Holguin

Posted by Scot and Sara.  Written Jan. 8, 2014.

I’m not sure how to even begin describing Cuba.  It is full of contradictions and contrasts.  It is remarkably poor, but in spite of that the people are friendly, vibrant, and appear happy.  The countryside is lush, green, tropical, and beautiful, while the cities we have seen are run down and decaying.  Despite that, they are anything but grim.  They are filled with active, busy, well educated people who seem fulfilled just going about their everyday lives.

And there are not just people.  Animals are everywhere.   In the morning, you are awakened to the sound of  roosters crowing, even in the heart of the city.  There are skinny puppies playing in the ditch, goats, cows and horses grazing wherever there is a patch of grass and pigs squealing as they are carried down the city streets, eventually bound for someone’s dinner table.

The transportation is a story unto itself.  Taxis are largely 1950’s American automobiles, which are lovingly cared for.  Anything more recent is a foreign import, with cars like Hyundais, Ladas and Peugeots being frequent.  There are almost no truly modern cars.  Every vehicle is well used, and well taken care of.  Most Cubans, though, can’t begin to afford a car, and consequently the roads are filled with bicycles, horse drawn carriages, motorcycles (many with sidecars), pedestrians, and bici-taxis.  The carriages are drawn by ribby horses who trot along with their heads held high.  And when they aren’t pulling a cart, they are tethered at the side of the road, eating the grass down to the dirt.  After the sleepy villages of the Bahamas, the sheer volume of people out on the roads and the streets in the heat of the day is astonishing.

Most of the traffic on the highways is non-motorized.  Cars and buses are relatively infrequent.

The ubiquitous bici-taxi in Holguin.  These guys usually stopped their calls to us when they realized there was five of us.

Horse drawn carriage from our casa particular.

El Centro in Holguin.

This car would be cool in any country.

We left the Marina Gaviota in Peurta de Vita a couple of days ago to see some of Cuba by land.  We were frustrated by our attempts to rent a car at one of the nearby all-inclusive resorts.  It seems that right now is high tourist season and cars (like many things on the island) are hard to come by.  As it turns out, over most distances of less than a few hours, it is probably cheaper just to hire a taxi and be driven where ever you want to go.

So that is what we did.  Yoel picked us up at the marina in his red 1955 Chevrolet.  We all piled in, Katie and Scot in the front and Alexander, Christopher and I in the back.  In 1955, apparently seatbelts were not an option, and seatbelt laws haven’t made their way to Cuba, so we just hung on tight.  We drove the 45 minutes into Holguin through the beautiful Cuban countryside.

Yoel dropped us off at our casa particular, which is a private house that rents rooms (like a B&B.)  Since Raul Castro took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, more private business, like Yoel’s taxi, or these casa particulars, have been allowed, allowing an improved standard of living for those that can afford to set up shop.  The casa particular we stayed at in Holguin was right on the main thoroughfare, which was a noisy and busy place, just a few blocks from the central square, known commonly as El Centro in Cuban cities.  It was a bit of a shock for the kids to see where we were going to spend the night, and probably a bit for Sara and I too.  But it was an amazing taste of a real Cuban household.

Our casa particular in Holguin.  We had two rooms - one right at the top of the spiral staircase, and one out the back.

The view from the room at the top.

There was a little sitting area outside the upstairs room.

After we dropped our bags off, we set out to explore Holguin.  It didn’t take long for the local touts (called jinteros in Cuba) to suss us out, and before long we had several offers for people to show us around, sell us cigars, toys, flowers, snacks, or anything else they could supply that we might want.  We did take one enterprising fellow up on his offer to help us find a bank, which we had unknowingly walked past earlier.  It took us a bit to get used to the fact that you have to stand in line for pretty much any service you might want in Holguin.  After changing some money, we set out to explore the rest of the town on foot, getting better at saying “No gracias” to everyone who either wanted to sell us something, or was just outright asking us for money.

"Battalando Siempre" with Fidel.

There is a lot of public art in Cuba.  We think this mural shows some of the history of Holguin.

Spot the tourist.  Bet you got it in one guess.

