Arriving in Santiago de Cuba

Posted by Sara.  Written January 19, 2014.

Castillo del Morro sits over the entrance to the bay at Santiago de Cuba.

The marina in Santiago de Cuba is awesome.  It suits us perfectly.  Visually, it is the decaying ruin of an obviously opulent marina from pre-revolution times.  Despite the decay, it’s managed like a tightly run ship.  The rotating managers work 24 hour shifts.  The ones we have met so far are friendly, helpful, know their jobs well and speak excellent English.  In addition to the concrete docks, there is a restaurant and small store, a games room with a bowling alley and air hockey, a kids park and 4 great water toys for the kids – two huge water trampolines, one huge blow-up iceberg with climbing handles on it, and a huge spinny globe with climbing handles. 

Scot and I are a little suspect of the water here for swimming given the amount of industry in the bay. But we’re keeping quiet and just encouraging the kids to ‘not swallow the water’ and to shower as soon as they get out.  All the locals are swimming.  The kids have already spent a great many hours on the water toys.

Inflatable water toys at the Marina Marlin.

The kids had a blast climbing the "iceberg".

It was fun trying to get these spinning and try to knock each other off.

There are six other boats here; our Icelandic friends ‘Ja’, a boat from the US, two from France, one from Sweden and one from Holland.  Still not a kid in sight. 

When we pulled in after our night from Baitiquiri, Scot did a beautiful job of docking with our one working engine.  We spent the next hour getting checked in with the marina and then we crashed for a few hours to catch up on some sleep while the kids did school on their own. 

After that we decided to work on our main priority which was seeing if we could get someone to look at our engine.  The marina manager told us they had a mechanic on staff, but he wasn’t a “diesel specialist.”  We mentioned that we had read about DAMEX, a Dutch managed Cuban shipyard not far from here.  He said we would probably be able to find a diesel specialist there, so we walked over to ask.  They told us to come back after lunch, so we went all the way back to the boat, then back to the shipyard.  Eventually they let us in, and ushered us in to the modern looking industrial offices, where we finally met someone who seemed to be a manager.  Unfortunately, he told us, their diesel mechanic was out with an injury, but he suggested another shipyard further up the road.

On the way back to the marina, we ran into the marina mechanic.  Apparently the manager had mentioned our issue to him.  We weren’t sure how qualified he was with boat diesels but he was keen to come and look at it, and he asked all the right questions, following the same line of reasoning we had.  It seemed a lot easier to get him to come look at the boat as opposed to tracking down someone else at another shipyard, so we asked him to stop by when he got the chance.

We also started asking about filling our empty propane bottle which has been an issue since we arrive in Cuba.  Propane is rationed to all the Cubans for cooking so apparently it is difficult to just purchase.  There is also the worry that our fittings won’t match here.  Being down to our last 10lb. bottle and unsure where we can get more, I have been as lean as I could with the cooking for the last week.  We left our empty tank with the marina office but they weren’t confident they could help us.  We spent the rest of the day trying to relax and get away from boat issues, taking the kids bowling and on the water toys.

The mechanic, Carlos, showed up the next morning.  Within 10 minutes of testing, he had ruled out the injectors or fuel pump as the issue and narrowed it down to air getting into our fuel system. He tested by disconnecting our fuel hose, and sucking diesel fuel with a tube directly from a bucket into the pump & injectors, effectively by-passing the fuel lines.  When he did that, the engine ran perfectly.  So air was getting into the fuel system somewhere between our tank and the fuel pump.  It took him another 2 minutes to figure out where the air was getting in.  He found a slow drip of diesel coming from the bottom of our pre-fuel filter assembly, in the bowl that separates any water from the diesel. 

