cuba at last

Right Turn
Mike Goldsmith & Kate Richmond
Sat 31 Dec 2011 01:00

Caught a big tuna first thing this morning so we have 4 dinners in the bag. The wind having come back in, we anchored in Cayos de la Lena having sailed overnight from Havana The bloke in Hemingway marina said this spot was beautiful – he was wrong!

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Just as we were coming in to the bay, Mike tripped on something on deck and tore the upper part of his little toe including the entire nail. Flapping off, lots of blood – not a pretty sight. On recovering his fall he leant all his weight on the spray hood, which promptly tore along the seam! Botch repair of foot with bandage and duct tape and spray hood with duct tape. Tried to do proper temporary repair on spray hood with duct tape – which didn’t look like it was going to hold and a bit better repair of Mike’s foot. At which point, motorboat approaches and drops young Guarda off onto RT. He doesn’t have any English so “Ban vicitor Maria La Gorda” could mean various things. Do we have to go to Maria? Must we not go to Maria? Do we want to go to Maria? Turns out it’s the latter option. No. That’s ok then apparently! When are we leaving? Lots of miming – Manana!- that’s one we do know. Lobster dinner. First anchorage we’ve got to where we could swim except Mike cant cos of his foot and I cant cos of my arm!

 

Decide to get the sewing machine out from under our bed as the spray hood duct tape repair has failed – in doing so, Mikes dressing comes off his foot! We repair his foot properly with steri strips, dressing, a finger-stool and one green sock. Not a great look but medically less embarrassing!

 

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Bread making skills improving and the last of the lobster was delish!

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Approached by a boat, Turns out they wanted to sell us 6 lobster! Didn’t want money, just rum or coffee or beers. They were disdainful of our half bottle of rum; we didn’t think they’d like our instant coffee either, so they had 6 beers of Mikes stash! The lobsters were still alive, so at least we knew they were fresh. Mike snapped the heads off and the tails are preserved in the washing-up bowl till they  stop twitching so I can freeze them! 

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 The pilot book says there’s a monkey sanctuary here with a few crocs and some iguanas. Got the dinghy inflated and went ashore. 3 guys there who have 1 monkey with a collar and long leash and that’s about it! We think we understood that the iguanas don’t come out of the forest till about 4.30pm to be fed, so we took a short stroll. 2 of the guys dashed off in their boat to retrieve a big lobster – did we want it? Freezer still full of lobster, felt bad not swapping it with them but there’s only so much lobster a girl can eat! Motored back to the sheltered side of the bay, preferring sundowners to iguanas! Bread making still not perfected but improving!

 

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Couple of naked guys – not ugly- playing in the shallows made my day!

 

Happy 40th to Tanya, sorry to be missing your bash!

 

 Anchored off a rock with a spaceship lighthouse. Watched a guy snorkelling being towed by a dinghy, stopped every few yards to reach down for some lobsters. We gave up counting them after 20 or so!

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Lumpy journey to Cienfuegos that has resulted in the bowthruster not working by the time we got to the marina. 3 gents from the Guarda, and not sure where else, on board to fill in another 4 forms. Happily for them they didn’t ask for any tips!  There’s a boat from Hobart beside us who found a rat had got on board in the evening, luckily still above deck. They spent about an hour hitting the cover it was under until it finally got frightened enough to jump ship. As a result we spent the night battened down so it wouldn’t come onto ours! To try and find the cause of the bowthruster problem Mike took the forward cabin apart to find the 2 forward locker compartments both had water in them. He figured out that the anchor locker drain had got bunged with mud. So we bailed out and wiped down and detached the drain and rodded it through. Loads of sand came out and now the thruster works if you want to turn left!

 

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Mike starts work on the thruster, finding the elec connection was full up with water. Replaces connections and, hey presto, it works left and right. He’s so clever.  Into town in the afternoon by horse and cart and back by bike taxi. Found a great cigar and rum shop where we bought a big fat cigar for Will. Found a fab wooden salsa lady for T’s 40th. 

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Poor Adventure Bound now has more than 1 rat on board! Lots of discussion with harbour master re poison and so on, but they left for Cartegna around lunchtime and took Roland and his family with them!

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Went to change some money at the local Cadeca stall, the booth was locked when we got there but we could hear a couple of women talking in there so assumed lunch break would be over soon. Security bloke turns up from up the road unlocks the low metal gates, rolls up the window shutter and the 2 ladies spring into action. They must have been sitting, locked in the booth in the dark, for an hour but didn’t seem to realise how funny it looked when he unlocked them! To get the Christmas spirit into Mike we put up the Xmas decs but it still doesn’t seem to have the desired effect on him Christmas guest, Ronsleigh’s cabin’s all ready and we are off to Havana tomorrow to get her.

 

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Taxi turns up almost on time and we drive for 3 hours to Havana where Rons has booked the fancy Hotel Melia Cohiba for all of us for 2 nights. (There’s hot water in the showers, yippee!)  It's great to see Ronsleigh, Santa’s arrived as she stopped off at Hannah's on way to Cuba! Walked up to Decamerons, a paladare – privately owned restaurant, for delicious supper and wine and cocktails that came to about £13 a head.

 

Into Vieja Havana where we dodged  jinteros (touts) who were mostly polite enough to take the first No thanks, and dived into the old streets to do the Lonely Planet guide's suggested walking tour route. It took us via loads of interesting places – like the Camera Obscura, wherever there is one – they never cease to amaze me. Then a chocolate shop where we had chocolate milk and biscuits and truffle chocolates – all delicious – totalled about £3.50 for all of us! Odd selection to put into the walking tour was a miniature wooden Havana and the harbour, set up in a garage painted black where they turned the lights up and down and played birdsong to simulate sunset and sunrise – most bizarre!

 

From here till we leave Havana, photos say it all!

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