Revolution era playground.  Pretty rare in Cuba.

We climbed La Loma de la Cruz, the hill with 432 steps that towers over Holguin, so we could look back and enjoy the view.  At the top of the climb, we indulged in a rare touristy purchase, buying Katie a small painting on display by the talented artist that had taken his wares to the top.

Walking to La Loma de la Cruz.  Note the jintero in the red t-shirt to our left, who is about to move in for the kill.  He was joined by about 10 colleagues at the bottom of La Loma.

All of Holguin spread out below us. 

Coming back down into Holguin, we stopped for ice cream and bought a phone card after waiting in line  on the street to enter the Etecsa Telepunto (they only let so many people inside the store at one time.)  After many tries and some frustration, we finally figured out how to work the phone card and then called to reserve accommodation for the next night in the seaside town of Gibara.  We had hoped to stay in the Lonely Planet recommended boutique hotel but there was no answer on their phone, so we booked another casa particular.  This one was also a recommendation from the Lonely Planet book so we were hoping for something of a bit higher standard than our place in Holguin.  

For those under 20, that things Sara is using is called a payphone.  Her Spanish has held up well since her year in Mexico, and it was a huge benefit in Cuba.

That night, we had dinner in our casa particular.  It was a wonderful home cooked meal with carrot soup to start, a main of fried chicken, grilled fish and shrimp accompanied by rice, salad and fruit.  Delicious and healthy.

Home cooked meal in the casa particular.

The night was a bit rough with lumpy beds – just imagine a 40 year old pull-out couch – but only Scot and Alexander and I noticed.  Maybe Katie and Christopher are too light for it to be an issue.  The breakfast was delicious –  fresh squeezed pineapple juice, hot coffee with warm milk, plates of fruit, toast & butter, ham, cheese and fried eggs.

At 10am our taxi (another 1950s vintage American car) picked us up to take us the 45 minutes to Gibara.  Once again we all piled in with no seat belts.  When we arrived in Gibara we dropped our bags at our new casa particular before going to check out the sleepy sea side town.  The people who had stayed in the casa the night before had gone to the beach for the morning and were supposed to return in the early afternoon so our rooms wouldn’t be ready until later in the day.

Taxi to Gibara.  This one was decked out with false wood panelling on all the floors.

Welcome to Cuba

Posted by Alexander.  Written Jan. 6, 2014.

Today was our second day in Cuba. And the first we saw much of it. You see we have this awesome plan of renting a car and going on a road trip to see some of Cuba. Of course to do that we needed to rent a car so we hired a cab to check out the rental places. The taxi that pulled up was a red Chevrolet that could have been driven out of the sixties. (Back to the future anyone?)  (Dad’s note; Actually, it was a 1955 Chevrolet, with a Hyundai engine in it.  We saw lots of classic cars all day.)

The Cubans have a thing for old cars.  I think that thing is called "necessity."

Yoel and the family in front of his 1955 Chev.

The driver was a Cuban who’s name we later learned was Yoel. I’m pretty sure the only English that he knew was the word “Yeah” but that’s ok. The reason why is because I have an awesome mom who used to be fluent in Spanish and hadn’t forgotten all that much. She was basically our translator for the whole trip. I tried my best to talk to throwing in the occasional “gracias” or “hola” when necessary. Dora has nothing on me. As we drove through the lovely countryside we passed countless horses, cows and goats.

Our first stop was an all-inclusive hotel, where we changed some Canadian dollars into Cuban convertible pesos ($1.11 Canadian bought $1.00 CUC). In the lobby of the hotel was a big white board signed by Fidel Castro, who had visited the hotel in the past.

The lobby of one of the all-inclusive hotels near Peurto de Vita.  Fidel was here at the opening.  Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us go in, since we weren't guests.

After that, Yoel took us to a local village called Melila.  We had been asking him about where he lived and what local schools were like, so he showed us around a bit.  Then, he took us on a dirt road to a local house.  We didn’t even ask to go there but it was WORTH IT! A lady greeted us there and we ended up going into her backyard. Of course she only spoke Spanish but we realized Yoel had taken us to a sort of local zoo. This lady had tons of animals in her backyard, most of them in cages.