It did take another couple of hours to actually fix the problem by taking apart the filter and seeing that the plug in the bottom needed a new o-ring.  We even got to witness some of the famous Cuban creative problem solving.  The problem o-ring was very wide and they didn’t have a replacement but piled up 4 smaller o-rings instead – looked good to me & the price of 4 o-rings is quite a bit cheaper than having new fuel injectors couriered to us from the States.  So the Cuban mechanic rumours hold true – Carlos was fantastic.  He also loved teaching us and patiently explained everything he did (in Spanish, which I did my best to translate for Scot) and why.  Also, officially they weren’t going to charge us anything so we just slipped a ‘huge tip’ of $50 to him.  Since his salary is $15/month he will hopefully be pleased, but we still felt guilty as you couldn’t even get someone to look at your engine in the States for less than $150 as a call-out fee.  And truthfully, we would have been prepared to pay a lot more to have our engine running again.

Carlos Caballero.  He was happy to work on our engine with our tools.  He told us it is very hard to come by any reasonable tools in Cuba.

While he was working on the engine, Carlos told us about his daughter who is also a doctor.  Doctors make $20.00 per month in Cuba, so she had gone to work in Venezuela, under Chavez, where she made closer to $70.00 per month.  Apparently Venezuela has a huge need for doctors, and they recognize the excellent training the Cubans get.  He told us no other professions are allowed to go, though. 

Also Carlos is a civil engineer.  One of the waitresses who served us in Gibara was also educated as a teacher and had a masters in English but made more waitressing with tips in a tourist restaurant than the $15/month for teaching.

After our relief that our engine was working again, we treated ourselves to a fabulous lunch at the marina restaurant – grilled fish or chicken with rice, salad and french fries for $4 each.  The kids spent the afternoon on the water toys again.  After dinner, we had a movie night, with a screening of “E.T.” on the boat.

We also got a nice surprise during the movie.  We heard someone calling for us from the dock.  When we went out to check there was a man with our filled propane tank!   And only $12 CUC!  I am so excited. 

Any of you who know me well, know that I am only happy when there is good food around.  I wasn’t too pleased with our propane getting low.  The conversation of ‘well we can always eat cold ramen noodles, cold hot dogs and crackers’ did not impress me.  We haven’t had fresh bread or cheese for a week. 

Cheese seems really hard to come by here. So with no cheese or sandwich meat our lunches have been canned soup and crackers every day already – I’m not ready to eat cold soup out of a can.
Tomorrow, we are planning to head into Santiago de Cuba to check out the sights & get some groceries (hopefully cheese!)  It will be great to have a day without thinking about boat issues.

Monashee at the concrete dock in Santiago de Cuba.

International Incident

Posted by Scot.  Written January 26, 2014.

“Vessel off my bow, vessel of my bow!  This is the United States Coast Guard!  You need to turn around immediately and go back the way you came!”

The spotlight shining directly on us lit up the night, but made it so I couldn’t see the vessel that was hailing us.  I could certainly hear him though.

“United States Coastguard, this is the sailing vessel Monashee.  We are bound for Santiago de Cuba, having left Baitiquiri tonight, and are hoping to get there by morning.  We request permission to continue on our current course,”  I responded hopefully, not sure exactly why we weren’t being allowed to keep going.

“Sailing vessel, you need to be at least 3 miles off shore.  You need to turn around and go back about 400 yards, then you may turn south until you are 3 miles off shore.  We will escort you until you are clear.”

The lights of Gunatanomo at night.  It looks like a big city from the water.  It is a remarkable contrast to Puerto Escondido, the Cuban naval station just to the East, which had a single light as we went past.

Oh.  OK.  I guess we aren’t allowed to sail right past Guantanomo Bay in the middle of the night.  Funny that there was no mention of that in either of our cruising guides.  One of them said you couldn’t sail into the bay, which seemed obvious.  The other, older one, said they requested passage in front of the base, and sailed right through to the Cuban town of Caimanera, deeper in Guantanomo bay.

