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

Isla Mujeres

Isla Mujeres has turned out to be one of our best stops on this long sail from California to Florida. The island is a “relatively” quiet resort town just a ferry ride away from the gaudy hotels of Cancun. There is a bustling “no cars” little street through the middle of town that is lined with shops, bike rentals, restaurants, and bars, and the beaches are crowded with day trippers from the big hotels across the bay. Everyone seems to be having a good time here. Once you get out of the town there are many small resorts and guest houses, more bars, and lively, local restaurants. We found music every night in tropical settings, and we met people who were vacationing here for the 5^th, 6^th, 15^th year in a row. That is pretty impressive that so many people would choose to return multiple times to the same place.

      

Isla Mujeres is also a great place from which to explore the Yucatan peninsula. We rented a car for a trip around the Yucatan and visited the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, Ek Balam and Tulum. All were different, and all were truly impressive in their own way. Chichen Itza was the largest and most complete ruins we had seen in our travels that have included Tikal in Guatemala and Copan in Honduras. We had overnight stays in the towns of Valladolid and Tulum, and we got a chance to visit several of the waterfront towns that we had missed while sailing north. Puerto Morales was a pleasant, quiet, seaside town just north of its more famous neighbor Playa del Carmen. Playa del Carmen and Cancun are much too big to be considered “attractive”, but the tourists sure do like both of those cities.

 

   

We discovered a few favorite bars in Isla including the Soggy Peso and the Bahia Tortuga (we tried several others since we do a lot of comparison shopping in this category). We met the owner of the Soggy Peso (he readily admitted he usurped the name of the famous Soggy Dollar 0n Jost Van Dyke) whose goal was to build a tiki bar in his back yard for his friends and ended up with a crowded, laid back oasis. He served only one item each day (BBQ on Sunday, shrimp tacos on Friday, Cheeseburgers on Monday, etc) along with large drinks and very cold beers, and he was always full. His bartenders and cooks were a big part of the business, and everyone was ALWAYS happy at the Soggy Peso. The Bella Villa Resort got our attention with the sign that said “Beer so cold it will make your teeth hurt”.

 

Isla Mujeres was also the stepping stone for our trip to Cuba (via 707), but check the next blog for a separate narrative of our trip to Havana. The Forbidden Isle is just 120 miles (and a short flight) from Cancun and we jumped at the chance to see Fidel’s little corner of the world while we were this close.

   

Isla Mujeres has much to see and do, but for us the primary purpose was the safe harbor where boats heading towards the US wait for favorable weather before crossing the Gulf of Mexico. Key West is a four day sail, New Orleans about five days, and Houston close to six days sailing. Since the prevailing winds are from the east it is important to take advantage of the gentler winds of May and June for a comfortable (safe) crossing. We got crew (George and Pixie from Silver Sea) to join us in Isla, and we waited patiently until our weather guru said “jump”. On a beautiful, bright morning we sailed out of Isla Mujeres, past the sandy beaches on the north end of the island headed for either Key West or Ft Myers, Florida. We didn’t care. We only wanted to sail to whichever was easiest to get to given the winds and currents. On the morning of the third day we looked good (albeit tired) and we thought Ft Myers would be reachable before dark on the next day. But we hailed a passing sailboat for a weather update and were told that the weather window had closed down early, and that we needed to run for protection from an oncoming blow. We changed course and headed due east for the safety of the Dry Tortugas. We arrived at dark and found our way into the anchorage just as the winds picked up with the approaching front.

 

The Dry Tortugas are two small islands barely above sea level that were home to Ft Jefferson, an old army fort that is most famous for housing Dr. Samuel Mudd who was convicted of treason for setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth after the Lincoln assassination. Other than the restored fort there is nothing there or, rather, there is no there there. We ended up sitting off Ft. Jefferson through five days of 25 to 30 knot winds unable to sail either north to Ft Myers or east to Key West. Even with the winds this was a pretty place to be, and we did get to tour the fort, but we were just bored. We did finally bolt from the Tortugas to Ft. Myers at the first opportunity, and after another overnight sail we are now comfortable and happy here in south Florida. It is sort of like arriving home (even though Florida is certainly not home) because this is the first time the boat has been in the US since we left San Diego back in May 2007. Wow! Has it been that long?

