Final Sail?

It appears that the boat had a peaceful (if salty) stay in Georgetown while we were in CA for the past two months. Mañana had a good coating of salt on her decks and hulls and the little wind spinner on the masthead had seized because there had been no rain at all while we were gone. With the high cost of water in the Bahamas there was little likelihood that we would be washing the boat in the near future so we were condemned to “pray for rain” for our salvation. We must not have prayed hard enough because this was to be a bone dry trip for the next six weeks.

We had seen plenty of Georgetown in January and were anxious to travel so we took just two days to prep the boat, carry jugs of reverse osmosis water from shore, buy a few groceries, and try a BBQ dinner at the Peace and Plenty before setting out for Turks and Caicos, the Dominican, and points south hoping to reach Puerto Rico by early June. Our first day out was a mixed bag.  At the top of list were calm seas, light winds, and a long downwind spinnaker sail under cloudless skies.  This, after all, is why we are out here. But we also had a major equipment issue. Our autopilot stopped behaving, and without the autopilot we were not about to tackle any overnight sailing. We decided to keep sailing for now and worry about the autopilot later. Long Island in the southern Exumas was our first stop.  Long Island was one of the Bahamas Cays that was devastated by hurricane Joaquin which made a direct hit on the Exumas in 2015. This long, thin piece of real estate provides protection from the prevailing winds and has several comfortable anchorages for slow moving sailboats. Thompson’s Bay in the middle of the island has become a winter long stop for some of the cruisers who are less than comfortable with the crowds of Georgetown, and Calabash Bay on the north end of the island has beautiful beaches and a pretty resort that welcomes cruisers to use their facilities. We enjoyed both of these picturesque bays.

From Long Island it was an easy day sail over to Conception Island which may be the prettiest spot in all of the Bahamas.  After nine years of visiting beautiful beaches in idyllic settings we were still impressed with the spectacular beauty of this remote Cay.  Neither pictures nor a few words can adequately convey the feeling of sailing into the small bay at Conception. We anchored off the long sand beach for several days which we spent exploring, snorkeling, enjoying beach walks, marveling at the clarity of the water, sipping cocktails while watching brilliant sunsets, dining on fresh caught Mahi (no, I didn’t catch it, but I ate plenty) and debating our next move with a balky autopilot, the autopilot getting much of our attention.  Our decision, finally, was to sail back the way we came because we believed we could get all the way to Florida without any overnight sailing while Puerto Rico involved several nights in the open ocean. And we were right, we did get to Florida easily, and we were wrong, because Florida is not Puerto Rico. This turned out to be a major detour as you will see later.

 

Our trip south in December had been a windward sail in somewhat cooler conditions.  In heading back towards Florida we were now traveling with the prevailing winds, and the trip was markedly different and much more fun.  We sailed the entire way from Conception Island, Exumas to southern Florida (about 500 miles) with almost no motoring. We moved slowly, we stopped often. We snorkeled on David Copperfield’s famed Mermaid at the Piano sculpture at Rudder Cut Cay. We swam in the Thunderball Grotto featured in the 007 movie. We gorged ourselves on the best grouper we have ever tasted as Scorpio’s in Black Point (coincidentally Scorpio’s also served the best and strongest rum punch we have found anywhere in our travels). At Norman’s Cay we snorkeled on the wreck of a sunken, drug running plane that was still remarkably intact.

 

We thought we would sail northeast into the Abacos, but the winds shifted slightly and we found ourselves returning to FL through the almost deserted Berry Islands.  This wind shift was a stroke of good fortune because the Berry’s were both remote and beautiful, and this turned out to be another pleasant, leisurely detour. Once again we were struck by how many islands in the Bahamas have so few people (or no one) living on them. At Little Harbor the only residents of the island were off island for a few days so the only bar (only building) was closed, but fisherman from Nassau were “resting” on the docks preparing for another day in the Northwest Channel, and we had a fun chat with them about life in the islands. 

The cruise ships have an island all their own in the Berrys called Little Stirrup Cay. Little Stirrup was to be our jumping off point as we headed to Grand Bahama Island so we stopped for the night at just one more picturesque island.  Fortunately we were there on a non cruise ship day. Imagine pulling into a pretty little anchorage and seeing a beach lined with thousands of beach chairs. This is apparently the “remote island” that you can visit by yourself and just 3000 other passengers to get away from it all. Bah humbug!