I also hadn’t seen anything about staying 3 miles off shore on either of our electronic chart sets.  Later on, when I went back to look, I found that on one of the programs, at a specific zoom, there is a warning that you can’t sail through the marked waters without permission of the secretary of the Navy, or someone like that.  Oops.  I hadn’t seen that before, and had charted our course right through the forbidden territory.
By this time, Sara was up and helping me turn the boat around.  We fired up the engine, and turned right around.  Once we had verified with the coast guard that we were far enough back, we turned south, and then checked again before we turned back East.

A blurry picture of our chart plotter showing our course in front of Guantanomo, followed by a hasty retreat and a detour to the south.

So now the good vessel Monashee is documented in an American military computer somewhere.  And there are probably enough key words in this post that the hit count on our blog is going to go up significantly, as the U.S. government checks us out.  (For all I know, they are checking us out already.  I’ll have to look at our blog stats when I get back to the land of the internet). 

The U.S. Coast Guard was polite but firm, and we did apologize for our ignorance.  No harm intended gentlemen!  And hopefully this post will serve as a warning to any other naive citizens of the world – there are certain places where you have to keep your distance.  Fortunately, they didn’t feel the need to break out any major military hardware.  Right now, Sara is back in bed, and I am keeping an eye on the GPS and the lights of Gitmo as we sail past, the proper distance away.

Hopefully we can make it through the rest of the night without running afoul of any other foreign military powers.

The rising sun is always a welcome sight after a night at sea.

Epilogue: As we were beating a hasty retreat from the U.S. Coast Guard in the dark, I said to Sara, half joking “I wonder how much surveillance equipment is pointed at us right now.”  Only half-joking though.  We immediately started watching what we said, in case they could somehow hear us, even without the VHF.
At the same time, I wondered silently to myself how many weapons were pointed at us.

After we arrived at the Marina Marlin in Santiago de Cuba, we got at least a partial answer to the second of those questions.  We met a fellow, Giovanni, from the Icelandic boat (“Ja”), who we had previously met in Puerto de Vita, and again in Baracoa.  They had beaten us to Santiago de Cuba, arriving the day before us, while we were in Baitiquiri.

Anyway, when we asked him how his trip had been, without any prompting from us, he told us a story about passing in front of Guantanomo that was almost identical to ours.  They are using the same cruising guide as us, so I guess they also didn’t know you needed to be three miles out.

The only difference between their experience and ours was that they had been there in daylight, so they got to see the U.S. Coast Guard ship that ordered them to turn around.  Giovanni told us that the ship had been heavily armed with 4 huge mounted machine guns, and every one of them had been pointed at their boat the whole time, with serious looking young men at the triggers.  So I guess we know we had at least that many weapons aimed at us. 

Glad I couldn’t see them.

Adventure, adversity.

Posted by Scot.  Written January 16, 2014.

OK, we haven’t had a technical boat post for a while.  Mostly travelogue recently.  But it is time to get a few issues off my chest.

Monashee at anchor in Baracoa, with fishermen setting their net from an inner tube behind.  I don't think they really needed to come right behind our boat, but they seemed to want to get a look inside.

For the most part, we are thrilled with our boat.  When we compare it to other boats out there, we realize we lucked out with a remarkable platform that is perfect for the kind of adventure we are on, and fits our family to a “T”.  It also highlights the fact that people are willing to come out and sail around the Caribbean on boats that we would never consider.  Not that we are snobbish.  We are just not as prepared as some people to fix a million issues on an aging vessel, or to take the same risks with things like finicky engines, leaking bilges, or suspect water and power supplies.  And by “not prepared” I don’t mean that we aren't willing to fix those things.  What I mean is that there is nothing in our backgrounds or education that has really provided us with the necessary knowledge to fix those things.  So we would just be making it up as we go along.

Having said all that, though, we have been struggling with a few issues on our boat, which in the grand scheme of things are relatively minor.  For sure, if we were still in Florida, they would be really minor.  We would probably have them all fixed in a day or two, and they wouldn’t occupy much of our attention.  But sitting here, in the isolated bay of Baitiquiri, on the south coast of Cuba, where we are not even allowed to go ashore, minor issues have a way of seeming a lot more significant.  Mainly because, without everything working perfectly, the safety margin that we depend on is being chipped away.  We are getting close to the point where another minor issue or two could add up to a major issue, and make things more sketchy than we are happy to live with.

