Puerto Esperanza – Santa Lucia

So today I continued my trip solo. After I dropped off Maria at the bus station (in Vinales) I went to the place where the driver (that had given us a ride in the morning) was supposed to pick me up at 2. He was not on time, but I kept on waiting, thinking that timeliness was probably a little more flexible in Cuba. But at a quarter to three I gave up.

I walked to the end of the main street, where the road from Esperanza leaves. There was a lot of people there, one of the meeting points for hitch hikers. After handing around for a while I learned that there is a system to the whole thing. There is a man that hands out numbers (written on the back of cash register printouts or other paper), this is to ensure the order of boarding. There is a code on the paper for your destination. Some cars/trucks that pass by get stopped by a lady in uniform, she then talks to the driver. And later starts calling out the places where the vehicle is going to.

The vehicles could be anything, small passenger cars (old Chevrolet’s are good for 6 people, Lada’s are full with 5), trucks (for dirt or also plain flatbeds), or tractors with trailers. Sometimes there are older buses as well. The uniformed lady has a whistle, and apparently has some authority in this whole ordeal. I think that all government (or, in Cuba terminology, “the people of Cuba’s”) vehicles are supposed to stop at these places (you see them at the entrance roads of most towns) and give people a ride.

I just stood there hoping to not miss a ride to Puerto Esperanza, it took over an hour, then a pick up truck (of some older kind) stopped, and some people who I suspected were also going to Puerto Esperanza boarded. So I followed and climbed in the back. It was even equipped with a simple wooden bench. Luckily in the truck you are not exposed too the exhaust produced by it, this one was pretty bad. Especially going up some of the winding roads it was producing lots of black smoke (diesel engine). Everyone sits there and chit chats, the only took note of me presence when I took my camera out (to take a picture of the setting). But for the rest it was just a normal ride. Made it back to Puerto Esperanze in about an hour. Just before we got there the driver stopped, and walked around to collect money (15 Cuban pesos).

When I got to the dinghy dock, my outboard was not going to start. I tinkered with it for over an hour (including taking the carburetor apart), but no luck. So I had to row back to the boat, of course that was straight into a 15 knot wind. So it took a while. Once at the boat I reconnected the spark plug wire and used the magic contact spray. That seemed to do the trick (I think the flaky spark plug wire must have been the culprit).

This morning I did some tidying up of the boat. Putting everything in its place, and after repacking before Maria’s arrival, I had now created a little more space for storage of the loose items that always stay around. After the dishes I went to the Guarda Frontera’s office. Dinghy started after the application of contact spray. At the Guarda Frontera they had me wait, while they called “el Capitan”. I think I interrupted his breakfast, but he was courteous as always. I explained (ahum) that I was going to leave for Santa Lucia. That caused a confusing situation where I think he was asking me if he should come on board by the dinghy, or if I could bring the boat to the dock. Either way would have worked for me (I was going to pack up the dinghy anyway) but I did not manage to bring that message across, nor did I manage to be sure about what he was exactly trying to say to me.

“El Capitan” signed my paperwork (the cruising permit) and then he came with me in the dinghy. Amazingly, the outboard started right away (wow…. would have been something to have el Capitan sit there for half an hour while I was taking the engine apart). This guys was the first Cuban official that showed some seamanship when boarding the dinghy or the boat, he was even helpful with holding the line properly and pushing of at the right time. He looked around on the boat and said it was all ok. I dropped him back of at the dock (outboard started at first pull again…. this was going to be a masterful day).

Then I spent almost an hour packing up the dinghy. Used the whisker pole to pull it on deck, and got it rolled up to its nice compact package. Left just before eleven, the only thing I had forgotten in my preparation routine was the swim ladder, but that was corrected quickly. The main was within a half mile from the anchor location, and of I was backtracking over the shallows to the deeper water outside the reef. There I unfurled the jib, and on main and jib I was making good speed. Until the wind freshened till 20+ knots and I had to put in a reef. This went pretty good, I am getting better at it. This made for better handling of the boat, and I was able to also hoist the stay sail. We were doing a good 6 knots, even with the reef. This was mostly half wind, more or less paralleling the wall (where the water goes from 10 meters to a few 100s real quickly).

Reached the outside buoy for Santa Lucia right before three and started lowering sails. Had to motor the last 4-5 miles straight into the wind, at first maxing out at about 4 knots, but the closer I got the less waves and the more speed I was making.

When I arrived at the dock there was one Guarda Frontera waiting, the dock was to leeward, and I only managed to get him the spring line before the wind blew me away from the dock. But, he was pretty practical, and with a little effort and patience of both of us we finally managed to moor alongside the big docks here (think they use it for (un)loading of gravel/dirt of sorts). Paper work was the usual stuff, he asked me a few questions, some I understood and could answer, others lead to plenty of confusion, but we worked it out. After the paper work was all done he came back one more time: I had told him I was going to stay for 2 days, taking my bicycle for a ride on Sunday. But he had understood that I was going to stay in Pinar del Rio overnight. That was not allowed (someone has to be on board). Of course they explain that I should be concerned about someone stealing my boat, though their primary concern might be that a Cuban might take it across to the US. Either way, once I explained that I would be on board every night that problem got cleared.

It is a quarter past 6, think I am going to take a quick shower outside (using my improvised sun shower) and then head into town to take a peek at what it has to offer (my expectations are not too high, Esperanza managed to set them pretty low).

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