Although we had had several weeks of perfect weather at this point we were getting some high wind warnings so we set off for the protection of Port Lucaya where we could sit safely while a weather front passed through the area.  Port Lucaya was our first marina in a very long time and while the winds blew hard outside the breakwater we got to wash the boat thoroughly in a well protected marina.  This was our first wash down in over five months (since early November in St Augustine), and the boat was smiling the whole time. Port Lucaya is a pretty place with shops, restaurants, bars, and people, just right after 4 weeks of remote anchorages. If you ever visit there don’t miss dinner at Sabor.

Two nights in Port Lucaya was plenty, and we paused only briefly at West End on Grand Bahama before making our Gulf Stream crossing.  We had a vigorous sail in good wind and again our small catamaran handled the seas well.  We dropped anchor in Lake Worth, FL just 10 hours after leaving West End. We had accomplished our goal of making the long trip without any overnight passages that would have been difficult without an autopilot.  After a couple of days of rest (hey, sailing is tough work!) we motored north to Stuart, FL and took a mooring at Sunset Bay.  The bay is aptly named and the marina here is possibly our favorite marina anywhere.  The moorings are close to historic downtown Stuart, multiple restaurants, and convenient supermarkets. The staff is super friendly and they host a variety of events each week. Only Mario’s (in the Rio Dulce) with their $1 gin and tonics can compete.

We are selling the boat (we think), and we have listed it for sale here in Stuart, FL. That's a major step for us, and we debated long and hard before making this decision. We just began our tenth year aboard Mañana and some of these beautiful beaches are beginning to run together, to look the same, and there are fewer new countries to explore, but having to reverse course on our trip to Puerto Rico was also a factor.  With the two mono-hulls covering another ten years we have now been sailing over five months each year for a full twenty years. We have now sailed in twenty-two different countries at last count, and we think it’s time to do something else, but we do not know what that will be.

We have spent the past week polishing, cleaning, moving "junk" off the boat and making Mañana as pretty as possible.  We fixed the wind spinner and the nefarious autopilot and a few other items. The boat looks great, runs great, sails great. Who knows when, or if the boat will sell, but if we do find a buyer we hope to travel “off the water” for a while.  No buyer?  Well then I’d like to go sailing again. Easy sailing, easy living!

Tom  and Andrea

 

Better Late Than Never

“Really, how tough can it be?  You are sitting on a boat, moving less than five miles per hour,  or maybe, not moving at all, and you can't find time to write a little blog?  Too busy soaking up carbs (beer), Vitamin D (sun), or energy (sleeping)?  How about some pictures?  How about news?  How about a little work on your part?”   Yes, that pretty much sums up the e-mails and "welcome home" sentiment that I got from friends, relatives, golf buddies, and a few curious strangers who troll sailing websites when I abandoned the blog this winter (Nov – Jan, 2016).  Okay, I get the message.  News (yes, a little late) follows along with some pictures that I hope make you realize that it's not all fun and games out here (even if it is). 

When we flew into Brunswick to pick up the boat after the summer storage we found that Brunswick GA had been converted into 1920’s Ybor City, FL for the filming of the Ben Afleck/Dennis Lehane movie “Live By Night”.  “Live By Night” was one of the trilogy of books (fiction, well worth reading) by Lehane dealing with mobs and prohibition in the 20’s.  The Brunswick downtown had been converted for a week of shooting the Ybor City scenes.  Many buildings had false fronts, temporary balconies, the main street median had been torn out and the entire street covered with dirt, and old cars motored up and down the dusty road. Three days later the entire town had been restored to its current, small town state. The pictures here were after the dirt was removed. Needless to say this movie was the talk of the town and we look forward to seeing it soon.

