Cuba established a commercial fishing fleet  of about  70 boats  about 20 yrs  ago. They are mainly concrete hulled, shallow drafted, fishing boats; simple, basic boats around 50 – 60 ‘ long with canvas covered work areas and a small building – cabin – where I guess the crew sleeps , in turns probably because the cabin is far too small to fit all the crew we see on board at one time. But maybe they sleep in  one end of the hold below as well, I do not know but if they do it would be like sleeping in a tomb. The fish also goes into a hold below deck.  Into ice  I think, because there is an ice machine on the dock so I presume they ice up before they go.

Unfortunately like everything else in Cuba the fishing boats look like they have not seen a day of intensive maintenance since they day they arrived.The concrete is steel reinforced and many of them have running rust stains over the concrete hull which means the concrete is slowly cracking open. We have seen some continually pumping out water.  It is really a horror to see especially compared to the boats the guards and the search and rescue run about in.

It’s the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff thing but at least the ambulance looks like it might get to rescue in time !

Fish are everywhere. The thousands of miles of mangroves and the reef make the best of breeding grounds.

Fish quite literally were jumping about us most of the way down the west side of Cuba, flyng fish and we caught a bonito ourselves.

The life of the fisherman is very hard here. They go out for 10 days at a time and come home for five. The boats moor up between stints.

We watched the boats come in one evening as we waited on oil for our boat. On the wharf were five or six factory staff and just as many men from the Interior , the “little green men” who are the governments guards. A couple were processing us and our request for transmission oil , two or three stayed guarding the guard station and two or three  went and boarded each fishing boat as it came in and inspected bags , holds and doing paperwork. Each fishing boat’s crew seemed to react quite differently to them. The first one in seemed quite unsociable to the guards, others seemed OK with the guards and one boat even gave them a bag of small fish.

There does not seem to be any incentive for the fishermen to catch more and they generally all look lean and hungry compared to the guards.

It seems that the working mans efforts are no longer valued here and that is strange especially for a communistic country. If the fisherman caught/brought back to the factory more fish then there would be more work for everyone else and eventually surplus product to sell.

All the fish is consumed in the home market but the crayfish tails are sold to Mexico

Dead fishing boats lay here and there everywhere.

It was a curious moment when I noticed that

the coast guards – controllers- run about in quite new fast boats

while Cubas fishermen – producers – seriously risk their lifes in disintegrating fishing boats.

Coming down the west coast we took shelter for two nights

on the uninhabited and very flat Casa ( Island ) de la Lena

in a big protected channel with Mangroves all around while

a “Northerner “ went through.

Also taking shelter were fishermen in rusting dilapidated

concret fishing boats of about 60 ft long.

There has been no money available to maintain the fishing fleet in Cuba

which was originally established with Russian help.

On board were 10 men. A couple of them jumped into their dinghy

and brought over 7 or 8 crayfish – lobster tails with to live ones on top

and a big fish. In exchange they first asked for rum, which we did not have

on board because we had already given our rum away for two fish to fishermen

further up the coast. They accepted 10 cans of beer.

Then they asked if we had a 24 volt light bulb on board.

We were very sorry not to have one for them. We have 12 volts.

It would have been good to know what people need, like light bulbs,

for their everyday lives before we came. Hand soap, spark plugs light bulbs,

dried fruit like apricots and raisins are all gladly accepted in exchange.

The fishermen were warm and friendly people as we have found the

Cubans generally are. If they had been seen exchanging fish with us they

are liable for up to 10 years in goal. The fish they catch is government property

They get paid in food rations and a tiny bit of money but we are told Cubans

do not get enough money to get by each week now and that there is a

fairly desperate situation developing. Made worse because the Cuban authorities

have now lain off around a million government workers.

The population is around 9 – 10 million.

There are so many strange things, contradictions.

Nice people controlled by hordes of security systems which come

in a confusing array of forms.

As a sailor, I have not yet worked out which form over rules which.

Around the marinas are security men – the normal kind – but oversupplied.

Four men guard a line of about 20- 30 boats. We are guarded 24 hrs a day.

