Travels on the s/v Elysium: Checking out of Cuba and heading home

We began the process of checking out of Cuba the night before we left. The first thing you do is to settle your bill with the dock master. This is also when you pay your Cuban cruising permit and your visas. You have to get this done first and an invoice marked with your right to clear out for Customs or you are not leaving.

We weren't the only people with this brainy idea, so we had a small wait in line. Just as we were next the dockmaster pops out of his office, sees us all and says: No more today! I'm going home. Then proceeds to crack up and do a little dance. Funny guy.

We didn't think of checking our electricity consumption before we came up, but he simply asked: Did you run a/c? Yes. Tim says we have two. Dockmaster says, I don't want to hear that. You have one. It is cheaper. Okay. We have one. And he asked if we filled our tanks, we did and told him our tankage. Once again, he wouldn't let us take that times two.

So, a rough estimate of our costs.
The total was around 640 CUC—the dockmaster was taking US dollars also. But to translate CUC to USD it would be around $760USD.

That included:
6 days dockage at ~ 45 CUC/day (we have a 45 ft boat)
Cruising permit for boat 55 CUC
Visas 75 CUC per person
Electricity and Water ~ it was done by rough estimate based on whether we ran A/C and filled our tanks
10% tip for the dockmaster/staff--now some people asked to have that removed, but I thought it was bad form, so we left it on.

Once we agreed on our charges with the dockmaster, you went over to the money lady and paid the bill and she'd stamp you as cleared to leave the country on your invoice.

The next morning, you pull up the the customs dock, they do a brief inspection to make sure you don't have any stowaways and we go into the office to have our exit pictures taken (we had pictures taken in bound also). They take the other half of our visa and at that point you can have your passport stamped or not. Different from how it happened at the airport customs. Everybody was very nice.

Sunrise over Cuba.

Working on the beacon at the end of the channel to Hemingway harbor.

Out the channel we go and set our course for our #1 marker on our channel. We had done one last check of our weather and decided to motor sail it so we could beat most of it and definitely so we could get out of the Gulf Stream.

Compared to the ride down, this was a cake walk. Hardly any wind, and the Stream was flat and smooth. What took us 18 hours to get down to Cuba was around 13 hours on the way back.

24 hours before you are due to arrive in the US, it is requested that you call the USCG of your intentions. They have a file of your US permit to cruise Cuban waters, so they know you are out there. Upon arrival in the US, you need to call the CBP and give them information of your crew/your boat and where you are at in the US. They then tell you what office you need to check into and they give you a 16 digit code that indicates initial check in process has started. See upcoming blog entry on cruising paperwork for more information.