Thursday, August 20, 2009
Cuba chapter 4
4/6/09 At around 0300, a front came through the area causing a noticeable shift in wind direction, for a couple of hours swinging to the south, allowing me to go into a much welcome gybe. Just having the boat only slightly heeled over for a period of time was welcome relief. Unfortunately this only last a couple of hours and began to wan to around 5 knots by dawn. I was considering deploying the spinnaker during the night, but thought better of it. Running in the dark with that much sail up is generally not a good idea, especially when single handing. I usually like to see what's on the horizon when I have that much sail up.
The next morning (0930) the wind picked up and began to pick up to 5-10 knots out of the southeast, the trades were returning again. I was able to make around 3 knots until 10 miles from the harbor entrance to Santiago de Cuba, my destination. It was at this time I was beginning to think that I was not going to get a break at all on this coast. No fuel, so no engine, now wind coming back on the nose again. The wind gradually built up to 15 knots and soon was coming straight out of the east. By this time I was tantalizingly close to the harbor. Tired, frustrated, and just generally ready to get the hell off the boat, or at least be at anchor, instead of tacking into light winds, looking at the same piece of coastline for hours on end. Needless to say I would have probably given my left kidney for some gasoline. In the afternoon the wind did pick up some and finally it was 1700 hours when I finally passed the 18th century stone fortifications at the mouth of the Bahia de Santiago.
Of course now that I was finally at my destination the wind really started to pick up, after tacking for most of the southern shore of Cuba, I found myself in 15-20 knot winds that seemed to be funneled by the steep cliffs and hillsides of the harbor entrance of Santiago de Cuba. On a beam reach I cruised, or rather screamed into the very picturesque harbor, with probably too much sail up, buffeted by the turbulence and gust caused by the shear cliffs and fortifications that formed the convoluted shoreline. Shaped like a hand, it had many side bays. I was headed for the marina, where cruising boats are required to check in. As I came into the harbor the welcome site of the marina came into view with four other sailboats tied up. As I was without the benefit of a motor, I rolled in the genoa, and under main alone, came straight at the dock. I could see that I was drawing the attention of not only the ever present authorities but the crews of the other vessels at dock. This is another example of when things are going wrong on a sailboat, they will probably go wrong in a big way, for reasons, whether fatigue, or just oversight, you miss the obvious and forget everything you have learned in the past. In this case it was all of the above and things were happening fast. As I sailed closer and closer to the dock, the customs officials and harbor master began to try and wave me to a spot on the dock, or jetty, the required maneuver being a totally untenable tight turn, dropping of sails, setting mooring lines, all with gusting winds and a concrete dock on the lee side. It would be similar to an automobile (a woody of course) doing a U-turn and parallel park in between two trucks at 25 mph. In short …it wasn't going to happen. Without the motor, it would have been difficult on a good day with ideal conditions and not other vessels immediately fore and aft of my slot. Running the Natie M. into the concrete dock, the design of which seemed to be geared towards inflicting the maximum damage to a hull of any careless captain, was not going to be the way I ended this leg of my journey. I attempted to hail one of the sailboats, one of them a boat I recognized, with no response. On top of that my tilerpilot was not working. I realized later that my batteries were to low to transmit a radio signal much less operate the tilerpilot. I should have kept a closer eye on their charge state and maybe layed off loudly playing the salsa cds I bought in Trinidad.
Without the tiller pilot it would be a scramble to bring the boat into the very small anchorage immediately windward of the customs dock and uncomfortably close to an ancient concreted fuel dock but that was my only choice. I got the boat slowed down to 10 knots and by this time was almost alongside the dock and was getting ready for a sharp turn away and to wind to bring the boat stalled to wind close to, but about 100 feet away from the dock. All during this time the Cuban officials where frantically waving at me, not understanding why I wasn't coming into dock. "No tengo gasolina y motor!!" I yelled only seeming to confuse them more. Racing forward, I released the main halyard, dropping the main, and then to the bow to drop the anchor. There would be no second chance on this one. The boat stopped due to the 15 knot wind blowing like crazy on my nose with the concrete dock immediately behind. I held my breath as I could feel the anchor slip a couple of times but then take on tension and set. I was wrung out and exhausted and sat heavily into the cockpit to gather my wits. Thankfully the Natie M. settled into anchor.
A chorus of shouting greeted me from the dock, as clearly the authorities wanted me to come into dock to clear in, immediately. Perhaps with a little less patience I shouted again that I had no motor and that I was not going to attempt to dock using ballistics as a drive.
