Clearing Customs

We got signaled to follow our pilot boat in.  You have to maintain a compass direction and there's a range siting that you can line up with.  We were advised not to rely on the actual channel markers because they are not secured to the seabed and can drift a bit.

Approaching the Customs Dock.

Once at the customs dock, it becomes a crazy mess of officials getting on the boat.  I cannot stress how very nice everybody was. I set out some American beer, American soda and American candies. By the time the process was done, it was all gone.  Customs officials are NOT allowed to accept tips anymore. However, the health inspectors and agricultural inspectors may still ask.

First aboard was the doctors, he took our health papers and temperatures.  Amusement started at this point because my crew member James decided that we'd start communicating in Italian which they'd answer in Spanish, and I was trying to translate Spanish to English. (However, they all know enough English for us to conduct our business).

Time to take your temperatures!

  

Tim was in the cockpit with the immigrations folks who did the passport control and vessel check in.  All crew was handed an immigration form and a visa to fill out...right now, quick like.

After the health and passport check was complete, we were taken to have our photos taken and our visas stamped. The visa is a two part form that they take one half at the beginning and the other half on check out.

After the initial process was done, we were led to our slip-I don't know if this was the usual  process or  done like this because of 60 boats coming in.  All slips at Marina Hemingway are side ties. Once we got tied off and the electrician hooked up our power (tip the electrician and dock hands) we got a visit from the agricultural inspectors. I explained what fresh fruits/veggies/meat we had on board and that I have them wrapped and in our refrigerator.  They were quite pleased with that and we passed our agricultural inspection.  We never got a full vessel inspection, but that might be because of the number of boats coming in. The ag inspectors did expect a tip. 

Looking at map of marina while waiting for the pilot boat to lead us to our slip.

Pilot boat leading us to slip.

 

All in all, considering the crowd of boats, I thought things went quickly and smoothly, I think we were fully cleared in 45 minutes.

Clearing the salon table and having an assortment of 'American' goods for the officials to partake of seemed to make the process pleasant for all. I set out small baggies so they could take candies home with them, they asked politely to do this for their grandkids and of course that was no problem. (Easter candy on sale in the states right now, so I loaded up)

The ag officials checking out what is in our fridge and freezer.

Payment of the vessel permit, visas, etc doesn't happen until you check out of the country.  First you'll need to settle with the dock master, and then he'll give you a clearance form that you present to the customs dock.

While the crew got the boat stowed and put away, I ran over to the hotel to buy internet cards before they sold out.  Internet for us this time has been very iffy, won't stay connected.  We had much better luck in Habana Vieja.

Passage to Cuba

Nighttime sail-check. Crossing the gulf stream-check scopalamine is the wonder drug-check
Forecast lies-as always

We headed out a little late so Tim could conquer another project at work, and of course, shit had to start acting up on the boat.  First it was our fridge, which caused me to have to rethink our entire provisioning plan.  But us rebooting the thermostat controller seemed to get that back in order.

Second was the LP controller for the stove.  Wound up being an easy fix, a fuse burned out on that.  But since it's a boat, even simple fixes usually mean tearing up  floor boars, access panels and longer than it should take to fix.

We cleared the reef, got our sails up and before long we met up with the 3pm departures in the rally fleet.

A couple of the rally boats off on the horizon.

Started out to be a beautiful trip, watched the sunset, and I went below to get our dinner heated up.  And then it started getting rougher-my pot holders for the stove were not behaving themselves and I am surprised that I didn't set myself on fire.

And being down below got the queasiness started.  Great.  But my crew got fed.
And the water started getting rougher.  Earlier we had decided we wanted to be reefed for our night sail, and we would motor sail in order to arrive when expected in Hemingway Harbor.


We got settled into our watch rotation,  our girl is a heavy boat, our new Raymarine rocked, we had installed the new SmartPilot and she was tracking beautifully even when the waves tried to skew us around.

So our forecast of 10-15 kt winds from the ESE and 2-4 foot seas wound up being 20 kts winds and 6 foot seas with some bigger waves once in a while.  And the wind clocked around so it was running straight against the current.  Confused seas all around.

