7 September With Glenn Fuller, Troy Ducharme, Bert Gartenhaus, Captain Jim Cunningham and me (Ed Wagner) on board, departed home dock in Lighthouse Point, FL at 0800 hrs, passed through Hillsboro Blvd. bridge at 0815 and took up our heading from the outer channel marker for Ft. Lauderdale's and Miami's outer channel markers. Seas were at first choppy, but south of Ft. Lauderdale they changed to low rollers. Large and heavy cumulus clouds on all horizons. Arrived Miami outer marker at 0945 hrs. From there we went outside the reefs, in the ocean, in nearly calm water. Arrived Sombrero Key tower marker at 1410 hrs and decided to change the day's destination from Vaca Key (Marathon) to Key West.
We arrived at the fuel dock at Conch Harbor marina in Key West at precisely 1625 hrs – 8 hours and 10 minutes since Hillsboro Blvd. bridge. No one knew or had ever been aboard a boat to reach Key West from home in so short a time – 197 NM. Refueled – 604 gls at $1.54 per gal., discounted from $1.71/gal. because of quantity. Dockage was $2/ft/day plus electric and water.
After a drink on board, we walked to dinner ashore, to AB Lobster House with drinks and wine – everyone said they had very good food. Bert and I went to our bunks soon after 2100 hrs while Glenn, Troy and Jim went bar hopping until midnight. The next morning Glenn, looking a bit worn or worse, confessed to being "inebriated" and almost asleep at the bar and in the returning taxi.
8 September At Key West all day. During the night the only remaining section of the builder-installed hose on the pressure side of the fresh water pump split and spilled almost 400 gallons of water into the bilge. Captain Jim quickly replaced the damaged section with reinforced hose material. Troy prepared breakfast of fried ham and eggs while making the second 10 cup pot of coffee. Bert debated with himself about whether to eat his no fat bran cereal or to have ham and eggs – the latter soon won out. His thinly disguised rationale was to use the uncooked eggs on board rather than have Cuban officials confiscate them, as he said he had read they sometimes do. (Any excuse will do!) Later in the morning Troy, in anecdotal British fashion, hard boiled all the remaining eggs for subsequent breakfasts.
9 September This morning we departed for Cuba. Everyone was on deck by 0630 hrs, greeted by "Como esta usted?" and discussing who would talk to Cuban officials on our entry, who would wash breakfast dishes, Glenn admonishing all to conserve water, Bert writing the Spanish phonetics for "Gambier," and Jim reporting all in the engine room was in good order. Everyone's passports were collected and put in the folder with all the multiple copies of forms and documents for Cuban officials.
We departed Conch Harbor marina in Key West at 0731 hrs, partly cloudy skies and no wind. Forecast for waters in Florida Straits -- possible showers, 5-10 knot winds with 1-3 feet seas. Speed was 20.5+/- knots on a heading of 209 degrees – slightly against the Gulf Stream current – to our first waypoint 15 NM off the Cuban coast. The seas were indeed calm, with only a gentle, very low swell all the way across the Straits. A beautiful day to be on the water. In the Straits we saw several east and west bound smoke belching freighters, one east bound tug towing four barges and two pleasure craft on about our heading, one ahead and the other behind us. Localized showers were visible and showing on radar on all horizons, but none near us.
At 1121 hrs, 18 NM off Cuban coast, we saw higher Havana buildings about 15 degrees off our port bow and soon after a mountain range east of Havana. When we were within 15 NM of Cuban coast, as the higher buildings on the Havana skyline came into view, we began calling Guarda Frontera and Marina Hemingway – "Este es el yate Gambier. Estoy navegando a motor. Hay cinco personas a bordo. Escucho en el canal diez y seis" -- repeatedly on VHF channels 16, 15 and 72, but there was no response from either for a long time. (I had read in several Cuba cruising guides and heard from people who had gone by boat to Cuba not to expect a response by radio.) We finally got a radio response from Marina Hemingway, about four miles out, giving us instructions on passing through the channel and answering questions about number of persons on board Gambier, the boat's length, last port of call and whether we are participating in the weekend fishing tournament.