All of Baitiquir that we are allowed to see, since it is forbidden to go ashore.  Although I'm not sure there is a lot more to it.

The Baitiquiri Guarda Frontera, heading in after they checked out our boat.

The issues we are currently working through started in Georgetown, shortly after we replaced our Outback Hub.  That is the device that links up our electrical system, and gives us a readout regarding our solar input, battery charging, and battery inverter.  For some reason, not long after we put the new Hub in, we noticed that we couldn’t run our water maker or our microwave when the generator was charging the batteries.  There seems to be a significant power loss somewhere in the system.  On our panel, it looks like there is a big voltage drop when we try to run these things, but I am not sure that the analog meter is working right.  It doesn't seem to read the same when I check it with a voltmeter. 

We seem to be able to work around it by turning off the battery charger, and running those systems independently.  But that means we need to run the generator twice as long, and use twice as much diesel if we want to make water.  Before we left Georgetown, I contacted Rafael in Fort Lauderdale, and he had some trouble shooting suggestions, but nothing seemed to fix the issue. 

I also contacted Outback themselves.  They didn’t get back to me for a while, but just before we left the Bahamas for Cuba, they sent me links to a bunch of Youtube videos about the system to “help me understand it.”  For all I know, the answer might be in there somewhere.  But with next to no internet access in Cuba, that is not the most helpful approach.  Fortunately it has not been that big an issue so far, since we spent several days in a marina when we first got here.  That allowed us to charge our batteries right up on shore power, and fill our water tanks.  That means we have been able to pickle our water maker for now, and just ignore the problem.  Still, frustrating.  And something we will need to get sorted out eventually.

Our AC pwer panel.  The analog dial in the upper left may or may not be right in telling us we have a gremlin in our A/C. system.  I will need to find a marine electrician somewhere to help me out with this one.

The next issue that is troubling us has to do with our outboard engine, on our dinghy.  Before we left Ft. Lauderdale, we knew it was in need of a 100 hour service.  We tried to get this arranged there, and we did go over the engine with Rafael, who didn’t find any problems with it.  Strangely, we couldn’t find a place in Ft. Lauderdale that was willing to come and pick up our engine to do the service.  And since we had already given up our van, we had no way to get it to them.  So, we figured we would get it done in the Bahamas, where we could bring it in by boat.

In Georgetown, there is an outfit called Minn’s Watersports, who agreed to service our engine for us.  Which was good, because by that time, we were having problems with it cutting out intermittently.  Their diagnosis was water in our fuel, so they cleaned out the fuel system, dumped all our gas, and sold us a new tank full.  After doing all that, when we went to pick up the engine, they told us they didn’t have any parts to service it (like no filters, impellers, oil, etc.).  That was after keeping it for five days.  So the service still never got done.  It seemed to run better, though, so we paid them and figured we would service it ourselves when got access to the parts.  Again, not going to happen in Cuba. 

The bay at Baitquiri is full of jelly fish.  We were hoping to get under the boat to clean it here, but were not so keen after seeing this.

Then, the day before we left Georgetown, the engine started to cut out again.  We noticed, at that point, that there was very little water coming out of the cooling system (normally, there is a steady stream flowing out of these little cooling ports).  I think, now, that that was probably the problem all along, and that the engine is overheating when we run it hard. 

When we were in Puerto de Vita, I managed to hook a hose up to the system and tried to back flush it.  It seemed to clear a bit, but we haven’t gotten to test it yet, since we are really not allowed to use our dinghy in Cuban bays and anchorages.  Again, it is not a huge issue, since we seem to be able to run it a little bit, and it is OK over short distances.  But it does erode our safety margin, since the outboard on the dinghy could also be used to tow the big boat in the event of engine failure there.