There were dogs, (not in cages), hamsters, turtles, guinea pigs, (we got to hold them, awwww) a falcon, some turkeys, pigs that kinda stunk, barn owls, some pigeons, parakeets and a ton of other stuff. They even had a crocodile back there! They also had a big rodent thing in a cage which was cute in itself. We learned that it was native only to Cuba and that was cool. The best part was it had three babies that were climbing freely in the trees. Adorable right? They had a ton of plants too and we saw that they grew their own bananas with which to feed most of the animals. We got to try some and they tasted good.

A hutia, endemic to Cuba.

Falcon.

Pigs.  Smelly but cute.  In Cuba, usually these guys end up on someone's dinner table.

Barn owls.

Another raptor.

A crocodile, and his pal the turtle.

This parrot spoke a little Spanish.

We left the lady with a five CUC note and drove off with awesome memories. After that we got lunch. Yoel ate with us. That’s when we learned his name. They had fresh tasty banana chips that I devoured. After that Yoel kept grabbing more and laughing as he offered them to me. I had plenty but tried to explain I didn’t need more. He got it after the second plate. Mom and Dad learned a lot from asking him questions. We learned that Fidel Castro hadn’t supported private business like the restaurant we were eating at (called a paladar in Cuba). Raul Castro had allowed private business to thrive though which was good.

After lunch we went around and saw a ton of car rental places but none of them had any  cars for Tuesday!  When we finally finished running around we said goodbye to Yoel and went back to the boat. I asked if we would still go on the trip but Mom and Dad have a plan.

Entering Cuba

Posted by Scot.  Written Jan. 6, 2014.

Motoring in to the Marina Gaviota at Peurto de Vita on the north coast of Cuba was a huge relief after our night crossing from the Bahamas.  The long entrance channel was well marked, and mostly easy to follow.  The land around was all green fields and rolling hills.  Even though it sounds kind of corny, the best word I can think of to describe it is “pastoral”.

The green hills of Cuba.

As we motored up to the marina, there was a man waiting patiently on the dock to help us in, even though it was still before 7:30 a.m.  We had read that we might have to dock “stern-to”, which we have never done before.  Sure enough, as we approached the dock we could see a line of mooring balls sitting about 70 feet out.  The other boats in the marina were docked with a bow line tied to the mooring balls, and their back ends pulled up to the dock.  True to form, it turns out we are the only cruising boat in the marina.  The other boats are all used by local charter companies to take guests from the nearby all-inclusive hotels out on fishing excursions or sunset catamaran cruises.

Marina employees getting one of the charter cats ready to take out some tourists from a nearby all-inclusive resort.

This fleet of two person 1960's era runabouts was taken out daily by guests from the nearby resorts.

It took a bit of doing to organize tying on to the mooring ball, and figuring out the appropriate length of line to let us back up to the dock.  The kids were still asleep, so Sara ended up running back and forth figuring out the lines while I held the boat steady and backed us in slowly.  Eventually we had a line tied on to both the back and the front.  It wasn’t pretty, but we made it work, and the marina staffer waited patiently for us to be close enough to toss him a stern line.

Monashee, successfully docked stern-to.  Eventually, we had to take the dinghy off when the tide fell, to keep it from bumping on the dock.

We had read and heard a lot about the entry procedure into Cuba.  We were prepared for a long morning of officials visiting our boat, and possible inspections and boat searches of all our belongings.  After a long night passage with little sleep, pretty much the last way you want to spend your day is with government officials filling out forms, but we were determined to do what needed to be done, and respect the Cuban rules with a smile on our faces.

As soon as we tied our stern on, there was a young official waiting at the back of the boat, asking for our passports (in pretty good English).  We handed them to him, and he disappeared up the dock with them.  As I went about the business of sorting out the rest of our lines, and tying a second line to the mooring ball, a doctor came on board and started asking Sara questions about our health.  We filled out forms indicating none of us were sick or carrying any communicable diseases, and signed them, then he was off.