I called over to the vessel that I had recognized during my arrival. She was a elegant vintage ocean racer named the "Shiver". This vessel was well known to me. I had mentioned that an important source of weather information was the SSB. Chris Parker, a sailboat based weatherforecaster, provides routing and weather information over the shortwave to subscribing sailors, and as in the case with me, those that just listen in. I had been following the progress of Shiver, a British flagged ocean racer, for more than a month now. I would listen in as Shiver and her captain, a friendly British chap named Red, would radio in for weather and routing information initially from Key West to Havana. I was in the Ragged Islands at the time so I figured I was a couple of days behind them. I sort of used them as the carrot to drive me on, keeping a distance, but closing slowly. I knew I would need good weather information on the south coast of Cuba, once I start facing the trades head on. Thanks to Shiver's always reliable transmissions for routing and weather I got the same. I felt that even though I had not yet met the captain and crew, they were already friends, if not family.
Anyway, seeing Shiver was an exciting moment, along with the anxiety of hoping the anchor would hold while the wind was trying to blow me into the concrete pilings all around the area. The first thing that went awry; you're probably expecting this sort of thing by now, was that the auto pilot stopped working as I came into the harbor. Next was my attempt to radio Shiver and the other vessels, whose crews were on the dock enjoying the spectacle of my arrival, since they spoke English better than the harbor master, in an attempt to explain my seemingly simple yet tenuous position. This was unsuccessful as my radio did not seem to work.
Thankfully the anchor seemed to be holding, with the wind gusting across the harbor, the Natie M. pitching up and down in the waves. I let out as much scope as I dared and hoped for the best. I soon realized that the reason for the issues with the radio and pilot was that I had neglected to switch to the fresh battery bank. The radio up again, I soon raised Shiver and explained my situation. Of course the harbor authorities had not only increased in number at the dock but in the amount of shouting and waving in my direction. Finally Red explained to them my situation and they calmed down. In addition, he told me he had a gallon of gas that I could use to get into dock. Jumping in the dinghy, which recently had developed a slight leak and was not as firm as one would like, nearly dumping me in the drink, I rowed in to the dock, where Red, after a brief introduction, handed me the container of gas. Once back on board, I soon had the motor running, (you were probably expecting not) and bringing up the anchor, slowly approached the little space along the concrete dock. With the help of at least a dozen workers of the marina, harbor master and guarda, I was finally tied up. I was, at this time, giddy and maybe a little punch drunk. The trip along the south coast of Cuba, except for the stops and excursions off vessel, had been quite challenging, even an ordeal, that once accomplished could be looked back only with a rose colored lens. Not saying that I would be lining up to do it again soon. I was exhilarating, not to mention a complete relief, to be finally at a safe port.
The Natie M. was now finally secured to the dock with the usual dock and springlines, fenders, and the use of 125 feet of anchor rode stretched off my starboard side to the concrete fuel dock, so as to keep the wind and waves from bashing the boat into the dock. The Natie M. was nestled in a spider web of dock lines. But I had finally made it to the final port of call in my Cuba trip, Santiago de Cuba.
I introduced myself to the harbor master and began the clearing process once again. Again the authorities were more than helpful and friendly, now that they understood the reasons for my unorthodox arrival. I could see that this would be the nicest marina that I had yet visited in Cuba. I mean this in the sense that it was less in a state of disrepair than the others. The bathrooms were operable, though without toilet seats, and the beer was cold and cheap, and this, dear reader as you know by now is worth a couple of notches on my personal Michelin rating. Though a little in need of repair and maintenance, the marina was in pretty good shape. The docks even had reliable water and electric. It took minimal time to clear in and afterwards I walked over to Shiver to thank them again for the assistance. I also told Red, tongue and cheek, that I had been chasing them since Havana, explaining how I was monitoring their progress through Chris Parker's transmissions. I also met the other cruisers, from Canada and Denmark that were in port also. They all said they enjoyed my arrival and congratulated me for not landing the boat, read: not crashing into their boat, and anchoring right off the dock in trying conditions. I spent the evening after a long anticipated shower and cold beer, visiting with everyone. It was a very pleasant evening and I made plans on sharing a taxi with Shiver and crew for an excursion into the city the following day. Captain Red was accompanied by his charming wife and son along with a close friend. It was great to visit with them and hear of their experiences and impressions of Cuba As usual it was an early night after a long, long sail.
4/8/09The next morning, with the help of the harbor master I received shipment of 35 liters of gasoline, the usual ration. It cost some but it gave me some badly needed motor time. Maintaining even a small supply of fuel on board was frustratingly difficult at times and being becalmed without auxiliary power even more so.
I busied myself with putting things in order onboard, refueling, etc before joining Shiver at the entrance to the marina to await our taxi.
