt have much time to write in Baracoa as we always seemed to be busy with one thing or another. We hiked up the large flat-topped mountain, El Yunque, spent a great deal of time exploring the town and taking in the atmosphere. I don't know if I mentioned before, but this is a small city, rather a moderately sized town in reality, which seems to bustle day and night. Ashore at eight in the morning, people scurry to and fro as if carrying a breaking story to the print deadline of a newspaper. Pausing only to grab the 'street snack' of the day, whatever it may be, perhaps a pork roll, a ubiquitous 'peso pizza', an ice cream(Cubans adore ice cream) or a small deep fried 'croqueta' they huury on their way to places unseen - only to reappear moments later in another part of the square to repeat the whole process. The whole pantomime is reminiscent of a crowd scene in a cheap television drama, or perhaps the film, The Truman Show. Everyone is very busy and in a huge rush, but o nowhere in particular. The same faces keep popping up like overused extras in a cheap movie. This doesnt detract from the scene however, it just adds a certain frenetic comedy to the experience.
Walking amongst the ramshackle houses in the residential areas is just as much fun. Much like in the Mediterranean, the street is surveyed by the elderly through a mixture of stable type doors and rocking chairs on porches - a kind of traditional closed circuit television. Children run home from school in pristine uniforms - a different colour for each age group - stopping only to grab a peso ice cream or a cone of 'mani' - some hot dry roasted peanuts. Teenagers, mainly girls as the boys are in the local baseball stadium practicing for a 'try out day' for the local team, push their bikes along in noisy groups laughing and joking - mainly at the boy's expense. Donkeys pulling carts full of water make occasional stops at groups of adults holding buckets for a top up - Running water, although common, isnt available in all houses. Occasionally a front yard is given over to a blacksmith or bicycle mechanic. With an absence of parts, these two roles are often combined in another strange mixture of the ages - you can imagine the bicycles being shod when they have a puncture. Children are everywhere. The Cubans love them almost as much as ice cream. Walk in a Cuban street with a child and it will take you an hour to cover a hundred yards. They coo, call, chat, hug and kiss children as if they were the last survivor on the planet. It is somewhat touching to see when comparing it to how many European countries have changed over the years and how it is almost becoming a social stigma to even talk to a stranger's child.
The whole is a noisy, friendly and happy scene. The people don't have much but there is no mistaking that, at least on the surface, they are very happy and indeed proud of their lot. This is true of the majority of the people we have seen in Cuba to date.

The hike up El Yunque was a lot of fun. The Shaka girls did stirling work up very steep jungle terain. The views from the top were spectacular and a swim in the river at the end, perfect. Half way up the trail, a local farmer had set up a stand where you could eat as much fruit as you could manage for next to nothing. Everything from sweet bananas to huge grapefruit gushing with juice were peeled and laid out to eat. Small pieces of coconut covered with local honey were a delicious 'dessert'. The honey was delicious, so we asked if it might be possible to buy some in town. The farmer asked for one of our empty water bottles and returned a short while later with a couple of pints of the stuff - once again, so cheap as to be practically free.

It has to be said that we loved Baracoa and all of its idiosyncrasies, but especially its people. Time to move on however and another 180 mile sail to Santiago de Cuba on the South Coast of Cuba.

For those interested in the onward clearance process, we were visited by the harbour master and customs again and the boat given a cursory search before we were wished well and given our onward clearance. We were told that although we could stop on the way to Santiago, the bay at Baitiquiri had an extremely dangerous entrance and although we were free to go there, the harbour master cautioned us against it, especially in the windy conditions we were expecting. The bay at Escondido was out of bounds as it was a military base and practice area.
Finally the harbour master asked us to re-inforce that although visitors were welcome in Baracoa, it was not possible to clear vessels in or out of Cuba at this point and had not been for the last fourteen years.

I'll write a little more about he southern coast when I've got to grips with it a bit!

Hasta Banana

Besos

PXX

Just time for a quick update.

First I'll just run through the onward clearance process for those heading this way. On the day of departure, you must buy a couple of stamps - all this is explained to you by the marina - and the officials visit your boat again. This time its only customs and the Guarda who come and do a quick search of the boat and issue you your cruising permit. This permit has lots of boxes which are filed with entry and departure stamps from other ports you call at en route. The procedure took about fifteen minutes. Our next port was listed as Santiago de Cuba, but we were told we could stop off en route if we wished. The one exception was the port of Moa, which is a nickel mining area and has a very busy port. Depending on the local Guarda, we would be told if we would be allowed to leave the boat and explore ashore. This is due to the guarda having responsibility for you and your vessel whilst in the harbour. As you know, some Cubans try to 'escape' to America and a boat at anchor is possibly quite a tempting prospect. We are currently in Baracoa and the guarda here have given us permission to explore at will, but have asked that we return to the boat at night so we can ensure its security, which seems fair enough to us. A quick word on arrivals: As we entered the harbour, we were told that we could anchor and that they would come and check our documents shortly. About five minutes later, the local guarda rowed to our boat and after a very quick search, gave us permission to stay in the harbour. I guess the whole thing took about ten minutes.