Which brings me to our third issue.  As we were motoring from Puerto de Vita into Baracoa, we noticed the rpms on our starboard engine started to drop periodically, and then pick up spontaneously.  This started to happen in the last hour of our 20 hour trip.  Previously, it had seemed to be running fine.  We didn’t run the engine the entire way, but it ran for a big chunk of that trip. 

When we left Baracoa for the overnight trip around Punta Maisi, to Baitiquiri, where we are now sitting, initially, the engine seemed to run fine.  Then, again, two hours before we got here, the rpms started to drop.  This time, it was further, and more frequently.  With our limited knowledge of diesel engines, we have pored over our diesel repair book, and the owner’s manual.  It seems the most likely problem is a faulty fuel injector, although air in the fuel lines could also account for the problem.  Given that I have no way to repair a fuel injector in our current location, I decided to bleed the fuel system, and hope that might help.  I suspect it won’t, though, since  you would think if there was air in the fuel system, the problem would have been consistent, instead of getting worse as we ran the engine longer.

The fuel injectors are those three things in the middle of the picture with the small pipes running to them.

So now, we are faced with another overnight trip to Santiago de Cuba, this time with one engine that works well, one that may or may not work, and a limited ability to tow the boat, with our outboard only working partly.  That means, in the unlikely event that our second engine quits, we will only be able to move the boat under sails alone.  Which could be a challenge, since we intentionally timed all these overnight passages to coincide with little to no wind (which reduces the night time seasickness factor on our boat).  That is the forecast for the next several days. 
And it remains to be seen whether we can get fuel injectors repaired in Santiago de Cuba.  Apparently Cuban mechanics are miracle workers with limited resources, so our fingers are crossed.  But if we need parts, like a new fuel injector, we are probably screwed.  Which leaves us with trying to get the boat somewhere else.  Like 115 miles across open water to Jamaica.

Adventure.  Not always fun when you are in the middle of it.

Inside the Town of Baracoa

Posted by Christopher.  Written Jan. 15, 2014.

After a lengthy night of sickening rocking, we had finally reached Baracoa. Admittedly, this was not our final destination, but a good place to stop either way.

We were surprised when the Guarda Fronterra (essentially the Cuban water border, and coast guard) said that we were allowed to actually go on land here, but we needed to leave someone on the boat. So we left Dad, who was really exhausted from the night, and brought Mom to the town, who was just a little bit less exhausted. Since we had put our Dinghy motor up on the big boat for the passage, we had Dad row us over to a landing, then row back, because there was no dock.

This is what happens after a night's passage.  I took this picture of our whole starboard hull using the "panorama" setting on our camera.  That is dad in the cabin at the back, and mom in the front.

Rowing to the dock in Baracoa.

This wreck sits right off the dock at Baracoa.

We had to climb up over these tires to get in and out of the dinghy.

Carrying our handheld radio for calling Dad back when need be, we set off to the town in search of three things: 1- somewhere where we could find good street pizza, which we found to be a recurring tasty thing in Cuba. 2- It was a BOILING hot day, so we were in search of ice cream! 3- We were looking for some good pictures in the town to put in this blog, and we found all those things in the town.

A Cuban apartment building.

First we went to go to the Pizzeria, but we soon found out it was closed until later, and we had about an hour to kill. We decided to go to the corner store to search for ice cream, and the whole time we were walking there we were taking pictures of this and that. I knew that we looked highly touristy, with our ball caps and cameras,but that look could not be helped.

Time to play spot the tourist again!

Eventually we reached the cornerstore, and mom poked her head in and asked for ice cream, in her fluent Spanish. The lady at the counter said yes, which I knew was si, and then we popped in and walked casually to the ice cream freezer. They had mounds and mounds of Vanilla Chocolate Chip flavour, and so we bought two small tubs and got four plastic spoons.

We walked around for a little while after, until we saw a nice spot in the shade, so we ate the ice cream there.

Lots of horse drawn carriages in Baracoa.