Shortly after that, the first official, who turned out to be the harbour master, came back with our passports and paperwork for our immigration and visas.  He came back on board, and gave us forms to fill out for customs, declaring everything we were bringing into the country, including cash, electronics, weapons etc.  While we were working on his forms, another young official came on board and asked to look in our fridge.  Sara showed him the contents of both our fridge and freezer.  He didn’t confiscate anything, but told us we needed to consume our food on board, and couldn’t take anything ashore.

Once the harbour master was done with our paperwork, he told us he needed to inspect the boat.  I had read about drug sniffing dogs coming on to other boats, and I asked him if he would be bringing any aboard.  He told me he did have dogs, but assured me that they would not be necessary for our boat.  The inspection took about 2 minutes, and consisted of him stepping down into our port hull, and looking to the left and right.

The line hanging down in the middle of the picture was rigged to allow us to swing back and forth onto the dock.  We also stepped on the crossed stern lines to get ashore.  Not the easiest arrangement, but it worked.

After all the paperwork was done, we went up to the marina office and met the extremely pleasant young woman who runs the place.  Her English was very good, and she seemed to have nothing but time to spend with us to get us all sorted out and checked in.  All the fees for not only the marina, but immigration and visas were to be paid to her.  She printed up our marina contract on her dot matrix printer in her office.  She was very helpful in terms of answering our questions about Cuba, and seemed to relish the role of acting as a sort of travel agent for us, assuring us she could help us arrange taxis, get our laundry done, arrange local accommodation for land travel, etc. 

While we were in her office, the customs official came by, and asked us a few questions about what we had on the boat.  He was mostly interested in our electronics, asking about VHF, cameras, satellite phone, computers and cell phones.  He told us, very politely, that we would not be allowed to bring our sat phone, handheld GPS or VHF radios ashore, but all our other electronics were OK.  He also told us that if we were travelling on land, it was OK to take a small bag or suitcase to travel with, but any big items would have to be checked out by customs.

Later that morning, the last official came by our boat.  It was a man from the agriculture office.  He didn’t even come aboard.  He just gave me a form to sign that declared that we wouldn’t be bringing agricultural materials into Cuba.  It is written in pretty funny Spanglish, but the intent is more or less clear.  I signed it, he gave me a copy, and that was it.

In all, the whole process was extremely pleasant and efficient.  Everyone was polite and professional, and given that they came to the boat instead of making us track them down at their offices, things were easy for us.  In fact, relative to checking in to the Bahamas, it was far more comfortable, and less officious.  To top it all off, the total cost was $66.00 USD for all the entry fees, including customs fees and cruising permit.  We needed to pay that at the time of entry, and since they would only accept USD or CUC (Cuban convertible pesos), we paid in USD, since we hadn’t had a chance to change money yet.

The calm waters of Marina Gaviota in Puerto de Vita.

The next day (Sunday), after we took a taxi to a hotel and changed money, we also paid $15.00 CUC per person for travel Visas.  In recognition of their contribution to the tourist economy of Cuba, Canadians get 90 days automatically, compared to the 30 days for all other nationalities.  The marina fee for docking the boat is $29.25 CUC per night, which includes potable fresh water and electricity.

When you compare that to the $300.00 it cost to get in to the Bahamas, and the average $75.00 to $150.00 USD per night for marinas we saw there (usually paying extra for water or electricity), Cuba is looking like a pretty good deal for cruisers!

The Night’s Watch

Posted by Christopher.  Written Jan. 5, 2014.

As the sun goes down, the anchor goes up.

We were about to leave the Duncan town bay. That was probably the last time we’d see other boats around, considering we were going to Cuba. It was just before dark, so we would arrive in the morning at Puerto de Vita in Cuba. We had just lifted anchor and were taking off, when we heard my mom’s shrill cry, sounding from the back of the boat. We were instantly horrified with the pictures in our head of the worst things possible that could go wrong, but as we reached the back we realized it was just the life preserver gone overboard. We made a spin around it, and easily swept it out of the darkening water, but I could only hope that that was not an omen of things to go wrong.

