Cuba
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Thu 16 Apr 2009 22:17
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Hello
Friends
"21:09.9N 79:34.6W"
We are underway and headed towards the city
of Cienfuegos on the Cuban south coast to drop off the Relations.
Our eventual arrival in Cuba met with better
facilities than expected - lots of water at the dock and very friendly, if
numerous, officials to check us into Cuba. We caught up on sleep and then took a
taxi into Santiago de Cuba.
Cuba operates on (at least) 2 levels and
we'll post a Full retrospective blog in due course. The locals live a fairly
basic life but the tourists pay first world prices for what is supposed to be
first world services, so our taxi into Santiago was a new air conditioned
Peugeot, in contrast with the trucks and pony carts in which the locals
travel.
Here's a couple of shots of
Santiago...
the fruit & veg market, where we
acquired a modest amount of supplies and though the choice was limited, the
quality was good.
 and what we reckon is a typical des. res. -
assuming you're not billeted in a concrete apartment block. The impoverishment
of the economy shows up in the roads and buildings.
 For our return trip to the marina, we took a
more exotic form of transport...
 and though it all looks very glamorous, it
does hardly anything in mileage and he waits until he has a fare before putting
any petrol/gasoline into the tank. We think he inherited the car from his
grandfather.
After Santiago, we headed west towards an
area of shallow water and small islands to the south of Cuba - the "Archipelago
de los Jardines de la Reina" which all sounds very glorious and which the
Relations wanted to explore and go snorkelling in. In fact the islands are
mostly covered with mangrove, so not that interesting and there was apparently
nothing of special interest for snorkelling. There is superb flat water for
sailing though and innumerable excellent anchorages. This is for an area
extending to 100 miles - so plenty of exploring to be done.
Our last stop in the islands was a reef
protected anchorage in the middle of nowhere. This photo of a 'fishing
station' on piles gives an impression of the remoteness of the place (and the
absence of wind!).
 There are many old ferrocement fishing boats
working the islands and last night one came over to sell us lobster tails, which
went down very well for lunch today. Sadly we've run out of white wine though so
there is some deprivation on board Blue Sky.
That's all for now
Best Wishes
George & Michael.
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