And a bici-taxi.

...or two.

After that we walked back to the Pizzeria, only to find they didn’t actually have Pizza today. Mom asked the lady in the restaurant who told us that if there’s any other places that had pizza, and she said yes. So they got someone to lead us up the street a ways up to a second floor balcony on a Casa Particular, where we could order pizza.

A Cuban pizza place.

We ordered and each got fairly big personal pizza’s, for $1 CUC each (which is the equivalent of an American dollar). they were really tasty for what you’d expect to get in Cuba, and so we ate them all up and headed back on our way.

The Malecon at Baracao.

Peeking into a Cuban church.

Checking out some market goods in Baracoa.

Finally we headed back to where Dad could pick us up, and we radioed him. He picked up the radio immediately, and soon he was underway to come get us. We climbed on the dinghy and rowed all the way back, then went and go some nice cold water and relaxed.

Puerto de Vita to Baracoa

Posted by Scot.  Written Jan. 14, 2014.

After waiting a couple of hours for the harbourmaster to show up, we pulled away from the dock at Puerto de Vita at around 1230, and sailed back out into the Bahama Channel.  As we motorsailed east into the wind, we passed the all-inclusive resorts lining the shores at Guardalavaca (I love that name.  Translated directly into English, it means “Guard the cow”).  Anyway, we got a good close-up look at quite a few of the Canadian tourists staying at the resorts, since we sailed right through the fleets of Hobie cats they were sailing off the beaches.  Several of them waved and shouted their surprise as they saw us sail by with our Canadian flag.

Leaving the all-inclusives behind.

As the sun went down, the waves came up a bit, but the wind was just right for us to sail at about 60 degrees off, and we made good time.  Christopher and Alexander repeated their evening watch, sitting at the helm from 7:30 to 9:30, which gave Sara and I a good chance to rest.  It seems when it gets dark, and the motion of the boat is hard to predict, it becomes a bit more nauseating, and both Sara and Christopher suffered from the effect.

The sun sets at sea.

It didn’t stop anyone from falling asleep, though, and shortly after I took over at 9:30, the boat was silent.  Unfortunately, it was about then that the wind shifted right around onto our nose, so I fired up first one engine, then both, and we plowed on through the waves.

When we sailed from the Bahamas down to Cuba, we didn’t see any sign of the typical ship traffic in the Old Bahama Channel.  Sailing along the north coast of Cuba, we made up for it.  We were accompanied all night by freighters and cruise ships sitting about 5 miles out to sea.  It was easy to see their lights, despite the distance, and the AIS proved entertaining, as it showed us their names, sizes, speeds and destinations.
Sara took over at around midnight, and kept watch for most of the rest of the dark hours.  Around 4 a.m., I woke up, and we kept watch together for awhile.  Then Sara lay down for a couple more hours of sleep, and I got to see the sunrise.  As the day lightened, the dramatic shore of northern Cuba was revealed, with mountains rising straight out of the water, covered in palm trees and green jungle.  Apparently when Columbus first landed here, he said it was some of the most beautiful land he had ever seen.  It hasn’t changed much since then.

El Yunque greets us as we approach Baracoa.

Sailing into the small pocket bay at Baracoa was equally impressive.  The dramatic flat-topped El Yunque de Baracoa makes an impressive backdrop.  Baracoa itself is a remarkably beautiful spot, with a real “end of the earth” feel.  The steep mountains all around make it hard to get to, and apparently for a long time it was completely isolated from the rest of Cuba.

El Yunque from inside the bay.

Local fishing boats in Baracao Bay.

A hotel with a view overlooking Baracoa Bay.