Our latest excursion by boat began in mid-November and took us from Brunswick, down the length of Florida and then across the Gulf Stream to the southern Bahamas, aka the Exumas We had intended to sail the Exumas last spring, but we never got south of the Abacos, so we put the Exumas back on the schedule and once again headed off for the sunny southern cays.  Of course the problem here is that the first half of the trip involves traveling the "length of Florida" and this is a very long state. At this time of year the “length of Florida” also involves some bad weather so the trip was once again down the “inside”.   We did visit Cumberland Island again for a pleasant anchorage, and then we made an early stop in St. Augustine to haul the boat for a quick (minor) repair. We were out of the water for less than a week. That week allowed us to get reacquainted with St Augustine and our favorite bar (Hurricane Patty's) and our favorite restaurant (Back 40) there while we were "working on the boat".  We also had the company or our friends Liz and Craig on Salida (sailed with us in Panama and Guatemala) who hauled their boat at the same time. Unfortunately they spent two long months on the hard and we had to leave them behind.

Weather was not a significant problem, but it was nasty enough outside (ocean) that we chose to motor on the inside (waterway) all the way to Palm Beach before ducking outside to Ft. Lauderdale and then Miami. Our one significant stop was Stuart, FL for a week on a mooring at the town marina.  Stuart is a fun little town and it turned out to be a very comfortable week with plenty of opportunities to visit with other boaters and sample life in south Florida. We were in no hurry at this point since weather forecasts for crossing the Gulf Stream were pretty pessimistic.  After Stuart we lingered in Ft Lauderdale and then Miami and Key Biscayne waiting for the weather gurus to yell “go” for the crossing. 

 

Finally on Dec 16, a full month after heading south from Georgia, we made the crossing from Key Biscayne to Bimini.  When you read the books this is a short trip (50 – 60 miles) from FL to the Bahamas.  What they don’t mention is that once you get to Bimini you are nowhere. Actually you are a long way from nowhere.  It’s still another 120 miles to Nassau and at “boat speed” that’s still two more days. We left Key Biscayne at dawn, entered the Bahama Banks late afternoon, and sailed into the evening finally anchoring in the middle of the banks (read a “long” way from any land) for a short rest.  The following AM we set sail again. We found a buddy boat out there on the banks and they suggested Morgan’s Bluff on Andros Island for a check in port.  Perfect.  Morgan’s was calm and protected, the customs officers were polite and efficient and welcomed us warmly, and they had their own rum bar and restaurant in the harbor. There were big winds outside the anchorage, but we were snug and would be so until the winds shifted… which they did the very next day. For the rest of the trip, from Nassau to Georgetown, all winds blew AT US hard.  I don’t think there was another weather window to cross to the Bahamas for at least a month after we sailed and our entire time in the Bahamas was spent hiding in anchorages and trying to sail against the wind whenever we moved.

We did have a truly beautiful Christmas at Warderick Wells Cay which is the headquarters of the Exumas Land and Sea Park.  About fifteen boats had gathered there in the fairly safe harbor well sheltered from both wind and waves, and we were all invited ashore to the park headquarters for Christmas. The park buildings sit on a hill overlooking the anchorage. The cruisers provided side dishes and desserts and the park employees came up with the turkey and ham. No snow, but turquoise water, white sand, and 70 degree temps is a good substitute. It was a great party in a fantastic setting and a memorable holiday for our ninth consecutive Christmas afloat.

From Warderick Wells south we tried to find calmer waters inside the chain of Cays, but any sailing was a series of long tacks across the wind to move anywhere. Staniel Cay was an interesting (and pretty) stop.  Staniel Cay is the home of the swimming pigs and anyone with a little bit of food or water is welcome… by the pigs.

We took a look, but these guys were a little aggressive, even trying to climb into dinghies if they thought food was available. Not being wildlife aficionados we opted to retire to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club which was not very much like any yacht club at home. The Bahama Mamas and Goombay Smashes were pretty good though. Black Point, south of Staniel, was touted as the “Best Laundromat” in the Bahamas (and they had a couple of bars) so that was our next stop. Again, it was another beautiful setting, almost no people there, and a pleasant place to get out of the wind. Here we found other boats waiting to head south to Georgetown. 

The Bahamas is both crowded and desolate.  There are a lot of boats that head here for the winter from Canada, New England, the Chesapeake, Florida and the Gulf Coast states. They tend to congregate in some of the larger harbors so some islands definitely seem more crowded than the less accessible Western Caribbean.  On the other hand the vast majority of islands are uninhabited and even the populated islands frequently have fewer than 100 people living there. We spent New Year’s Eve alone in Rudder Cut Cay and then sailed (to windward) to Georgetown on first day of 2016.  The anchorage at Georgetown is well protected and HUGE.  We were early in the season and still there were well over 100 boats here. Later in the winter when the Cruisers Regatta and the Family Regatta events draw cruisers from all over the number of boats will swell to between 300 and 400.  That ranks up with some of the largest mooring fields/anchorages on the east coast of the US.