The night remained uneventful, besides the orange, horseshoe life preserver mishap, but as the hour changed from seven to eight PM I realized that it was my and Alexander’s watch. So we strode up to the pilot’s seat sat down in synch and began the lookout. We remained up there for two hours, constantly checking to make sure that we hadn’t approached any specks of light in the moonless night, but we continued to be ok.  At the start of the watch, I was nervous, knowing what the consequences would be if one of us were to fall off the boat.  But by the end, I was bored by the constant checking of dials and lack of things to do.

Eventually (after several chocolate bars) it was ten o’clock and it was time to get Dad from his rest. Dad suggested that we play some video games, so that something was happening near him to keep him awake. Although, not after five minutes of gaming, I began to feel motion sick. So I took a Gravol and tried to get some sleep. In the rocking it was difficult, but I eventually managed to close my eyes.

When I woke up in the morning, I drowsily gained focus, and realized that I was in Cuba.

Cuban cows at the entrance channel to Puerto de Vita

Night crossing to Cuba

 Posted by Scot.  Written Jan. 5, 2014.

Sailing in the dark.

We timed our night passage to Cuba to coincide with the only real calm weather we had seen in a couple of weeks.  The forecast was for light winds out of the north, which would be perfect for pushing us along as we started out.  The winds were then to swing around to the east, but remain light, which would bring us in to Cuba on a nice reach.

We had read that the check-in process to Cuba could take quite a while, so we wanted to arrive in the morning.  We figured, based on our usual speeds, that the crossing would take somewhere between 13 and 15 hours.  So, the plan was to raise our anchor at 6:30 p.m., before it was totally dark, and we could see what we were doing.  Then, we would have a nice, leisurely night, and arrive in Cuba when it was light enough to find our way into the marina.

The plan worked perfectly.  For about the first 5 minutes.  Just as the last of the day’s light was fading, we pulled up our anchor in the calm of Hog Cay (the one near Duncantown, not the one near Hog Cay Cut – try and keep it straight).  As we motored into the gathering dark, Sara let out a shriek on the back of the boat.  Instantly we all thought someone had somehow fallen off.  Fortunately, it was just our horseshoe bouy life preserver that had somehow tumbled off of it’s bracket into the dark and shallow water.  We swung around and grabbed it with the boathook, then headed out once more.  As I steered the boat out into deeper water, Christopher brightly said “I sure hope that isn’t an omen of things to come!”  (Because I wasn’t stressed enough already.)

The next few hours went as planned.  We navigated through the shoals and coral heads off the southern point of Ragged Island, heading into the 8,000 foot depths of the Old Bahama channel.  The wind was light, and from behind as predicted, so we let our engines give our sails some help to keep us moving.  Once we were in deeper water, Sara and Katie went to get some sleep.  The boys took a watch from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m., as I relaxed in the salon, a few feet away.  There was just a sliver of a moon, and the night was pitch black.  The sky was filled with so many stars that there seemed to be more of them than there were spaces in between.

A very dark night.

At 10:00, I took over, and the boys went to bed.  The wind had picked up, again as predicted.  Pretty soon, we were making 7 knots of speed.  At that rate, we would arrive in Cuba earlier than predicted.  I gladly shut down the engines and sailed along in the peace.  Our speed dropped to between 5 and 6 knots, which was closer to what we had planned.

It is hard to stay awake on a gently rolling sailboat, with only the warm tropical breeze to perk you up.  I put on some headphones, and CBC podcasts kept me company as we sailed through the night.  Every 15 minutes, I scanned the entire horizon, checking for freighters or cruise ships, which apparently are common in the Old Bahama Channel.  In keeping with the rest of our trip to this point, we were the only boat out there.  There was not another thing to see by eye, by radar, or by AIS.

