Stardate V in Cuba
[written by WIllem H Eickholt, january, 2006]
We're now sailing due North and pointing
as high as the boat will move comfortably and swiftly. I know that we will
be unable to make the Windward Passage on Cuba's
Eastern tip without tacking, so we head for Grand Cayman instead. The ride
is still comfortable and on June 1 we drop anchor.
Grand Cayman is just a one day stop. We are now getting anxious to get to
our main destination Cuba, but Cayman is good enough for some phone calls
home a conch dinner and a ride along the famous seven mile beach. Otherwise
Cayman Island is as flat as Florida and as boring as an inflight magazine.
On June 4 we make our landfall at the Montego Bay Yacht Club on Jamaica's
North Shore. The Yacht Club offers phone, shower and food services, a well
protected little harbor and an almost British colonial atmosphere. We're only
staying a few days but we're having a great time with the Happy go Lucky marijuana
smoking locals. But the market place is too scary for my crew, they come back
emptyhanded afraid to be robbed, molested or worse. US Citizens are the least
welcome tourists. Good only for their money. Lucho and I go instead to buy
the necessary food. We smile our way throught the mobs of stoned ruffians,
buy our produce and make our way home aboard a taxi driven by an equally stoned
chauffeur. Back at the Yacht Club we confessed our reservations about the
Market place to the crew.
It was in Montego Bay that Big Ed began to act differently. He became irritable,
sometimes withdrawn and depressed. What he had looked forward to: to visit
Cuba suddenly didn't seem to interest him anymore. After some prying on my
part he opened up. The lady he had met shortly before our departure from Seattle
had given him the cold shoulder by phone when he had called her from Panama,
the Caymans and now from here in Jamaica. The break-up was now definite and
he was heart broken. For the rest of the voyage we would have to live with
a big man acting like an
adolescent and I would have an opportunity to practice some homemade psychiatry
on Big Ed who suddenly didn't seem so big any more.
Two days later we sail into Cuban territorial waters and motor East along
the Sierra Maestra towards Santiago de Cuba. We are close to the place where
Fidel Castro had beached his trawler "Granma" to liberate the Cuban
people from the US supported dictator Batista back in 19....
The Seattle Times would later publish my experiences of that moment and our
subsequent landfall.
Surely, there should be patrol boats.shadowing our every move, but there are
none.
The only traffic is a lonely fishing boat its crew waving us a warm welcome.
But no Coast Guard, No Navy, No harbor master, No Customs service and No Immigration.
This is a country in the middle of a cold war and an outpost of the Evil Empire.
And it has no defence? If it puzzles me it surely has my crew worried. I have
tried radio contact several times but received no response. I wonder if I
should stop and wait for permission to proceed or continue slowly to show
that we are seriously interested in visiting the country. I decide to proceed
against the protests of my crew. and point Stardate into a narrow channel
connecting the Bay of Santiago to the Caribbean Sea.
Above us on a steep cliff hangs a large 16th Century Fort built by the Spaniards
to control all traffic in or out of Santiago Bay. Only now it is the Cuban
tri -color streaming proudly in the breeze, not the Spanish flag.
Moving slowly towards Santiago and still without any sign of authority, I
am getting a bit concerned and my crew is close to mutiny. They fear getting
blown out of the water, or being arrested and thrown in a Cuban jail to rot.
I share my concern with them but tell them that their fear is totally unfounded
and downright silly. Why would Cuba attack an English boat while England is
one of its the biggest trading partners and shows no hostility towards Cuba
at all???
But the US crew remains ill at ease. The anti Soviet indoctrination is working
well. Words alone cannot dispel their deep seated fear . Then, in a bend of
the channel, a fast moving row of boats approach us. Up front is a military
looking patrol boat. It cuts away from the row and heads our way. My crew
looks pale, they are convinced something terrible is going to happen. The
patrol boat slows down and a uniformed man with a bullhorn tells us to go
ahead and that he will join us later to direct us to a
dock. Then the boat speeds away again to take its place in fron of a German
sailboat which apparently is being escorted out of the harbor.The crew relaxes
a little now.and we all wonder what it is that we are witnessing. Never before
had we seen a pleasure craft being escorted out of a harbor by the authorities.
Was this Cuban courtesy or was the German boat ordered out for some unknown
reason. We would never know the answer. Soon the patrol boat made it back
and instructed us to follow it towards a commercial dock. The pilings were
filthy with tar and creosote, it was certainly no place for a white hulled
pleasure boat to tie up to. We wrapped tarps around the pilings to keep the
hull as clean as possible then tied our fenders between the pilings and the
boat. By that time we were thoroughly exhausted and had no other desire than
to stretch out, have a beer and get a shower. But the bureaucrats had other
ideas or instructions. In no time at all our main saloon was filled with officialdom.
They were nice, offered to take their shoes off and happily joined us for
a cold beer.
The temperature in the saloon must have been over 100 Fahrenheit. The stench
of 10 or 12 sweating bodies in this small space is too much for 10 roaring
fans. When one of the uniformed officials announces that he must search the
boat we all get out of the way to make room for the search party. Do we have
fire arms they want to know,
do we have drugs, do we have pornography on board. No, we have none of that.
And then the search begins.
Each of the four cabins is thoroughly inspected. Drawers opened and closed,
doors opened and closed, mattresses lifted and put down.Nothing is overlooked
and an hour later we have a clean bill of health. But what is the matter with
Lucho, our Equadorian crew member? Normally he is always busy always moving
always talking
But he has been sitting in a corner of the saloon as if he wasn't feeling
well. Even during the search he had not moved from his corner until the last
Cuban official had left the saloon.
We worry a bit about this very unusual behaviour and ask him. Then he gets
up and unveils a stack of video cassettes.The crew is in awe, nobody but Lucho
had thought about the Xrated videos somebody had brought onboard, so he had
sat on them for the duration of the inspection without ever moving. Even the
Cuban inspector had not bothered to disturb him , And so thanks to Lucho our
video collection had been rescued.
When the last uniformed official leaves the boat he tells us that nobody can
leave the boat until all paperwork is completed. Tomorrow the Health Department
and the Tourism Department will come and see us. Until then everybody is to
stay aboard.
A guard will keep us safe and aboard.
This is a terrible blow. The boys have had plans for days to paint the town
once we dock in Cuba. Now they would have to spend the evening on a hot boat.
I can see a very unpleasant situation developing. 3 Pouting sailors blaming
me for their imprisonment. I call the official back, offer him some cushions
to sit comfortably in the cockpit and give him another beer. Beer is sheer
luxury for the average Cuban and we always made instant friends by offering
visitors a cool one. I could see the man unwind and relax. " Look, I
said in my best Spanish, " my crew has had a pretty rough day. They need
some relaxing and they have been looking forward to this evening. I know you
have rules to go by but if they could just stay out until midnight, I would
personally assure you that they'd be back at that time . I will stay aboard
and stay in touch with the boys with the VHF to remind them of the curfew".
The nice man clearly wants to accomodate us but breaking the rules may jeopardize
his job.
" You promise to have the guys back by twelve?" "Absolutely"
I say while looking him straight in the face and shaking his hand. He believes
me; the crew is off the hook. 15 Minutes later I am alone on the boat trying
to clean up the mess that 12 beer drinking guys had left behind. An armed
guard walks up and down the dock, supposedly for our protection. Perhaps we
don't know what danger is threatening us.
He too is a nice guy and after a cool beer he is even nicer. Cause even the
nights are steamy and hot in Santiago de Cuba in June.
To be continued.