Exploring Georgetown ashore occupied only a day or two.  It is the biggest town in the southern Exumas yet there is just the one street through town. A well stocked grocery, a hardware/ supply store, some boat goods, a few bars, guest houses, food shacks,  and very good library pretty much describes the town.  Fresh water was available here and we hauled lots of jugs of reverse osmosis water back to the boat. We tried a “Rake and Scrape” (Bahamian music and dancing), had beers at the Chat ‘n Chill beach bar,  walked a lot, explored a little and generally relaxed after our “passage” from Florida to Bimini to Nassau to Georgetown. We spent one Friday evening at the local “Fish Fry” (which had no fish that night).  The fish fry took place at a waterfront area filled with small wooden shacks, each of which was a different restaurant and bar.  Buy a beer at one place, food at another, rum drinks at a third. No one cared if you brought beers from next door into their restaurant. Our group of ten wandered through the multi-colored shacks buying drinks and sampling conch salads and fritters before settling down to a delicious dinner of ribs, chicken and lobster in an extremely “rustic” setting. The only drawback to a great night was a long, moonless dinghy ride back to the boats very late on a Friday night.

Georgetown is where we will leave the boat while we head home for one more (final?) tax season. We found a lovely guest house in one of the hurricane holes that has moorings available for boat storage.  Kevali House will be home for Mañana until we return in March when we hope the winter winds have settled down and life will be just Another Day at the Beach.

Tom and Andrea 

Bahama Breezes

Cancel the alert!! All hands safe at sea. Our Gulf Stream crossing was a benign adventure with light winds and fairly comfortable seas. We left Fort Lauderdale late in the afternoon and sighted land the following morning at dawn. We had to putz around until daylight before we crossed from deep water into the Bahama banks, but then it was smooth sailing in shallow, turquoise waters until after noon. The Gulf Stream was as advertised… a river of water flowing north. In the early hours before dawn we needed to motor sail east lest we miss our landfall, but overall it was a pleasant trip. Our crew (Tom Hanna) and our pilot (Otto, as in autopilot) did most of the heavy lifting while I did most of the sleeping.

The Sea of Abaco comprises the northern most waters in the Bahamas (Eleuthera and the Exumas are to the south) and we were entering the Sea at its northwestern boundary. For three days we sailed to windward with overnight stops at well protected anchorages before reaching Green Turtle Cay where we would check in with Bahamas Customs. This was good sailing, and it was about the only time we sailed to windward on the entire trip.

The Sea of Abaco was possibly the best sailing we have ever experienced over a long period of time. We spent six weeks in the Bahamas (sailing only the northern and southern Sea of Abaco, but putting off the Exumas until next year) and except for a few days of rain we had the sails up the entire time. Most of our destinations were close together so that we could set sail in the morning and still reach a protected anchorage in the early afternoon. Our shallow draft catamaran was ideal for sailing in light winds and in waters that were frequently less than 8’ deep. We seldom had to worry about course or obstacles sailing over sand bottoms covered by clear, clear water, and because we were sailing inside the reefs in the Sea of Abaco the waters were generally calm with few waves. I thought Belize was good, but this was indeed the best extended sailing ever.                                      

You can’t beat the weather either (at least this time of year). Best ever weather for any of our sailing trips, not the hot humid weather we had been used to in the western Caribbean. We have had cool sleeping nights, warm sailing days, plenty of sunshine, and only occasional rains. We had one early sub- tropical storm move through the area with a tremendous amount of rain, but that was a very welcome rain that cleaned the boat and helped us to fill our water tanks. Yes, water is in short supply here

While the Bahamas were ideal for both weather and sailing we were less thrilled with the shore side attractions. I’m not sure that was the Bahamas’ fault. It is more that this area is so different from out previous stops in the Pacific and in the western Caribbean. English is the language here (along with some local patois) so we did not have to try to cope with our busted Spanish, but we did realize that using another language was part of the adventure of foreign travel. Also, because almost everything is imported into the Bahamas the prices were a little steep and bar tabs frequently required at least a couple of $20 bills. Certainly not the $1 rum of Guatemala, $2 beers of Panama or even the inexpensive boat drinks in Belize. Also, the Bahamas have very little history and native culture so this was not the exploring experience that we had found in the Mayan ruins of Mexico and Guatemala and the colorful native markets of Central America. Much of the Bahamas was settled by British Loyalists escaping the US after the revolutionary war and there were few settlers here even into the 1900’s.