It’s difficult to know who is being guarded, us or Cuba – no Cuban

is allowed to board the overseas boats.

Of course it means that crime is not a problem on a marina

and you can safely leave the boat for days if need be.

There is The Homeland Security. The men in green that pop out

from just about every sea corner one pulls over into.

They always come in twos – usually one older one younger.

They come on board check the passports and the cruising permit,

fill in a form or two, sometimes check the boat for hiding Cubans

then ask where we have come from and where we are going.

They look satisfied/relieved when we say we are going to a designated Clearing In marina.

Designated In Marinas are often sited on isolated penninsulars or islands and there are only about 7 or 8 of them around the huge perimeter of Cuba.

We can,t do the distance between the tourist clearing in ports in a day

and an early start is almost impossible because first the green guards

have to clear us out –  more paper work.

We just go as far as we can then pull over and anchor in a sheltered spot overnight

because we are not ready to do overnight travel along the coast, nor wish to, because we are here to see the country.

We pulled overnight into a little fishing village called Les Esperanza; put the anchor down

and slept overnight unmolested by any form of security. Got up, had breakfast and decided to put the dingy in the water and go ashore.

The dingy touching the water alerted a local guard twosome and in no time at all they came rowing in the usual delapidated Cuban fibre glassed over wood dinghy (nowhere do you see outboards).This time it was a woman with a young male assistant.

He rowed, she filled in the forms.

We indicated we would like to see the beautiful countryside

– and it was amazing to look at from the sea.

Strange, steep sided, high mounded mountains, maybe volcanic cones.

There were limestone caves in the area, it was a rich farming area and it was a tourist area –

She smiled when we called her countryside beautiful but when

I pointed out our tourist visas she looked steadily at them then still said no.

I have been told since that if we had pushed it the local guards could not have

actually stopped us from coming ashore because the tourist visa must override their authority.

We just haven’t felt like pushing it yet!

There is also a Cuban Coast Guard, which we have yet to come across and

there were police cars and police on motorbikes around Havanna

or maybe they were just traffic police.

Then there were people in different uniforms at stop points along the motorways

One half of the population is guarding the other half in Cuba.

This morning was windless and we woke early so jumped on the bikes and headed directly inland to see the farmers, mapless. Maps are as scarce as hen’s teeth so we looked on the boat’s chart plotter but it did not give us too much information either. We just decided we would head inland. The coastline is an indefinite ribbon of urban sprawl but this is only on average about a kilometre wide.

The road we chose to take us inland quickly narrowed down to a farm dirt track, eroded with storm water courses and rocks, but quite navigable on our cheap Chinese made USA bikes.( so glad we did not buy those silly foldable expensive boat bikes) We were lucky it was not too dry today and not wet either . Any NZ farmer would have been delighted to have such nice near flat volcanic land to begin his farming venture with water in abundance, but the land appeared mainly unfarmed. Tall rank coarse grasses, scattered through with something that could have been straggly young acacias. It obviously has a match set to it periodically to clear it off. Along the way we found a small maybe newer enterprise with goats and funny looking brown sheep. They were housed in open sided sheds and as we were passing 3 or 4 men were cleaning out the shit. Adjacent were raised garden beds in which I guess the shit went and it looked like they were growing vegetables in them. It looked hopeful and I think was one of the “sustainable” projects that I had heard were being evolved in Cuba.

I read that any land holdings under 67 acres were not taken by the communist government so it may have been a private enterprise. As we biked on through this unkempt farmland we passed small unkempt cottages with bare soil yards, home not just to people, nice people, but a few chickens, pigs and a dog or two. But how they stay alive I do not know.

As our road diminished in size we found truckloads of rubbish dumped either side of the road. Not the kind of rubbish mix you might expect from a New Zealand dump full of what these people would only see as treasure , more earth, broken concrete – construction rubbish with many plastic bags through it making it visually very untidy. We were getting a bit worried about where this was leading and came upon what could only be described as a small slum area. I can’t quite understand why there is a slum area in communistic Cuba, but there is.

The vision that still haunts me from this place, is of an old man with great lumps all over his face and I am wondering if I was looking at leprosy.