I dont know if I mentioned it in a previous post, but printed sheets with your boat name and details is very useful, as is a list of all crew, passport numbers etc - all in Spanish. It saves a lot of time and shows that you take their procedures seriously, which also helps. We also have printed sheets with our electronic equipment on board and our possible route plan. Neither are necessary, but both seem to give a degree of confidence to the officials. I'm sure I mentioned before, but a little Spanish will go a long way in Cuba. You will get access to things you might not otherwise see, you can argue your point of view with an official and will find countless stories of the people, which you would not otherwise discover. Make the effort, its never to late to start!

So, Baracoa. Baracoa is Cuba's oldest city, founded in 1511. Once only reachable by sea, this is as far as it gets from the Cuba we have seen so far. We are in a circular harbour, ringed by black, volcanic beaches leading to palm forest covered hills and mountains including the famed flat-topped el Yunque. The beaches are fronted with small shack style houses, reminiscent of maybe Dominica or St Lucia in the Caribbean. The town itself is on a small peninsular that forms one of the breakwaters to the harbour. The first thing that strikes you is that this town is much older than anything we have seen - the buildings are crumbling and the roads only partly paved The second is that it also appears much poorer - although only superficially so, perhaps due to the ancient infrastructure of the town. In reality, it isn't that bad. It's generally clean (although ramshackle), bustling, colourful, friendly and has a real style of its own. Small squares lead to wide open roads with buildings and footpaths on either side raised to about three feet above the street. These footpaths have terraced steps down to the roads and pillars supporting the canopies of the buildings above. As ever, many shops are empty apart from the ice cream parlours and cake shops (which I discovered recently are 'government supplied cakes') but there is much street food available from local vendors - our current favorite is a rather tasty pork roll - much like a meaty bacon sandwich! Paid for in local money, rather than the tourist stuff, which reminds me, I haven't talked about money yet, these snacks are almost free.

Today it's St Patrick's day, so we are trying hard to find a way to celebrate. We will keep you informed as to what goes on!

Bye for now

PXX

Just a quick update re my earlier post. The boat which had had its GPS etc sealed, was visited by customs yesterday PM and the seal was removed - it seems that the person involved was new etc and that the crew were free to use the equipment whenever they required. Good result for all.

PX

Hi all!

We are back from our visit to Holguin and getting ready to move East in the next couple of days. Holguin was a lot of fun. Very different to anywhere else we have been. Physically, whilst many of the buildings are in a state of disprepair, they are significantly grander than anything in the Eastern Caribbean - its also much much cleaner. As you might expect, everything is colourful and there is always the beat of salsa or suchlike instead of the ubiquitous reggae found further South. Apart from the music, the city is strangely quiet as there is very little traffic, most transport being horse and cart or bici-taxi. Although this ins't through choice, it gives a much cleaner, calmer atmosphere than other large cities. The other side to this is that almost everyone walks everywhere - the streets and surrounding roads are full of people about their business.
There are lots of differences to any western city, but one of the things that really stood out to us was the general demeanor of the people, most appear at least superficially happy, despite the poverty which is quite tangible. They are fashionably dressed, healthy looking and fun to talk to. They have a particular fondness for ice cream, which despite the poverty, is eaten by the gallon. This is only surpassed by an insane love of huge, garishly decorated cakes, which once bought, are carried on pieces of cardboard around the streets on foot, on bikes, indeed in any way possible, back to the house. It is truly impossible to look in any direction without seeing at least two or three of these cakes which look similar to giant birthday cakes from the 70s, complete with as much orange and blue swirly icing as you can get. I asked several people if these were for a special occasion and always received the same answer - "no, no no, we Cubans always buy cakes, we LOVE them!!" It was as if there was a giant party going on in town but the destination was secret.