There are LOTS of boats here, particularly in the southern Abaco towns of Hopetown and Marsh Harbor. There were many, many more boats than we were used to seeing on our travels. Canadian boats by the hundreds and many boaters from the US east coast flock to the Bahamas for the winter months, and because we are so close to Florida the power boats are more prevalent. We heard the area called “East Florida” more than once. What makes the Bahamas so popular for boaters is that it is “mini-cruising”. It is so easy to get here (a power boat can cross from Miami in 7 to 8 hours), so safe to be here (we never felt we had to lock the boat or worry about where we were walking), many protected anchorages, easy to check into with Customs, safe to drink the water, plenty of fishing (plenty of fish to eat), English spoken, US dollars in use, and great weather.

 
But it is hard to beat the scenery, the sand beaches, the amazingly clear, turquoise waters or the interaction with many very, very friendly Bahamaians. Teenagers saying “Yes, sir” and “thank you, sir” whenever we stopped to talk was surprisingly refreshing. We visited Hopetown and Marsh Harbour in the southern Abacos for a taste of the Bahamas ashore and we stopped at Great Guana and Little Harbor for their bars and barbeques. Nipper’s Sunday BBQ is renowned throughout the islands and Pete’s Pub in Little Harbor is as nice a beach bar as you will ever visit. We found nice snorkeling in several spots and in the northern Abacos the islands were much less crowded.

We did indeed lose track of time and found it hard to believe that six weeks had passed since we left Florida. We had planned to exit the Bahamas sailing south through Eleuthera and the Berrie Islands, but we got lost along the way (actually we got winds from the south) so we altered course and enjoyed several days of downwind sailing to the north before exiting the Bahamas and crossing to Cape Canaveral… but let’s save that for the next blog installment.

Tom and Andrea

What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been

It has been almost a year since we arrived in the US (in the Dry Tortugas off Key West), leaving behind the Western Caribbean sailing adventure for the more mundane “Florida experience”. To say that “not much” has happened in FL would be an understatement. We moved the boat from Ft Myers FL to GA in September, and we enjoyed some nice sailing and tropical anchorages in the Florida Keys along the way, but much of the trip was a motor trip along the Atlantic Coast. 

GA was a good choice for “storage” while we were at home, but it turned out that we were way too far north when the cold weather set in.  We flew back to the boat in December and immediately regretted our timing as we encountered an unusually cold cold spell for southern Georgia. Life aboard a catamaran is designed for the tropics, not the winter.  We have no heat and little hope of warming both hulls or the center cockpit. When we got back to the marina we did attend a very nice Bon Voyage party hosted by several Australians aboard Nootka Dancer who were celebrating getting off the docks after three years of repair work (Nootka Dancer headed for the Bahamas and sank shortly after the “Voyage” started), and we celebrated Christmas at Brunswick Landing Marina hosted by a great marina staff (thank you) before heading south to St Augustine, FL for some long delayed maintenance on our own boat.

We had not painted the bottom of the boat in almost 5 years and we were long overdue for a haul-out that would include bottom paint, polishing the hulls, servicing the engines and any of the hundreds of little projects that got put off while we were afloat. Unfortunately the balmy Florida temps that we had anticipated were non-existent and we spent much of January shivering at the beach. Okay, can’t fool us. We headed home for the rest of the winter, leaving the boat in St Augustine, figuring that late March would be a lot warmer.

NOT! On March 23 we flew in to much the same weather that we had left… cold! The boat was ready (great boatyard, St Augustine Boat Yard) so we splashed quickly and headed south just as fast  as we could.  Still we experienced cold day time temps and colder nights.  Finally, south of Cape Canaveral the weather warmed and we happily continued south towards Miami where we will set out to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas for a two month cruise in the islands.  Along the way we did happen to spot several Manatee.  In one spot at least a dozen of these huge, slow moving water elephants were lolling in the sun near the surface.  Manatee are protected here in FL and they seem to be flourishing.