At 2:00 a.m., Sara woke up to take over, and I gladly reclined on the salon sofa.  The wind had continued to pick up throughout my watch, and the waves had risen as well, so at first it was hard to fall asleep.  It didn’t take long for fatigue to take over, though, and I was soon out of it, as the rocking of the boat increased.
Sara woke me up once to check out some lights on the horizon.  It soon became clear that we were seeing the only other ship we would see all night.  The AIS revealed it was a 150 foot yacht making it’s way east in the Old Bahama Channel, but it would pass no closer than 1.5 miles, so we were not concerned.  Sara did point out that our speed had risen again to well over 6 knots as the wind picked up into the 20s.  We still had quite a way to go, though, so we figured if we got there too soon, we would slow down closer to Cuba.
Just after 4:00, Sara woke me again.  Our speed had picked up to between 7 to 8 knots as the wind continued to climb.  We were now only about 9 nautical miles from the Cuban coast, and at this speed we would be there well before daylight.

We furled the jib, and continued on with the mainsail alone, but were still making between 6 and 7 knots, in rising winds and seas.  It was too dark, and too rough to safely have one of us go on the foredeck and pull the mainsail down, so we decided to turn into the wind, and lengthen our course to Puerto de Vita.  This unfortunately meant turning into the waves, too, and the ride roughened considerably.  There was no way I was going back to sleep, so I sat up to keep Sara company.

As we sailed on into the night, we started to feel a few drops of rain.  Moments later, the wind climbed to 40 knots, and rain was sheeting down all around us.  The boat took off, as we adjusted the main to try and spill some wind.  A few minutes later, the squall was gone.  By the time we thought to check the radar, we could see the storm disappearing behind us, as we continued to speed towards the Cuban coast.  We could now see the lights of settlements lined up ahead of us.

By about 5:30, we were within a nautical mile of the coast.  Since we weren’t sure how accurate our charts were, we turned around and headed back out to sea, trying to use up some more time before daylight.  Finally, just after 6:30, we turned back in, and headed for Puerto de Vita.  As the sun came up, we amused ourselves by tossing the last of our eggs overboard, since we had read that we wouldn’t be able to bring them into Cuba.  One slight misfire created a bit of a mess, as an egg smashed into the bottom of our bimini.  Oops.  (Sara wasn’t too impressed with my aim.)

Anyone for egg cooked over the engine?

Light at last.  It is hard to get a good picture of waves at sea.  These ones were a lot bigger than they look.

The Cuban coast was a beautiful sight.  The rising sun highlighted the green mountains and hills, which were a stark contrast to the flat, scrubby islands of the Bahamas.  As we drew closer to the lighthouse marking the entrance to Puerto de Vita, we saw two small rowboats manned by a couple of fishermen each.  They were a long way off the coast, in big seas, straining hard at the oars.  To get there that early in the morning, they must have set out around 5:00 a.m.

Early morning fishing trip.

As we approached the lighthouse, a voice hailed “Sailboat, sailboat” on the VHF.  In broken English, he told us the entrance to the bay was just west of the lighthouse.  We were happy to know there was someone there to guide us in so early in the morning.  As the sun came up and we motored in to the calm waters of Peurto de Vita we breathed a sigh of relief.  The land on either side of the narrow channel was green and lush.  A herd of cows came down to the water’s edge to greet us as we followed the markers into the marina.

The Cuban welcome wagon.

Wherever the wind takes us

Posted by Scot.  Written Jan. 4, 2014.

Lots of times, when people ask us where we are going, or what our plans are, we respond vaguely.  Often we say something like, “We are heading south, and we’ll see where the wind takes us.”  This isn’t a reflection on our terrible planning skills.  In fact, for those of you that know Sara, if it was possible, she would have every stop for the next several months planned down to the minute (in a good way ).

In reality, we have been intentionally open to changes in destination in recognition of the number of unknowns involved in a trip like this.  In addition to the unpredictability of the weather, we need to leave room for equipment failure, fatigue, the kid’s needs, and the uncertainty in our own preferences.  Never having travelled long distances by sailboat before, we don’t really know what we like yet.  Do we want to do lots of extended open water passages and night sailing, or are we happier staying close to land and doing day hops?  Would we rather be out in the wild on a deserted beach, or do we want to spend time in cities with culture and amenities?  Are we willing to slog out long days into the wind with heavy weather, or do we want more comfortable, calm downwind sailing?