The chatter started up with the other boats struggling to get reefed and we found out later that one of the boats' autopilot stopped responding over and over and they got spun 180 at one point.  (I guess the boat decided we are going back to Key West). One boat delayed departure, and one boat turned back and came in the next day.

I finally got my queasiness abated, I did have a crew member toss his cookies when he went down below, but he was fine after that.

It was a long night (damn Gulf Stream was more than 35 mi wide also).  Good practice in picking out ships lights.

Finally at daylight everything finally started calming down.  Perfect timing.

On approach to Hemingway Harbor, you are supposed to start hailing to let them know you are here.  None of the boats were getting a response.  It turned out that the marina had set up guide boats to bring us in to the customs dock.  They were doing that as we were leaving also, so maybe its a new practice.

We were 11th or 12th boat in since we decided we weren't going to be sailing purists and we wanted to get through the Gulf Stream as quickly as possible.

Later on in the afternoon, boats were lined up about 7-8 deep at the entrance marker to the channel.  Glad we beat the rush.

As always, there were things that could have been done better, and we will do better next time.

Couldn't get caught up on previous Cuba postings :-(

However the next ones will be much cooler because they'll be involving sailing!

YAY!

More about Cuba in general

Cuba is a very artistic country, a nice change from the US where it seems that sports is weighed a lot more heavily than the arts.

Not to be political, but I don't think the US viewpoint is going to improve with our current administration.  Somehow, I'm not seeing any poetry jams being held at the White House any time soon.  Not to mention live presentation of the Arts.  Nope, bowling and pizza parties coming up.

But I digress....

Music is prevalent in Cuba--classical, jazz (of course, jazz!), modern, Caribbean, you name it.  Walking down the streets of Havana you hear it pouring from every door of houses, paladares, bars and street performers performing on a assortment of handmade instruments.

Some of the best preserved buildings are the ones that have to do with the arts- we saw the
School of Dance (classical dance, modern dance), a film school and others.

Even the graffiti on buildings has a level of artistry to it, and we were fascinated when we came across a particularly unique piece.  They are just tagging a building, they are creating art.  Maybe they are encourage to help take away from the decay.  I'm not sure.

School of dance run by former ballerina

Wall art.

Political graffiti

Film studio.

 We were taken to what is referred to as the 'Free Market' in the former train depot.  I was hoping more for a locals artisan market (they are around), but the Free Market is basically several hundred booths all selling the same version of things made in China.  There were some artists there with paintings, but the rest was jewelry,  Panama hats, Che/Castro hats, Tshirts, etc.

And its a bartering set up--groovy.  I've never been one to dicker, Tim gave it a shot and we bought a few things to be nice.

View of the Free Market (former railway station)

The rest of the pictures were from the New Year's Eve celebration that the hotel held. Ballerina, salsa dancers, water ballet, drummers from a more modern pop band and old guy who walked into the pool to take pictures and then wondered later how his shoes and pants got wet.

Museum of the Revolution

....or otherwise titled. "Don't buy the Che Guevara/Fidel Castro hats thinking you are being 'ironic'".

As a Cold War kid and growing up with the stories of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was very interesting to visit 'the other side of the story' so to speak.

The Museum of the Revolution is located in the old presidential palace.  It was where the initial revolutionary government was located after overrunning Bautista.

And when you see the pictures: It is completely Gypsies in the Palace.

There was, of course, some artistic license with historical facts. But hey, their country, they can tell the story however they see fit.

In the back of the museum is a fenced and heavily guarded park (only accessible from the museum, but visible from the streets) where pieces of a shot down U2 spy plane (true), Soviet era tanks (this is the tanks that our Great Leader shot upon the USS Houston from), not to be confused with the tank out front which also was the tank that the Great Leader shot upon the USS Houston from.  (Fidel evidently hopped his rides alot).

And la piece de la resistance-no pun intended-Granma.  The boat that brought Castro and his cohorts back to Cuba from Mexico.

Granma is heavily guarded by military personnel.  I mean HEAVILY.  Tim tried to work his charms on one of the female MPs, but she wasn't having it.