Depending on how slow we move our Bahamas trip will take us to the Abacos and the Berry Islands and maybe Eleuthera and Exuma between now and early June. There are over 700 islands in the offshore chain of reefs, cays and islands that comprise the Bahamas. Only a fraction of these low lying islands are inhabited and the draw is white sand beaches, quiet anchorages, and quaint little towns with some very friendly people. The beer is expensive (otherwise everyone would want to live here) and the prospect of buying shower water at $.50 per gallon has us worried, but we will try to substitute a generous daily rum ration for both water and beer. We should survive.

It is Easter weekend and we are waiting patiently for favorable winds to cross the Gulf Stream.  The stream is like a very big ocean river that is 60 miles wide and moves south to north at about 2.5 knots. North winds are a no-no for the quick overnight passage so we wait.  The next blog should cover either (1) the very benign Gulf Stream crossing or (2) the harrowing Gulf Stream crossing.  Whichever, it will be an adventure. Happy Easter.

Tom and Andrea

The Forbidden Isle

No, I'm not paranoid, and no I do not think NSA is reading my e-mails (at least not all of them), but I did think twice about writing about our trip to Cuba this spring. At the moment Americans are only allowed to visit Cuba if they jump through some hoops related to getting permission to travel with journalistic, religious, and even "person to person" contact groups, but Americans still can't just up and visit Cuba even though citizens of every other country in the world can tour the Caribbean island. So when we reached Isla Mujeres in late April one of our decisions was whether would take advantage of the daily flights from Mexico to Cuba for a short visit to the "forbidden island". Being young and stupid we decided to go.  

We had allowed only four days to visit Cuba so we decided to spend all of our time in the city of Havana on the north shore of what is a surprisingly large island. I can tell you that we loved everything about the trip. Havana is a lively, pleasant, well kept, tourist friendly city, and we were lucky enough to be there for this year’s massive May Day celebration. All of the Cubans that we met were outgoing and friendly and appeared to genuinely enjoy life. The city architecture had both modern high rises as well as some of the most beautiful colonial restorations that we have seen, and the suburbs of the city were clean and attractive.

 

And the cars... everywhere there were brightly painted old American cars. The importation of US cars ended abruptly after the 1959 revolution and thousands of cars from the ‘40s and ‘50s are still in use. These are beautiful classic cars being used as cabs and private transportation throughout Cuba. When I was in high school my sister and I had a 1961 Corvair Monza, the not so classic car that Ralph Nader wrote about using the catchy title "Death at Any Speed". When we caught a taxi to the Jose Marti airport in Havana at the end of our trip the cab was a 1960 Corvair. The body was perfect, but the engine had been converted to a diesel many years ago.   

   

Many, many Cuban shops displayed a wide variety of art and handmade goods for sale and it was apparent that there is an abundance of artistic talent in Cuba. We saw bathtub art (yes, gaudily painted bathtubs), beautiful paintings, spray paint art, metal and wooden sculpture, leatherworks, etc. Even the aforementioned cars were a form of art painted in gaudy bright colors. Music (live and recorded) was everywhere and salsa bands and jazz combos played in many of the restaurants, parks, and public squares. The city had an entertaining and exciting vibration. Walking was in. We walked everywhere in the city exploring both the tourist zones and the residential and business areas, and we walked throughout Havana at all times of the day and night, in all kinds of neighborhoods, and never once felt threatened or uncomfortable.

  

We had arranged to stay in a "casa particular" during our visit rather than a hotel. The casas are private homes throughout the country that engage in a little capitalism (with government approval) by renting out rooms to visitors. Our casa was a narrow three story building in the middle of the city that had four bedrooms, three of which were available to tourists. The rooms were large and clean, and staying in a private home was another great way to meet Cubans. Note: When Castro took over in 1959 he first lowered all rents throughout Cuba and then he declared that all rental properties now belonged to the tenants. Revolutionary to say the least.

