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8 Days aground at Cayo Jutias
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“We woke early to the sound of a north wind that within minutes whipped up to a gale. The anchor was dragging. Steve jumped up to start the engine but by the time it fired up, we had dragged onto a sandbar one hundred feet from our original position. Waves splashed over us as we tried to keep our Mason 43 Whitestar from dredging further into the mangroves. “The dinghy on the deck is acting as a sail,” Steve yelled. “Take it down now!”
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Dutch author’s 10 tips for cruising Cuba
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Geert van der Kolk and a crew of friends made a clockwise semi-circumnavigation from Santiago de Cuba to Havana. His boat is a 30-foot Dufour Arpège, built in 1968. He shared his advice, at once practical, humorous and humane, for anyone cruising Cuba. Geert is a Dutch novelist who lives in Washington, DC) READ THE STORY.
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ALSO FROM van der KOLK A CUBA-HAITI SLIDESHOW
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Shipwreck on the North Coast
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“After an exhausting day and night in enormous swells, I was still about six miles from my way point to Puerto de Vita. The mainsail snagged as I tried to reef it in, and the boat drifted inshore without my realizing. Motor sailing was difficult, as the waves repeatedly pummeled Cymar and thrust her across a reef. With the cockpit awash, I ran aground about 50 meters from shore.”
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Mariner surveys Cuban Boatyards
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Having completed several boat building and repair projects in Cuba over the last ten years, Don Barr has observed Cuba’s well-sheltered bays and has worked in its many boat yards using their respective equipment and labor. He summarizes the various facilities and appraises the potential for transforming each into a boatyard for recreational vessels.
READ THE ARTICLE.
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The next ‘Great Loop’
The Bahamian Jumentos island chain and the North Coast of Cuba, I predict, will be legs in the “Bahamas-Cuba Loop” of the future. As it stands now, most cruisers stalled in George Town during winter will return to the U.S. by retracing their steps through the Bahamas to Miami or West Palm Beach. The next era in U.S.-Cuba relations will mean that George Town need not be the terminus for cruisers returning stateside. They would be able to head homeward by transiting the Jumentos to the Bahamian village of Duncantown, then making the 50-mile passage to the Cuban port of entry at Vita. From there it would be an easy downhill run to Havana and back to Florida.
The Bahamian-Cuba ‘Loop’
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As Castro fades, now what?
Based on numbers of U.S. boats that visit the Bahamas, one expert estimates that in the first year after the United States allows its citizens unrestricted travel to Cuba, American boaters will spend a combined 15,000 days there. Some foresee the island one day becoming the epicenter of Caribbean cruising, with as many as 200,000 visiting boats each year. But the transition will not come easily because of Cuba’s lack of boating infrastructure and policymakers misunderstanding of the cruising lifestyle. Originally published in the November 2006 edition of Soundings magazine, which quoted Cuba Cruising Net editor Peter Swanson as one of its experts. READ THE ARTICLE
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Cuba’s Eastern North Coast:
21st Century hurricane refuge?
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Don’t mess with Texas
A fascinating tale of how the Bush administration intimidated Cuba-bound Canadian cruisers
The Bush Administration pulled off an artful bluff in its diplomatic war against Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and it was directed at foreign mariners, particularly Canadian cruisers. The bluff came in the form of a Feb. 26, 2004 proclamation, widely quoted in the boating magazines, which specified` measures authorizing U.S. authorities “take full possession and control of any such vessel and remove the officers and crew and all other persons not specifically authorized by the Secretary of Homeland Security.” The result has been many fewer Canadian and European cruisers entering ports in Cuba, even though their governments maintain normal relations with Cuba. Read Peter Swanson’s analysis, describing the Bush administration’s artful diplomatic bluff.
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Exploring the North Coast, March 2005
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We had visited Cuba by boat in 2002, but our first visit as Cuba Cruising Net was accomplished by more conventional means: We flew from Miami and rented a car. Nevertheless the trip along Cuba’s northern shore from Baracoa to the first port of entry at Vita Bay was eye-opening and reassuring at the same time. Read our story.
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Sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness
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Excerpt from Deep Cuba
Florida environmental writer Bill Belleville has kindly given us permission to publish an excerpt from his book Deep Cuba, the account of a made-for-TV oceanographic expedition along the South Coast. Belleville’s insights, alternately awe inspiring and deeply funny (particularly when describing television’s shallow corporate mentality), culminate in a meeting with Cuba’s top amateur oceanographer, Fidel Castro himself. Click here to read the passage.
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Tales from Little Gidding
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Eileen Quinn
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“Though courteous,
the shakedowns
and rousts after
dark put my patience to the test.One evening a large silhouette presented itself at our door. The puta patrol. This time the inquirer was a hairy, knuckle dragging hulk. Not at all intimidated, Rosa demanded to know his occupation and nationality as well. “Russo!” he barked. Without further comment, the Russian dragged himself over to the freshly painted (confiscated?) Island Trader on which he lived.”
--Bruce Van Sant
from “Sentimental Journey:
Cuba a half century later”
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Van Sant, unburdened by anyone’s sense of political correctness, describes the Cuba he found during a trade-wind contrary voyage from the U.S. along the island nation’s North Coast. This includes a sidebar on the techniques of passagemaking for sailboats and trawlers, including a handy chart of planned stops.
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