 

Mea Culpa x 2

We spent 6 weeks in California from late Feb to April 1 trying to restock the sailing kitty and all anyone asked about our trip was “What Happened to the Boat? Did it sink?  Can you sail again?”  Seems like I painted a pretty bleak picture of the damage and then forgot to let everyone know that we had finally repaired EVERYTHING. The boat was in great shape minus a few light fixtures that we would purchase in CA and that would be replaced when we returned in April.  Better than great shape because all of the down time while we were having hatches sealed and fiberglass fiberglassed and teak polished had also allowed me to find plenty of time for those small repairs that keep getting put off when either the sun is shining OR the rain is falling. We managed to leave the river in mid-January, and we got four beautiful weeks sailing in Belize before we headed home for tax season.  The boat was flawless, everything working properly, everything ship shape. I guess I should have mentioned that. So the first Mea Culpa is to apologize for not getting everyone up to date with a timely e-mail/blog post way back in January.

The second Mea Culpa is because I did it again… the “left Belize and forgot to write an e-mail” part.  We returned to Belize on April 1 (see note about the “flight” below), spent another sun filled three weeks enjoying Placencia, Yoli’s, Tutti Frutti, the many island cays along the off shore reef, and finally our favorite stop in Belize, Cay Caulker. Most of those stops are noted in the previous blogs from Belize. We just decided that the pace and the place wanted us to visit all of them again.  I am writing this note in Mexico on the Isla Mujeres near Cancun where we just finished a three day passage north from Belize.

Our early April flight from the US was to Cancun, Mexico because (a) it was cheap and (b) it would give us a chance to check out Isla Mujeres by land before we sailed there on the way to Florida.  Good stop.  Isla is a tourist island that is a little less overwhelming than the rows of hotels in Cancun.  Only a few streets, small hotels, good restaurants and bars and several welcoming marinas where we can leave the boat while we explore inland. During our first short visit we enjoyed good Mexican food, mariachis, margaritas, etc.  Just like home. If you get a chance to vacation in Mexico I will highly recommend Isla Mujeres as a destination.

We had planned to save a buck as well as add to the adventure by taking the overnight bus from Cancun to Belize City and then flying on to Placencia where we had left the boat for five weeks. The question was raised (over cocktails) whether we really wanted to spend all night on a Mexican bus (albeit a nice Mexican bus) that would leave Cancun at 10 PM and arrive Belize City at 6 AM.  All things considered we quickly answered “no”. But we were in luck.  Tropic Air (a Belize airline) had recently instituted a new flight service from Cancun to Belize City.  One flight a day, small plane, a lot faster.  The next morning we tried to make a reservation for the afternoon flight but for some reason no reservations could be made less than 24 hours in advance. Persistence, I said. We’ll simply go to the airport and “hope” we can get on the flight which would leave in about two hours. We checked out of the hotel, caught the ferry from Mujeres to Cancun, cab to the bus station, bus to the airport, and arrived with about a half hour to spare.  Yes, we could fly, the plane is landing now, better hurry is what we heard.  Of course “no credit cards can be accepted.  Do you have cash?”  Hmm.  What have we gotten into? 

Now the good part.  The service was spectacular.  The Tropic Air agent, who we had to track down while he was on his break (one flight a day and he gets a break?) sold us a ticket, hand carried our passports to immigration, loaded our bags in the screener, carried the bags to the plane, and then directed the plane to the runway with frantic hand signals. He was a one-man ground crew so no wonder he needed a break. Also… we were the only passengers on the flight.  Pilot, co-pilot, Tom, Andrea. No one else.  Strictly first class even though we had to sit on separate sides of the plane to balance the load. I said it was a small plane. Good luck, good flight, good  experience.

 

  

The boat had weathered the shorter storage period much better than the last misadventure, and we were off the dock and sailing in less than 24 hours. Friends were located via radio and another sailing season was underway for Mañana. We were reluctant to leave Belize, but moving north this spring was our goal, so we meandered our way through Belize from Placencia to Cay Caulker. Then we sailed out of Cay Caulker one morning at 6 Am to catch a good weather window for the 240 mile sail to Isla Mujeres.  If 240 miles doesn’t seem like a lot remember that we “try” to average  5 miles per hour sailing.  That’s about the speed of a slow bike trip. Despite our watching all of the weather reports available to us we still got hit with some pretty heavy weather early in the trip with 6 foot seas, 20 knot winds, and breaking waves on bow.  Also, our previously perfect boat had a minor malfunction when the autopilot just up and died meaning we would hand steer the entire trip and get much less rest during the night. But when the winds settled down so did the seas and we had a pleasant night and a gorgeous second day before reaching a small anchorage near Cozumel, Mexico.  We stopped, rested and the next day we sailed the final 7 hours in strong winds tacking our way to Isla Mujeres.  It is still our first day here, but the anchorage is both lively and well protected. There are many sail boats anchored here waiting to depart for ports both north and south. There is also the tremendous hustle and bustle of Easter week vacationers on the sightseeing and snorkeling tour boats going back and forth through the harbor. It is a big week in Mexico and we are happy to be here. We will stop here for at least two weeks to explore the area and rest for the much longer sail to Florida. Now if we can only find a new autopilot for that trip we’ll be really happy.