So far, in the Bahamas, we have seen a lot of empty beaches and deserted places.  Our sailing has been mostly day hops, with a couple of night passages early on.  The weather has been variable, and we have had a few days of upwind grinding, some of which were decidedly unpleasant.

In Dollar Harbour, just off Long Island, we wrestled with most of these issues. Our discussion lead us back to our “wherever the wind takes us” philosophy, and a change in plans.  When we left Georgetown, we were headed for Long Island, which was to be followed by an open crossing to Crooked Island, then Acklins Island, and finally to Inagua.  From there, we were going to head through the Windward Passage, eventually bound for the south coast of Cuba.  For those who don’t want to pull out a map, what this generally means is several days of southeastward sailing, with some long open water passages.  Unfortunately, the weather forecast showed several days of strong winds coming directly from the southeast.  We had experienced some of that just getting into Dollar Harbor, which had taken hours of crashing into big waves from Hog Cay Cut.

So, sitting in the calm of Dollar Harbor, we were looking at spending at least four more days waiting for favourable weather to make our plans work.  Or, we could change our plans.  So that is what we did.
Instead of working our way southeast, into the wind, we decided to head southwest to the isolated chain of tiny islands known as the Jumentos, or Ragged Islands.  We left Dollar Harbour, and had a glorious broad reach back southwest to Water Cay.  As we sailed, and the waves built behind us, causing us to surf down the front of each one, we congratulated ourselves on the decision not to sail into this weather.  Crossing the cut around the north end of Little Water Cay got a bit scary, as the big waves hit the shallow water, and were breaking all around us, and behind us.  For about 20 minutes, it was hard to keep the boat steered straight through the narrow cut.  Wrestling the wheel kept us off the rocks on either side, though, and before long we were sailing south with the protection of the Jumentos keeping us out of the worst of the waves.  We spent the night off the lone pine tree on Flamingo Cay, with a fair bit of swell working it’s way around the island, and keeping the boat rocking all night.

At first light we upped the anchor and worked our way further down, to Buena Vista Cay.  We crossed some big open breaks in the Jumentos, and the waves crashed through making for an uncomfortable morning, but every hour or so brought us behind another small cay, and gave us some relief.  Buena Vista Cay was a beautiful spot, with a huge, deserted beach, and reasonable protection from the waves.

This is not actually the beach at Buena Vista Cay, but this is what it looked like.  I guess they all kind of look like this.

The next morning, though, the wind worked its way south again (just the direction we wanted to go), finding it’s way into our anchorage and rolling the boat around some more, so we motored on to Hog Cay, just north of Duncantown.  As we sailed the weather began to settle and the wind died down for the first time in at least a week.

We pulled into Hog Cay at around 10:30 in the morning, and saw the first sailboats we had seen since leaving Georgetown.  Eight of them, all anchored in the dead still water!  Duncantown is essentially at the bottom end of the Jumentos, and is one of the most southerly points of the Bahamas.  So it is a bit of a collection spot for boats.  From there, a lot of people stay awhile, then turn around and head back north, since to go further south means to enter Cuban waters, which is forbidden territory to Americans.

The bay at Hog Cay, just north of Duncantown.

Most of the Cays in the Jumentos have little trails across them, marked by various bits of garbage that have washed up on shore.  The kids called this one the "Dead Baby Trail."

The trails are also marked by shoes hung in trees.  It is amazing how many shoes wash up on beaches.

We spent the afternoon in Duncantown, with Sara and the kids heading out to explore the beach.  I stayed on the boat, and caught up on work, since this would be our last access to a cell tower for the foreseeable future.  The wind stayed calm, just as forecast, which filled us with hope for a quiet night crossing to the north coast of Cuba!

Breaking away

Posted by Scot.  Written Jan. 1, 2014

Sand Dollar Beach in Georgetown.  Our last anchorage there before finally getting away.