For those of you planning a trip by yacht, a little more info - Some other boats have arrived and had different 'authorities' handling their entry. One has had his GPS/Sat phone sealed, although the officer responsible said that he would return at any time if the skipper needed to use it. This is the only boat that has had this, although he was at pains to say that the entire process, again, was very pleasant and not at all stressful. It really depends who you get on the day - somewhat like another country we know! Obviously, all of these items are unsealed between ports.
Oh, and another thing, get your mosquito netting up to scratch. If there is no wind in the evening, there can be a lot of no see ums. You may anchor out (currently) for no charge and (currently) use all marina facilities, but as the whole area is mangrove, I'm not sure how much protection this will give you. For the sake of 20 bucks a night, it maybe easier to leave the boat in the marina, both for protection and security.

More soon

P XX

We are planing on heading East in the next few days, so we will keep you across our progress.

Winds aren't good for us to start East at the moment - maybe towards the end of the week, so we are making the most of what's in the area. Off to Holguin today - and may stay there overnight, so don't expect anything from us for the next few days. Holguin is famed for many things including, for the musical minded amongst you, its bespoke organ factory! I'll try to do a post when I get back.

Besos

PXX

So, finally we are in Cuba - officially! I know one shouldn't judge on first appearances, although often they turn out to be very close to the mark, but having been here only a day, it has been a real pleasure. The people are wonderful, open, friendly and honest and we are in a beautiful spot. - and as for the famed bureaucracy, well read on…

Last night saw us at anchor, waiting for medical clearance to dock - the doctor was unavailable at the time. Apologies if the following goes into a lot of detail, but for those sailors planning a trip here, there is much rumour and conjecture as to the formalities that have to take place and I'd like to detail our experiences to perhaps reassure those planning this voyage.

At 0900 this morning, we were boarded by Dr Rolando, an extremely amiable professor of epidemiology. Who proceeded to give us our clearance to dock. This is just to make sure we don't have any diseases etc on board. This took about fifteen minutes, much of which was spent talking about baseball and Liverpool Football Club. As the marina dinghy was busy, we gave the doctor a lift over to Virage to continue his work. At this point, it might be worth mentioning that it could be useful to have the dinghy in the water, as mooring in the marina is Med style and so it is useful to have a means of tying to the stern buoy if the marina boat is tied up. If you need more info on this, let me know or look it up.

Once given clearance by the doctor, you may proceed to dock. Once docked, you are normally welcomed by the marina's 'public relations' lady - Tina who will make sure you are tied up securely and that all is well. Everyone is very welcoming.

When you are secure, you invite the officials on board, who in the first instance consisted of a Guarda Frontera, customs (aduanes) and food/animals people - a total of four.
All four asked if we wished them to remove shoes (we didn't) and were extremely professional but polite and friendly.

There was the usual form filling required when entering any country - although here much of the paperwork is completed by the officials themselves.

Our food was all examined for sign of disease or foreign pests and given the all clear. Nothing was taken or refused entry - even our basil plant grown by Ruth on Clear Day!
As the formalities are completed, the immigration officer, who didn't board the boat, took our passports and completed the visa work.

Although not officially in the country at this stage, we were told we could leave the boat and look around if we wished.

So far, this procedure took about an hour - much the same as most countries although much more jovial!

We then went and spoke to Tina (see above), who gave us a long chat about Cuba and how to make the best of it. Given her role as PR/marina manager, she was surprisingly honest and candid but still made the place sound fantastic.

Finally, the immigration man returned with our passports and visas and customs asked to do a search of the vessel. This entailed a very short inspection by the 'drugs dog' and a quick search of the boat. Once again, all completed very professionally, but with good humour. Nothing was 'confiscated' or 'sealed' and there was no mention of it being so. We were asked how many GPS, radios etc we had on board, but we have been asked this in pretty much every country we have visited, Cuba being number 22. This second visit took about five to ten minutes. All the inspections etc were no more than I would expect and for once, they were completed in good humour. If you have children on board, or can rent some, expect even more 'enjoyment' from the officials. All three boats were cleared in within three hours.

The marina at Vita is in a lovely spot and as smart as many we have been to. Water and electricity are included although a little sporadic - bring a long shore power lead in case your pillar is not working.
The current price for a stay up to one month is 0.6CUC per foot per day. Pretty reasonable I think. You can only pay in cash at this marina. I think long term stays - and this is a very nice place - are cheaper.
If you have a choice of currency, euros etc are best. You pay a 20% surcharge if you use American dollars.

All in all, despite being told that I would have all food confiscated, GPS, satellite and phones sealed, none of this has taken place. Maybe it will be different as we make our way around the coast. I know there will be many restrictions placed upon our travel, but, so far, everything has been very organised, straightforward and actually, if I were honest, a pleasure.
I hope it continues.