Once we arrived, the Guardafrontera called us on the radio, and told us they would need to come out to the boat to check our paperwork.  What they didn’t tell us was that they didn’t have a boat of their own, so after sailing all night, I had the pleasure of dropping our dinghy into the water, pumping it up, and rowing over to the commercial dock to pick him up.  We don’t have our outboard motor on the dinghy right now, since it is easier on our dinghy davits if we sail with it on the big boat.  We didn’t think we would be using the dinghy much, since we were assured at Puerto de Vita that we would not be able to go ashore at any of our stops along the way, until we were at the official government marina in Santiago de Cuba.  To our welcome surprise, though, the Guardafrontera told us we could go ashore, as long as we left one person on the boat for “security”.

Is News Paper?

Posted by Katie.  Written Jan. 11, 2014.

The Monashee News!  Get it while it's hot!

Breaking News!  On Monashee there has been a serious talk about Newspapers and that is because of Katie’s new idea the Monashee Press News!  With  every day a new paper comes out in the morning at about 8:00 am.  Every news on the boat is made a  day before so the staff does not have to wake up at 4:00 am in the morning to work on it.  The news is not just one person though me and Christopher are the only members besides alexander who does small columns form time to time.  Sometimes he even takes one of Christopher’s job for the day. 

The columns that keep us busy every day are listed here: News, Kids, Events, Fun and comics. Sometimes we even do movie reviews.  The News section is all the varieties of news we have on and off the boat.  The Kids page is things that only kids would be interested in.  The events page is to make sure you are aware of parties, visitors, performances and more.  The Fun page is  for  riddles, jokes and mazes so far but  I have a hunch that I am going to think of more things to do on that page.  And last but not least comics are what you would think they are, comics, and I don’t think there is much more to it. So go ahead and start your own news paper I did not copywrite it.

Gibara (Pronounced Hibara)

Posted by Alexander, Sara and Scot.  Written Jan. 9, 2014.

Fishing boats in the bay at Gibara.

As we drove into Gibara we saw the Silla de Gibara. It was a huge lone mountain, shaped like a saddle, that rose out of the countryside. I wish we could have seen more of it but as we zipped past it was already gone. Gibara lay just ahead. The taxi dropped us off right at the Casa Particular that we were going to stay at. It was supposed to be better than the last one we stayed at and I prayed it was. My pillow had felt like it was made of lead and I slept very uncomfortably. As we entered we got a good look at the place and I instantly liked it. There were pictures of the owners family all over and a shaded garden in the back. After mom peeking at our would be rooms we were told that we could come back at three  The people staying in the rooms would be gone by then. And so leaving our bags in the Casa, we embarked on an exploration of Gibara.

We strayed around the town keeping a watchful eye out for a place to eat. We wandered along the sea wall, saw the center of town and finally went the way I wanted to go. We had heard there would be a good restaurant at the top of a hill overlooking Gibara. It was supposed to be right next to the remains of an old Spanish fort. It was where I was interested in going because as unusual as it seems, I was hungry. While we plodded along the streets I noticed many positive differences between Gibara and Holguin. It was a smaller town and the streets were less crowded. The activity was less frantic and you weren’t about to be run down by cars and bikes at every street corner. It was just, in general a quieter place.

The tour guide, reading from Lonely Planet to teach us a bit about Gibara.

Horsepower?  One.

El Centro, Gibara.

On our way to the hill we saw a building taller than all the others and nicer looking. We went in and saw it was the best hotel we had seen since Nassau! Mom checked to see if we could eat there but the desk person said that they would have to check with the chef because another group had reservations. We sat in the lobby while this exchange went on and I knew everyone was wishing we had come to stay here instead.

We decided to go see the hill anyways. At the top of the steps Christopher and I sat and watched some huge birds of prey glide along the winds. Katie joined us while Mom and Dad still climbed. Annoyingly, we got approached by some guys peddling little wooden toys. As funny as the toys were we said “no, gracias”, but of course Cubans aren’t turned down so easily. Dad managed to shake them off when he showed up. The restaurant up there was a disappointment along with unremarkable crumbling tower and wall that was what was left of a Spanish fort. 

Relaxing in the Hotel Ordono in Gibara.  This was the nicest place we had seen in months.

At the top of the stairs, overlooking the windblown Malecon in Gibara.