Note:  After almost three weeks without internet access sufficient to post a blog, we are back in business.  Sorry for our absence.  For those who wondered, we are all well and are currently in Jamaica.  But that is getting ahead of the story.  We’ll pick up back where we left off…

After almost 6 weeks in Georgetown, we have finally managed to tear ourselves free.  It is amazing how hard it was to break away.  The siren’s call of a secure anchorage with a built in cruiser’s community was hard to ignore.  I guess that is why so many people make Georgetown their permanent winter home.  Add to that the promise of at least several days of upwind, into-the-sea sailing, and leaving Georgetown is a difficult thing to do.

We never intended to stay nearly as long as we did.  Our first three weeks were filled with visits from my parents, and then my trip back to Alberta to work.  We followed that up with what we thought would be some routine boat maintenance.  Unfortunately, that led us to order some new parts for the boat, including a replacement hub for our Outback power system, and a new macerator pump for our starboard head.  It’s funny, we could easily have gotten by without either one, but the delivery times said 3-5 days on the websites when we ordered, so we figured we would go ahead and get them.  With customs, Christmas, and the apparent difficulties of getting parts on a flight from Nassau to Georgetown, though, it took more than two weeks to get them both.

A boat from Owen Sound, near where my Dad grew up.  We stopped by and met the really nice people on board, who were in Georgetown for the winter.

There are quite a few Windsongs out there.  This one was a big cat.

It has been nice to have our Outback power system display fully functional again.  Now we can go back to tracking every ampere of juice we put into, or take out of, our batteries.

That broken prong in the Cat 5 connector is what was causing our problem.

The new toilet pump, which was the last part to arrive, has turned out to just be a spare.  While we were waiting for the new one, I ended up completely dismantling the old one, and putting in a new seal, which we happened to have on the boat (thanks Gene and Kat!).  So now the old one is working just fine, and I haven’t gone to the effort of putting in the new one.

The rest of our time in Georgetown was spent getting to know the cruising community.  The morning “cruiser’s net”, a VHF roundup of the day’s activities, became Sara’s new “favorite TV show”.  Listening to all the cruiser’s announcements about volleyball games, potluck dinners, church group meetings and dinghy raftups was a solid daily dose of entertainment.  We even used it to ask for help with some minor issues on the boat a couple of times, and sure enough, both times we had responses right away.  People loaned us their tools and expertise without a second thought.

Having fun with friends in Georgetown.

We also kept up with our daily trips to East beach, the grocery store, and town to run all the errands we could while we had easy access to everything.  A two mile dinghy ride into town across wavy seas makes running errands a bit more challenging, and it wasn’t hard to fill the days.  With Christmas and Junkanoo keeping us put a few days longer, the six weeks flew by.

Alexander pumping up the dinghy to get us ready to go across the bay for laundry day.

Anyway, two days ago we finally made the break, pushing eastward into wind and waves to spend the night at the exposed Hog Cay Cut.  We had a bouncy night there, then at first light and high tide we pushed our way through the shallow cut with a couple of feet to spare under our keels.  We spent yesterday straight into the wind again, this time ending up in Dollar Harbour, which is where we are as I write this.

Watching for shallow water as we make an early morning pass through the Hog Cay Cut.

This is an amazing spot.  It is a marshy wetland , consisting of a deep spot for anchoring in the middle of drying mud tidal flats all around.  It, too, has a remarkably shallow entrance, and coming in yesterday at low tide left just a few inches under our boat.  Despite being exposed to the wind, it is wonderfully flat and calm, being protected from the waves by its shallow entrance. 

Dollar Harbour at high tide.  The mud flats get a lot closer to the boat at low tide.

We spent the afternoon exploring, then had a low key New Year’s eve party.  We played “Rezilotions”, a game Katie invented involving a trivial pursuit board and a review of any resolutions we might be considering.  The winner got the first piece of cake.  This was followed by a screening of the Sound of Music.  Classic musicals are becoming a part of our family New Year’s Eve tradition.  Sara and I were asleep long before midnight.  Now, the sun is just rising, and we are watching the tide to make sure we leave here with a bit more water under us than we arrived with.

Sunrise over Dollar Harbour.

Happy New Year to all our friends and family reading our blog.  We hope the New Year brings you happiness, health, and peace.