Cabin Boy Blog
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Mon 1 Jun 2009 12:25
|
A note from Garrison:
"21:53.3N 81:48.0W"
Heylo,
Despite the ever-friendly mosquitoes, I've
survived my first weekish on Blue Sky.
Readers might be interested to learn of
my Camaguey-Cienfuegos journey. It was no challenge - not after I learned that
stuttered Spanish and paper bribes (my copy of Crime and Punishment)
make Lucero the customs man happy. But it was epic:
Alfredo & his taxi & his pink
bear mirror ornament picked me up outside the Camaguey 'airport'. I
was not sure about the bear - it talked little and made me uncomfortable - but
the driver became a friend. He and his oso gave me
a fruitless paid ride to the bus terminal - the bus I wanted to
take to Cienfuegos did not exist.
My new friend, however, volunteered to
freely help me find a way to Cienfuegos. He gave
me an informal tour of Camaguey which ended at a pay phone. He called
several of his friends for me, and it transpired that he knew two men going to
Cienfuegos the following morning whom I might hitch with.
I did hitch with them, but only by luck: It
was necessary to meet the men at three a.m., and I was staying at a hotel -
Alfredo's recommendation - and they kept no night staff and gave
no wake up calls (though they happily agreed to give me one). I woke with luck
at 3.15 and ran screaming to the hitching rendezvous - the men were just
departing.
I rode with them for 150 or so miles in
the Cuban countryside. They were not garrulous. One focused on the road with
worrisome intensity, and the other sat silently in a wiry way that made me
think he was a dentist.
We drove on highways similar to
American interstates, save for the amount of cars - that was more similar to a
country road at midnight, even after dawn. We drove through several small towns;
in each we apparently tried to mow down as many passers-by as possible by
swaying quite randomly from one curb to the other.
We finally weaved to Cienfuegos, where I was
dropped the 'centre of town.' A fair bit of wandering led me to 'Blue
Sky' & the marina, where I enjoyed a wonderful breakfast and a safe
arrival.
and a note from the Editor...
after this literary epic we attempted to
sell (well, give away actually) Garrison to some Cuban fishermen to help catch
lobsters -
 - though obviously he wasn't any good at it
as they returned him later, though with a bucket of lobsters to compensate us
for the trouble.
And finally, the position associated to this
blog is Nueva Gerona on the Isla de Juventud as far west as we made it in Cuba.
Now we're back at Cayo Largo, preparing to make use of a decent trade wind to
sail south to Grand Cayman tomorrow (2nd June) arriving on 3rd
June.
best wishes
George, Michael and Garrison
|