The taxi soon appeared and to our delight it was a vintage Chevy Belair, probably a '56 that arrived. I was hoping it would not be one of the soviet Ladas, cramped, noisy little cars that are typically used by the official taxi services. This taxi was a private one, permitted by the government. The roads were kinda bumpy and rutted but the old car with its substantial amount of Detroit steel, took the conditions well. We were dropped off near the center of the historic part of town and walked around. The city reminded me of Habana, only a little cleaner and in better shape the further you walked from the tourist areas. Like everywhere I had been in the cities, the government seems to be trying to keep all tourists in a particular area. We observed that probably this was so that they could most efficiently extract the maximum amount of your money, especially at the government run stores. Having none of this, I have always avoided these areas, much to my benefit. Shiver felt likewise and we walked out of this area, with tour bus parking disgorging tourists directly into a park that was specified as a tourist area only. There actually signs indicating this posted all around.
In our discussion the previous night, I had decided to join Shiver and Evolution (the Dutch Boat) to leave Cuba for Jamaica. My reasoning was that hopefully a southeast wind would come along and make for hopefully easy eastings to Hispanola and then Puerto Rico. I had plans to rejoin a friend I had met in the Bahamas and she was a good 600 miles to the east of me. As a result today was the only day I would get to see Santiago de Cuba. We spent most of it looking into the souvenir shops and drinking beer from the various ornate and historic hotel balconies overlooking the main square. Although I knew of several sites that I would normally like to see, old building, museums, churches and such, I decided to go along with the flow and let Shiver call the route and pace. As I had no illusions that I would be able to see even a small part of the city in a half a day, I just decided to go with the flow and relax for a change. We walked the ancient and narrow streets, popping into some shops to look at the common items on the shelves where average Cubans got their day to day items. We tried to avoid the parks and areas that were dominated by the tour busses and hotels but they seemed to be everywhere. I want to visit this city again to spend more time there to explore its culture and history more.
4/9/09
Weather was calling for some seas with wind 10-15 out of the, and not surprisingly…… east.
Early in the morning, as I was preparing for my departure, a French boat radioed in, and that, like the Natie M. was coming in under sail with no motor. This event seemed not to create the excitement and attention of the authorities this time, perhaps after my arrival, thinking that western flagged ocean cruisers were commonly in the same state of disrepair as their marinas.
Around 10 am I was the first one to be cleared out, ahead of everyone else. I wanted a little head start as I would be the slowest boat in the fleet that day. By noon the harbor, with it imposing Cliffside fort was sinking into the horizon. The conditions, although a little rocky were reasonable for once. I was on a broad reach in about 12 knots and 2-3 foot swells heading for Jamaica. The Natie M. was moving on more or less the course desired and I was beginning to wonder if I should just head over to the Dominican Republic, as originally planned. I put the thought out of my mind, having made a decision to sail with Shiver and Evolution to Port Antonio, Jamaica, more than 100 miles away.
4/9/09 I was taken with emotion, watching Cuba recede behind me. I wish I had taken more time to see the island at a more leisurely pace, but the trip was not originally on the itinerary, going with a spur of the moment course correction. Now I was more than 300 miles west of where I had thought I would be at this time. It was clear along time ago that I had not clearly planned this trip well, though I was happy about all the time I had spent in Cuba. With summer coming on, the trades would only become more persistent and constant. It was going to be a long haul. I moved forward to take down the Cuban courtesy flag. I could see that it was starting to fade as I hauled down the pennant. Holding the flag in one had while securing the pennant it suddenly slipped out of my hand in the wind and went over the side. Doing at least 6 knots it quickly receded on my stern and sank into the deep water of the Windward Passage.
The Trades, as if on cue, began to make their dominance felt, as the wind began to freshen and swing from the north east towards the east. The waves too begin to pick up and by sunset I was still 70 miles to the southeast. The wind by 2100 was pretty consistent at 20 knots and close to 18 knots, the waves off the port quarter, picking up my stern with the surfing surge of speed. I reduced sail to keep the boat at a more manageable speed. I was still doing 7 knots. It was a 100 mile passage to Porto Antonio, Jamaica and I was hoping to make the passage as quickly as possible. Behind me was the Danish sailing Ketch and the Shiver. Shiver was well reefed to keep everyone comfortable but the Danish ketch was flying. About halfway along they passed me about a mile off my port beam, reporting speeds of 9 plus knots. Shiver stayed behind me, but was within VHF range. I sat in my rigged little cockpit seat, catching naps and dealing with the large waves that occasionally would overcome the tilerpilot. The night was windy and wet.
The Danish Ketch meanwhile was quickly surging ahead and where almost so far ahead that I almost could not hear their hail on the radio around 3 in the morning. They were having problems with their helm, apparently having damaged the linkage to the rudder by the high speeds they were maintaining. I was worried for them and as I was almost equidistant between them and Shiver, hailed Red and advised them of the situation. The two ships soon were discussing the problem over the SSB with me listening in on my receiver. Although the malfunction serious, they were able to shorten sail and continue on fortunately.
It was a long night of hard and fast sailing but the Natie M. made it through and with the dawn light I could make out the lush shores green shores of the Blue Mountains and Porto Antonio, Jamaica. I planned to rest and reprovision here for a couple of days before setting out for Hispagnola.
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