I highly recommend going to the museum, all of the displays are in Spanish and English and it is interesting to see how Castro is portrayed vs how we have been raised to see him.

The first of the tanks that Castro used to shoot at the USS Houston.

Interior of the palace.

Many pictures of the Castros, Guevara, Cienfuegos taken from this table.

Presidential office.

Example of the displays

Interior courtyard of the palace.

 

Hall of mirrors (from former regimes) trying to replicate the hall of mirrors in Versailles.
Not in the best of shape now.

Che Guevara

Bautista, Reagan and the Bush boys. 
See-here's the punchline-we can do this about our presidents ourselves
in the US and not get executed.
Who's winning that round?

Bullet holes outside the Palace.

One of the vehicles used on the palace raid.  And yep, those are bullet holes again.

Memorial to the heros of the revolution.

Stern view of Granma.

Another view of Granma.  Big boat, hard to get good pics.

Havana

So, now that I'm off a) my high horse and b) no longer under the influence of copius amounts of cold medicine...lets get to the fun stuff.

First impressions of Havana. Wow.  Yes, much different than US and rest of Caribbean. A beautiful city that has become 'shabby chic' for lack of a better word.

One of the oldest cities of the New World you can see by its architecture the Spanish influence.

It appears that last time any major infrastructure work has been done (major roads/tunnels/etc) is when Americans where there.  Since then, the city has been fighting a losing battle in upkeep.
There was a brief stint with the Soviets, but after the Iron Curtain fell, Cuba got kicked to the curb by Russia.  

As I mentioned before, you have to be very aware of where you are walking.  There could be a waterline project started in the sidewalk in front of you and as our guide said: It could be finished in 2 months or 20 years, who knows?  In the meantime, there will be a gaping hole in the walkway with NO barricades and NO warning sides or covers.

Another thing I noticed, and not something that particularly bugs me, but no matter how nice the establishment, women's restrooms had NO toilet seats. I mentioned the attendants being there with toilet paper and to help (plumbing is a bit touchy, more so than the gazillion other Caribbean islands I've been to).  So, carrying toilet paper is a must, and if you are particular freaked out, have some hand sanitizer.  I never felt the bathrooms were nasty, just no toilet seats.

That being said, more money from China has been coming in and some older buildings are being converted to hotels.

I've explained more in the captions below.

Gutted out building that is being converted to hotel rooms.

Beautiful architecture.

The lower balcony is carved with dragons.  (A little bit hard to see)
You can see the decay on the buildings.

The cathedral of Havana--opened in 1777.
Building of the cathedral started in 1748.

Suburbs of Havana.  One of the many shells of former houses.

Sign about the 58th Anniversary of the Revolution.

Hullo, John.
There is a little old lady that is responsible for John's glasses (they kept getting stolen)
So when tourists comes up, she runs up to put his glasses on.  She was very cute.

By his feet in the concrete is a Spanish translation of a lyric from Imagine.

The United States Embassy.  Crap building but great view of the water.

Forest of flagpoles.  The story goes that even though we didn't have diplomatic staff in the Embassy, we still had the lease of the building.  So, Pres. George W. Bush had a ticker installed a ticker style electronic billboard with messages to the Cuban people.  Well, that pissed off the Castro regime so they installed the flagpoles (with flags at the time) to block people from seeing the ticker.  The ticker was removed during the Obama administration and when Obama visited the island it was viewed nationwide in Cuba.

The capitol building.

The government complex.  This was shut down while we were there because they were getting
ready for the Anniversary celebrations.

The famous Hotel Nacional.  Lots of history there including the 'mobster era'.

Whassup, Vlad!
In the bar at the Hotel Nacional.
Not something you'd find in the USA. ;-)

Our taxi for our tour of Havana.

Hey, 92 miles THAT way is my BOAT!

One of the more run down buildings. I think its literally being held together by the plantings.
Even though some buildings are labeled condemned, people still live in them.
We were told that after a heavy rainstorm, sometimes the buildings will collapse because of the deterioration, oftentimes killing the squatters living there. Sad.

Walking down the Paseo del Prado.
Local artists set up on the sides and there are paladares to grab a bite to eat.