We arrived at the outer channel marker for Marina Hemingway at 1232 hrs and proceeded into the very well marked channel to the Immigration building and tied off the wall at 1240 hrs. We waited only a few minutes before for the parade of Cuban officials started to come with their questions and forms. The first officials to come on board were from Ministry of Interior, who filled out several forms and took our passports to give to Immigration. The second were two officials from Agriculture, who, after filling out forms, inspected the freezers, refrigerator and dry stores. Third came Customs, who insisted such gifts were not allowed and that we give all of the clothing to the Cuban government. The clothes were offloaded and taken into the Custom's office. Last was the Guarda Frontera, who did nothing but hand me a document of welcome to Cuba and tell us where our dock is located. The entire clearance process was pleasant enough – each official came aboard, smiling and immediately introduced himself or herself (Immigration), sat on the sofa in the saloon, was offered a Coke and proceeded to fill out forms. The clearance and check in process ended at 1425 hrs. We untied and proceeded to dock 130 in the northern most of the four canals. Dock 130 was occupied. We spotted a man on the dock, waving to us to proceed up the canal channel, where he then signaled us to stop and to tie up. A number of boats already docked were from the U.S. Oops – one more visit to the boat, by marina officials, who filled out a contract for dockage. A total of $85.00 was paid for visas for the five people on board ($15 each) and included $10.00 charge for the boat. Shore power worked!! Then another visitor, a marina public relations lady, who repeated what we had earlier been told.
Later, after the distractions of dealing with all Cuban officials, it occurred to me that no questions were asked about liquor or cigarettes on board.
Total distance traveled to date – 311 NM. Distance from the dock in Key West to Marina Hemingway was approximately 114 NM or 108 NM from the outer Key West channel marker.
On the edge of the marina, to our northeast, immediately on the shoreline, was a five level hotel with a sat TV antenna on the roof and a concrete seawall. To our south, in the marina, across another canal, were two long, three and four story apartment or condo building, the likes of which you see in the U.S. Both buildings had fire walls between rooms or units, and screened balconies with plastic chairs and tables. From a distance both buildings seemed to be in good repair.
Glenn, Troy and Bert walked inside the marina grounds and discovered a small supermarket, liquor store, and various small shops nearby our dock. We decided to take dinner on board tonight and to begin our touring tomorrow, renting a driver, translator-tour guide and a mini van for the day, from 1000 to 1600 hrs for a fee of $110.00. Even though a Sunday, everything in Havana is reportedly open.
10 September A couple of late risers this morning – Troy, Glenn and Jim hired a private taxi and went into Havana about 2100 hrs last night to visit a couple of bars and returned around midnight, after walking past several hookers at the marina entrance.
We left the boat and drove by van with driver and translator-guide into Havana at 1015 hrs. Soon after leaving the marina we were on 5th Avenue, a divided and very well landscaped street, past modest and palatial homes, some of the latter were embassies. In Havana I was first and perhaps most impressed by all the construction that was underway, some new and other work was restoration. We visited the National Hotel, a magnificent and very well maintained old building with white coated bellhops and black vested waiters and waitresses. This hotel commemorated its 1920's and 1930's celebrity visitors, including movie stars and political figures, with wall sized posters with their collage pictures and names. Across the street and nearby, as we often saw when viewing government and other grand buildings, multi-story tenement buildings with the day's laundry hanging on balconies to dry.
After walking through a largely restored area of old Spanish style buildings in old Havana, we stopped for lunch in a very pleasant and air conditioned restaurant and were served good meals. The furniture in the restaurant was old Spanish, large pieces, heavily carved and dark.
Throughout our walking tour, on many street corners stood police, looking bored and tired. Museums seemed to be everywhere. Art galleries were frequent – very poor quality art. People were walking the streets and lounging in the hot shade in a number of parks and squares, hundreds waiting for buses -- thousands of them in the city, many with young children. At one point we saw men filling plastic buckets with water from a hose emerging from the side of an old building in a narrow side street and young boys on homemade scooters, crudely built of wood scraps. The streets were clean – no trash or paper scraps. We could not see inside the old apartments – they were on the second story and above -- but they had to be sweltering, dark, dank and crowded.