 

  

 

Tom and Andrea

 

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Where’s Tom?

I don’t want anyone to think that our sailing adventures each year are anything but idyllic cruises through tropical waters, paradise on the seas. On the other hand we have had some periodic setbacks on what is now a seven year trip from San Diego through Central America to Panama, the canal transit, and then an adventurous sail north through the Columbian islands, Honduras, Belize and Guatemala. It’s been a great trip, however I will admit that right now we are in the middle of one of those “setbacks”. This is not the cruise from hell because so far we haven’t been able to cruise anywhere… yet.

The trip started benignly enough with a red-eye into Guatemala the first week in December. If you look back in the blog you will find that I “swore” we would never do another red-eye to anywhere, but we forgot. We were dead tired when we reached Guatemala City and still had a long bus ride ahead of us. We were sitting in the bus station waiting for the overland portion of the trip, when a guy walks through the city bus terminal with his three goats. We thought it was good fortune smiling on us when we realized he was not looking for our bus, but five hours and a short boat ride later we were back aboard Mañana to discover what happens when good fortune is not smiling.

Over the summer we had sprung a small leak in one of the hatches over our berth. In this country a small leak means a lot of water (it rains about 350 inches per year). Some time during the 200 inches of rain they had from June to November we had accumulated about 30 gallons of water in the port hull of our catamaran. The damage was stupefying. The water had first accumulated on our bunk destroying the mattress, and then it soaked into the woodwork at both ends of the bed and into the side wall liner and the overhead. I won’t even mention the condition of the floor. It was total destruction, wood rot, black mold, mildew. Water also seeped into the cabinets under the bed and rotted all of the clothing and linens stored there. Finally, it appears that a repetitive process of evaporation during warm spells and condensation during cool spells had spread water vapor throughout the hull that eventually buckled all of the wood veneer and destroyed any cushions that had not been under the leak itself. We were floored. The hull was uninhabitable and would require a lot of repair work.

 

But it’s a boat. It happens. The repair process got off to a good start, and we are fortunate to be in a place where labor is cheap and workmanship is good. Cushions have already been made to replace those in the port hull as well as the cockpit/salon cushions that had also been stored in that hull. As a bonus we are replacing all of the cushions in the starboard hull so that they will match, and from that point of view the boat will be better than ever. But no wood veneer is available in Guatemala so after a week long drying out process we opted to fiberglass the interior of the port hull rather than replace the wood. We got a good price, promises of fast work, and started tearing out the old, in with the new, and away we go! Fixed in no time at all…  

But this is Christmas week (ho-ho-ho) so while we thought we would be sailing by the first week of January we had not counted on the 5 days off in each week for both Christmas and New Year’s. My workers put in 2 days in the past 12. So far all of the work seems to have involved fiberglass, in particular fiberglass grinding and fiberglass resins. There is dust everywhere (try to expand your concept of “everywhere” when considering this) and enough intoxicating resin fumes to hold a psychedelic party. The woodwork repairs to the cabinets will come next. In the meantime we are trying to live completely in one hull along with all of our gear, new cushions, clothes bins, anchors, etc. Crowded is the word that comes to mind. Since work is now scheduled to run to “at least” January 15 my first mate has abandoned ship, though I can hardly blame her, and I am a solo sailor…so to speak. Andrea was scheduled to fly home for four days in late January to get some accounting work done for the farm so she went early, plans to stay late, and will let the captain deal with the mess by himself for the two weeks. Still the repairs went well if a bit slowly.

I watched the work, polished the boat, read, socialized, had lunches on the river and dinners at the marina, and generally did nothing each day in a very tropical setting. There are worse ways to spend the time. Howler monkeys great me each morning, last night we had an large anteater in a tree right outside the bar, and our resident heron spent the day wrestling with a small snake. The snake was clever enough to wrap itself around the heron’s beak every time the big bird tried to swallow it, and the entertainment lasted for quite a while. The boat is stern to the wide river and each evening the fishermen set their nets across the river starting just behind the boat and then collect them again in the early AM. Morning coffee has me watching other boats move along the river headed out to Honduras and Belize and points further along. It’s a good life, but I’d rather be sailing.