 

We discovered that two Cuban bars were the origin of some notable cocktails, the daiquiri at El Floridita and the mojito at El Bodeguita del Medio. (They also invented the Mary Pickford cocktail, but that didn't seem quite as impressive.) For a former bartender tracking down the "cradle of the daiquiri" or the "birthplace of the mojito" was akin to a religious pilgrimage so we spent several hours looking for the best of each cocktail in Havana. Ernest Hemingway is an iconic figure in Cuba and he apparently was present when all of these cocktails were invented, but I think he must have overpaid for his rum. If the bar claimed Hemingway drank there the rum usually cost twice as much as the bar next door. 

We had a few favorite restaurants (Spanish Social Club, Art Pub) and bars that we visited several times.  Many of the restaurants and hotels are run by the government tourist agency, and the employees are government employees, but we also found a number of privately owned establishments, a sign that capitalism was sometimes an attractive alternative to the state run businesses. 

  

The highlight of our trip (at least on a par with the mojitos) was the May Day parade. This is the equivalent of our Labor Day, a huge  celebration day in Europe and in many socialist countries honoring the workers of the world. In Cuba it has been an annual celebration of the socialist revolution long speeches and longer parades. We had hoped to hear Fidel Castro speak, but his health is failing and he did not appear at the celebration this year. The parade however was the largest we have ever seen or are likely to see again. We left our casa at 7 AM headed for Revolution Plaza. Along the way we saw scores of empty buses parked throughout the city that had been used to transport parade marchers to the plaza. As we neared the plaza we found a comfortable spot to watch the parade where we could also see the speakers platform. Masses of people filled the street near the podium waiting to march. But the entire parade covered only the one block in front of the platform. As soon as the marchers passed the reviewing stand they broke up and spread out. The parade was huge AND short. It was estimated that over 600,000 people marched in the parade, but the number of spectators was probably under 1,000. Everyone was a part of the march, participants not spectators, and the people we talked to were very proud to have been marching.

This is not to say that everything is perfect in Cuba. The Cuban economy is still struggling in the face of the American trade embargo and the collapse of the Russian state from which they had previously imported cheap oil and which provided markets for many Cuban goods. Rationing is still a fact of life in Cuba. Meat, milk, consumer goods, etc. are all rationed and are sometimes in short supply, and as in many major cities there are large areas of deteriorating buildings and apparent poverty (although both Andrea and I agreed that we have seldom felt safer in any city we have visited).

 

One of our first stops in the city was a barber shop where we both got quick cuts from a very talkative and friendly barber. He had many complaints about both Cuba and about Fidel, and we were surprised at how open he was with his criticism because we had thought that he would be more circumspect in the face of a socialist government. His major complaint after the state of the economy was that Cubans were not free to travel to other countries. In fact this was the most common complaint that we heard in Cuba. People were not particularly interested in leaving Cuba permanently, but almost everyone wanted to be able to visit other countries. They were also very excited to have visitors from the US.

Neither US dollars nor US credit cards can be used in Cuba so we needed to carry cash (Mexican pesos) for the trip. Cuba has two currencies in use: the Cuban peso (CUP), called "nationals", which are worth about a nickel and cannot be exchanged for other currencies, and the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) which is pegged to the dollar (go figure) and is exchangeable for Euros, Canadian dollars or Mexican pesos. Most of the shops selling food, milk, meat, vegetables, etc. accept the nationals while the tourist venues (bars, restaurants, hotels) only take the CUCs. Goods selling for nationals are heavily subsidized and are relatively inexpensive as we found out when we purchased a local beer for about $.40 (CUP) as opposed to the national beers that cost us about $2 (CUC). It also appeared that if you had CUCs you did not need the ration cards (La Libreta). Several times we were asked to buy milk or meat in the stores that required ration cards for Cubans but apparently not for tourists spending CUCs. 

Cuba is so close to the US and it is a shame that we continue a 50 year old feud with one of our nearest neighbors.  On the other hand the lack of American “culture” (fast food restaurants, chain stores, etc) is part of the charm of the island.  The beautiful colonial buildings, the restorations throughout the city, the old cars, the distinct lack of internet and cell phones, the creative art scene and the omnipresent music all serve to make Cuba a very attractive travel destination.

 

Would we visit Cuba again? Anytime. Even with all of the traveling we have done over the last several years we have seldom had as much fun or visited a more interesting place than Havana. We will recommend Cuba to everyone, and we hope we get another opportunity visit “the forbidden island”.

Tom and Andrea