Old cars were everywhere: late 1950 models of Chevies, DeSotos, Buicks, Oldsmobiles and others, almost all with fresh paint and good upholstered interiors. And none of the old cars I saw was belching smoke. New taxis were commonplace – Volvos, Mercedes, some odd and old looking Russian cars, and others I did not recognize. Old Spanish style gray and dirty stone cathedrals and churches were invariably in poor states of repair, their exterior niches devoid of any statues and only stark and rusty crosses on tops of spires or arches. None of the many restored buildings was painted the badly peeling, some almost barren, bright greenish blues, yellows and garish tones of pink of the old residential ones, but subdued tones of brown (mauve?) and light tans, all very tasteful. One could comfortably speculate that many of the newer residential buildings, almost all with peeling paint, were of Russian design and built – sterile in every way. Outside the old section of the city, surrounding the unimpressive cold stone Plaza of the Revolution with a nondescript large statue were large government buildings for the Army, Communications, Intelligence and a very large building for other government ministries and agencies. We saw many Cuban flags, but few political propaganda signs and only one with Fidel's name on it. The five hours we spent on the tour produced a visual overload.
For dinner we drove in the same van and with the same driver and translator-guide into and to the east of Havana to a private home. We ate in a pleasantly decorated courtyard. The meals were quite good – huge lobster tails, lobster enchalada and jerked pork . After dinner we drove a short distance to the nearby lighthouse that overlooks all of Havana bay. The night lights along the waterfront and in the city were less than spectacular, but interesting, nothing to compare to Miami. On the return trip, in the old section of Havana, we saw hundreds of people, almost all young couples, sitting on the famed and often photographed Havana sea wall. Also noted -- almost all interior lights in offices, apartments and houses were ceiling mounted fluorescents, giving off a harsh blue-green light. Glenn and Troy made another visit to a marina cantina after we returned to Gambier.
11 September Another partly cloudy morning with very light wind and calm seas to our north (we are docked in the northernmost canal, only a hundred yards or so from the sea). After breakfast we again climbed into the same van with the same translator-guide and started out at 0935 hrs to see the countryside, an Indian cave, a rum and cigar factory. We had seen no sea gulls or pelicans anywhere – in the marina or in Havana's waterfront.
We drove west on a divided two lane highway once we left the city – for more than two hours before we stopped to have coffee at a family owned roadside rest stop. Farms and royal palm trees – everywhere royal palm trees scattered among the fields, valleys and small forest areas. Poverty – the countryside was almost universally deep, very deep, poverty. With but very exceptions, houses – really small huts, about twelve or so feet wide and maybe fifteen feet deep, almost all wood and most unpainted, by far, most without electric power – were everywhere, near the roads in small clusters and solitary and deep into the fields and mountains – the same "houses" as on impoverished Rum Cay in the Bahamas. Fidel's revolution has apparently done nothing for the peasant farmers – they seem to be living as their ancestors in the early 1900's or even earlier. Oxen were seen pulling plows and cultivators in the fields and in rice paddies.
We came into a mountainous region, first to the north, about two hours west of Havana, sheer sided rock and sometimes separate mountains, also sheer sided, that were magnificently beautiful, about ten miles inland. Once into the mountain range, we could see for many miles to the horizon as we made hairpin turns, across lush green fields with red soil and wooded areas. All the soil was red, much deeper than I recall seeing in the clay country in Georgia. We saw citrus and banana farms just west of Havana and then farms whose crops were Cuban vegetables or pastures with cattle of different breeds.