We decided to eat at the hotel and it was worth it! My spaghetti was delicious and we were offered to be shown some rooms. As we went through I could see Dad and Christopher wincing at our choice of room and board. These rooms were up to par with good first world hotels, the food was no more expensive than the common Cuban fare and there was an amazing view from the rooftop lookout.

Fancy lunch in the Hotel Ordono (cost about 6 or 7 dollars per person).

At that point we wandered back to the Casa Particular to learn that the people who had our rooms still weren’t back. We waited a while and when they finally came back they took ages to leave. We leapt at the chance. We said we needed to rest and we were going to the hotel instead. The owner seemed to understand.

Waiting for our rooms in the casa particular in Gibara.

While mom registered us at the hotel, a hostess came and gave as all cool fizzy drinks and damp cool cloths to cool us off. It was heaven. Our rooms were awesome and dinner was great! (aside from taking quite a while because of a large German tour group that was eating at the same time as us).  There was a band of three women with guitars and castanets. They were really good and I was glad we got a taste of Cuban culture like that.

Live entertainment with dinner.  Pretty much everyone in Cuba seemed to either play an instrument or dance.  There was music everywhere.

After a peaceful night in the luxurious rooms, we went back to the restaurant for the Cuban breakfast, included in the price of the hotel.  We were alone in the restaurant in the morning.  The woman in charge of PR for the hotel came by our table to see how we were doing, and we started to chat with her about regular Cuban life.  She told us all about the hotel, which had just been restored and was less than a year old.  It had originally belonged to the wealthiest family in Gibara (pre-revolution), who had lived on the third floor where our rooms were.  It was now run by the government, like all hotels in Cuba.  The restoration had tried to be true to the original, and the murals on the walls in the bedrooms, and the fancy woodwork on the ceilings had all been  returned to their original state.  The lookout on the roof had been built by the original owner after his wife died, so he could see her grave.

Restored ceiling in one of our hotel rooms.

The central hallway outside the floor with the rooms.

Poster, showing the restoration of the Hotel Ordono.

The PR lady also told us a bit about her life.  She told us that, while Cubans were free to stay in the hotel if they wanted, the reason we didn’t see any was because of the cost.  For example, she said, the workers in the hotel all made a wage of about $20.00 CUCs (about $23.00 Canadian dollars) per month.  So a night in the hotel would cost 3 or 4 months salary for them.  And that is without eating in the restaurant.  She also talked about Cuban education, telling us that her English was so good because she had a bachelor’s and master’s degree in public relations, and had studied a lot of English in University.  She had previously been a teacher, but working in the hotel, for $20.00 CUC per month, was a better wage, so that is what she did now.  She hitch hiked back and forth to work every day, since she and her husband didn’t have a car.

View from our luxurious hotel room out over the rest of Gibara.

Mom asked her about buying some groceries for us to take back to the boat, and she offered to take Mom around to the shops and help her buy some things.  The shopping was “European style”, with different stores for different kinds of food.  The first places they went were two stores that were similar to corner stores like we would have at home, looking for snack food.  The supply of food was limited, but they managed to buy some cookies in the first store, and some small pre-packaged muffins in the second.  They then went around the block to the bakery where there was a 20 minute lineup for fresh bread.  Our hostess bypassed the line to buy us 4 baguette type loaves for a total of about $0.25 CAD.

After that, they walked a couple of blocks to pick up eggs from a farmer who had brought them into town that morning.  A block later, a man was selling vegetables off a cart in the street.  After a lot of searching, it became clear that there was no cheese available for purchase in Gibara.  We rounded out our grocery shopping by stopping at one of the roadside fruit stands on the way back to our boat.

Fruit stand, on the highway to Guardalavaca.

Enjoying the fruits of our journey, back at the boat!

All in all I got a really good impression of Gibara. If anyone is ever there they should stay at the Hotel Ordono. I would love to stay there again if I got the chance.

Gibara malecon.