Lyn's Log, 5th March 2007
Havana, Part 1

Havana, Cuba.
N23º05', W82º30'
13,347 miles.

Tuesday 20th February we motored out from behind the reefs. By midnight we were only seven miles from Marina Hemingway, on the edge of Havana. The winds had strengthened so that the sea was not as calm as we would have liked for entering the marina in the dark, as the entrance is notoriously tricky. So we made a wise decision to wait offshore until daylight. Then we headed for the position of the crucial outer entrance buoy and could not find it. We got a reply from the marina informing us that the buoy was missing. The sea was now calm with no breakers over the coral, and entry through the narrow gap was not a problem, especially as the other marker buoys were in position. Clearance in with the customary search took an hour or so. We had to hand over our distress flares as they were ‘explosives’. Then we were mooring alongside in canal number two with our own personal metered water, electricity supply, and rubbish bin. Several security guards had positions along the canal and constantly wandered up and down during the day and night, checking on us. The dockmaster was friendly, speaking good English. He told us there would be no problem with Barry visiting the yacht.

Our visa ran out two days later so we had to get an extension. This needed some revenue stamps which apparently could only be bought at a bank on the other side of Cuba. Larry, a Canadian yachtie who visited Cuba regularly, confirmed the location of a bank and surprisingly we had no difficulty obtaining them.

But before this we had successfully made contact with Barry, meeting him as he arrived at his hotel in Havana. Even though he planned to stay on the yacht, Cuban regulations insist that tourists book into a hotel. First thing was to drink a Mojito together. This cocktail is made by crushing some fresh mint with sugar and limejuice in a tumbler, adding ice and filling up the glass with white rum topped with sparkling water. It seems to be Cuba’s national drink.

We spent the weekend being tourists in Old Havana, wandering the streets and stopping at cafes, just getting the feel of the place. It felt we had been transported back in time to the 1950’s. Many of the crumbling apartment buildings had ancient doorways opening onto communal courtyards, with concrete steps leading to the upper apartments. One evening we sat in a restaurant with one of these inner, shady courtyards. The surrounding louvered doors and window shutters, partly open showing ceiling fans and sparsely furnished rooms, the peeling painted concrete walls and vines hanging overhead, made us feel we were sitting in an old movie set. Out in the streets were many American cars from the 1950’s,often kept in pristine condition, and used as taxis. It is difficult for the Cubans to afford the petrol without tourist fares.

When we wanted a taxi we would wait at the roadside to see what came along. There were a few taxi ‘companies’ (though all are state run) which seemed differentiated by the quality of the cars being operated. These had meters, but we didn’t trust them and preferred to negotiate the price before travel. The smarter cars charged more. There were also older cars, not with a company name but with a taxi sign somewhere. We found these to be cheaper, but suspected that they are not actually licenced to take tourists. Some of them, especially the large Chevrolets, were ‘collective’ taxis, picking up several people along a route and dropping off where required for a few local pesos for the locals and a couple of CUCs for us tourists. This was the cheapest way to travel but the cars had no upholstery and the springs pushing through the seats. They were also usually full, but everyone was very friendly. Sometimes a private car would stop to give us a lift and we would agree a price and pay up before reaching the destination so that the police would not see us paying a driver as we got out of his car. There were police on many of the road junctions and it is possible that taxis had to keep to designated routes. Once when we were in a taxi, the driver began to take a route down a side-street and was stopped and questioned for a long time by the police before having to retrace his steps back to the original road.

We visited the Capitolio, a large building that appeared to be perched on top of a lot of steps and had a large dome on top. It was full of magnificent rooms with painted ceilings and marble floors, many of which were used for conferences and government meetings. Behind this was a cigar factory we tried to visit, but it was closed. The nearby Revolution Museum gives a blow by blow account of Castro’s revolutionary war and the history of his regime, with many newspaper cuttings and pictures, but was very one-sided and full of anti-US propaganda. In one section CIA agents were blamed for introducing dengue fever, AIDS, tobacco mosaic virus and other diseases into Cuba! Outside, encased in a glass building, was the motorboat ‘Granma’ in which Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and another 80 revolutionaries sailed from Mexico to a beach in the southeast of Cuba, supposedly in secret, but they were ambushed and nearly all were captured or killed. Fidel and Che, of course, escaped. The motorboat was built to carry 20 people, so we expect they were feeling pretty much dead on arrival anyway.