We stopped for a tasty lunch about 1240 hrs near the stalagmite filled and multi-colored, deep stone Indian cave, which we walked and stooped through, exiting in a small boat in a brown "river" that ran through a part of the cave and then soon into the open. On the way to and from lunch and the cave we passed through a small town – poor, crowded with ill maintained houses. Here, as elsewhere along the highways and roads, tens and maybe even hundreds of people, some with small children, stood along the sides of the roadway, waiting for someone to stop to give them a ride. Their transportation was almost always open bed trucks, jammed with adults and children and others in small, enclosed truck beds or "buses" that were long two level "cabs" towed by a tractor. Commonly seen were all manner of broken down motorized vehicles – trucks, cars, buses, motor cycles –hoods open or jacked up with men working on them. And the smoky exhausts – thick black smoke – was universally seen (and smelled). And people walking in the hot sun, sometimes carrying very small children or large sacks of things, often far distant from any houses or anything else that was visible from the highways or roads. And bicycles and horse drawn, two wheeled wagons, and some men on horseback with only a blanket under the riders – riding small and skinny horses. I was continually impressed by the utter failure of Fidel's "revolution" to reach in any way the farmers and their families and the contrast between the rural populations and the relative wealth we saw yesterday expressed in the many large houses on our way into Havana. We returned to Gambier at 1730 hrs.
Dinner on board. We decided to leave Cuba tomorrow morning – we agreed we had seen enough of Havana and the countryside (until the next visit).
12 September We left the dock at 0630 hrs, cleared Cuban Customs at 0730 hrs, exited the marked channel to the outer marker then and took up our heading of 27 degrees for a distance of 94.74 NM to the outer Key West channel marker. The starboard prop blades were obviously bent, causing a bad vibration. When docking in Marina Hemingway one of the Cubans on the dock had secured a spring line and another told Jim to move forward, causing the stern to kick into the seawall and the prop onto a ledge. There was a terrible grinding sound. Jim will call the marina in Key West, once in cellular range, to have a diver standing by for our arrival to change the prop.
The seas at first were calm, but about 30 miles out, with an easterly wind against the Gulf Stream, the seas built to about 3-4 feet or more on our starboard beam and then decreased as we approached Key West. Our speed, with the help of the Stream, was 22 knots at 1960 rpm. We slowed later to reduce the vibration to about 18-20 knots. We entered Key West Channel at 1205 hrs and arrived Conch Harbor marina fuel dock at 1235 hrs. Trip distance so far was 427 NM. Fuel taken aboard -- 319 gals. While refueling I called Immigration and Customs to clear into the U.S. We were told to remain on board until Immigration and Agriculture officials came to the boat and quickly concluded their questions and paperwork. We were told we had to go to Customs to deal with that agency. We moved to our dock at 1315 hrs and then walked to U.S. Customs in the hot sun, did our business by filling out a form, having copies made of passports and boat's documentation, and then returned to Gambier at 1405 hrs.
Notwithstanding numerous admonitions to the contrary, I had had my passport deliberately stamped by a Cuban Immigration official on entry and again on departure, saying I wanted a souvenir and thinking that U.S. Customs and Immigration would be told on our return we had been in Cuba, and then, so what? Stamp or no stamp, they would know. I was waiting for something to be said or asked, but nothing was said or commented on by any U.S. official who looked at or stamped my passport in return to U.S. So much for asking Cuban officials not to stamp one's U.S. passport.
The starboard prop was changed in late afternoon. The one that was removed was badly bent on its five outer edges. Dinner on board.
13 September We had a light and short rain in early morning , before sun rise, but no wind – flags in and near the marina were hanging limp. Bert had his twigs and nuts for breakfast while Glenn had a toasted cottage cheese sandwich. Today our destination is home. Departed Key West at 0705 hrs, not quite sunrise yet. The new starboard prop made for a smooth ride. Seas had a light chop as we left Key West channel and took up our E and NE headings. We went outside the reef line at Sombrero Key light at 0910 hrs where the seas at first were near calm and soon became flat and glassy. SOG varied between 22 and 23.7 knots. We entered the Hillsboro Inlet channel at 1443 and made the 1445 hrs bridge. Total time from Key West was 7 hours and 40 minutes. Today's distance was 195 NM. Total trip distance was 622 NM.
Wow, what a trip!!
Ed Wagner, September 19, 2000