Still no gardening was going on here. Our rubbished lined road meandered up, down and around and became bumpier than ever then suddenly hello this looks like something like farmed land. Two big black Brahman styled bulls in a rough paddock with a small banana plantation behind them. It improved from then on , these  had to be government farms – still under-farmed by our standards, native grasses, burning off and no real fencing, but farmed on a large scale and looking a bit more orderly.

The road improved, less bumps , no rubbish dumped, level red volcanic dirt and then we found ourselves biking between tall grass field boundaries and I said to Andreas this reminds me of the little roads between the paddocks in Switzerland, and really it was. Then we reached a tar sealed road.

We had cut across country !

A diary farm with jersey cows, large low sheds, an ancient tractor following us, then next a 6 lane motorway. The main artery of Cuba which runs centrally the entire length of Cuba. The tractor, which we had stopped to let pass us, climbed up onto it – there was no entry suitable for a car to enter or exit it – we climbed up onto it too and along the 6 lane motorway we went. Waverley’s main road would have been busier. There were cars, of all vintages beginning with the old American giants , the Ladas, an occasional modern Asian and French cars and old trucks through to the newer big Macs. There were motorbikes of a smaller kind – not Harleys – and many very old motor bikes, again from the 50,s with side cars piled up, with men usually. There were cyclists like us, but Cubans and even a horse and cart. Everything and anything can use this motorway.

We travelled the motorway about 5 kilometres then dropped off onto a road that would return us along the coast to the marina – Strong whiffs of pig farms and chicken farms hurried us along in places. but not whiffs of people – the sewerage systems are in place over most of Cuba. Along this road we found a one and only private roadside stall selling pineapples, tomatoes, breadfruit, limes, green peppers, and oranges. We bought very cheaply and slugged out the last few kilometres from Santa Fe to the marina knowing we had bitten off a little bit more in distance than we could comfortably manage this time – especially the bums on bike seats that were not quite made to fit.

15 January 2011

And guess what ? Today , two days later, a 37 – 40 ‘ yacht tied up next
to us. A Kiwi man with a Swissy wife from Whangarei on a boat called Barnstorm.
They too had been out there in the rough weather but ended up choosing not to
come through the Hemingway Marina entrance and went further west to another
easier looking harbour entrance. They were put under guard and were sent on back
here as soon as the weather settled a bit. There are only a handful of harbours
foreign pleasure boats can come into in Cuba!

We tied up for officialdom – 1st an old white man, a doctor who declared
us fit and our boat uncontaminated. Then MAF equivalents, a fifty plus paunchy
negro man and a skinny similarly aged negro woman. They did not look for much, filled
in forms then surreptitiously asked us for a tip. I think instead of a thorough
inspection but I am not sure about that. We were a bit taken aback because I
had read that there is no tipping in Cuba. However as it was all very convivial
and we were just so glad to be tied up Andreas tipped them ( overtipped them
because he got five thank yous out of them !) – all of course out of sight of
the harbour managers who were waiting to be next to come in.

Two very young good looking male harbour masters then boarded, while,
from a small office adjacent and on shore, a fat bulldog looking immigration
lady ( she looked like she had been exported directly from Russia for the job )
was firing questions down on us. The young men spoke good English and we dealt
with the business of how long we were staying, any guns on board and “we hold
your flares until you leave” etc as well as what were our next plans. Then one
left with our flares in a plastic bag and a very young, attractive,
immaculately presented – painted fingernails in uniform and not a hair out of
place, negro woman took her turn with us . Customs officer. She spoke very good
English and after another round of form filling and signing, sealed up our
GPS,s and our satellite phone but left them with us. We were not allowed to use
them while in Cuba. A Spanish looking man and a cocker spaniel arrived next to
sniff out all the cocaine on board and because he was disappointed not to
quickly find it asked for a tip – asked of course when we were down in the bottom
of the boat so the other officials would not see. Finally we were issued with a
docking site and once there were assisted by a small rabble of men and a woman
or two… all it turned out hoping to get some boat cleaning , laundry or
whatever work off us.

Finally we got settled in, “our helpers” dispersed and we went off to
sleep. It was lunchtime.