TAINA

After almost 20 years of waiting, I finally was able to buy my dreamboat, a Hatteras 48 LRC. For 5 years I owned a 42-foot Bristol trawler, which had served me well in trips from South Carolina through Florida and Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia and Panama. I was very fortunate to have sold the boat in Guatemala two weeks after I purchased my LRC.

I purchased Misty Lynn, a 48 foot Hatteras LRC in Daytona Beach, Florida and after navigating the ICW to Fort Lauderdale, I had it readied for the trip to Guatemala, which for reasons of prices of mooring, fiberglass repairs and painting, is a great place to keep a boat. For example, I pay $250.00 per month for dockage at a modern marina and in fresh water. The boat needed a lot of TLC and I installed new electronics, updated the interior and the stabilizers and did some minor work on the engines, which were tired but were working well. Maged Metwally from Gyro Gale Stabilizers came down to Fort Lauderdale from Stuart, FL and reviewed the work we had done on the stabilizers and after going through some heavy seas off the Yucatan, I’ll never buy a boat without stabilizers.

On March 15th, 3 friends, on board the now renamed TAINA, and myself left Fort Lauderdale for Key West and arrived without incident. Then on the 19th we left Key West to navigate the 97 miles to Havana, Cuba and the Hemingway Marina. Let me tell you that it was an experience spending 5 days there. The country is in a state of corruption which I have not seen anywhere else. At the marina we had 24-hour guards placed every 100 yards or so and there were employees galore everywhere. When we docked we were met with very nice and very friendly inspectors, but, there were many of them and the entry took us about 4 hours. Finally we went to our assigned mooring and I saw about 7 guys waiting for us. All the services were offered, from taxi to the city, to women, to cigars, etc. At night even the guards were bringing women to see if we were interested, even though prostitution is ILLEGAL.

Two of my friends had a cold so they went to 2 different pharmacies (government owned, of course) and left empty handed as they had no cold medicines and they said they didn’t know when they would arrive. I wonder if Michael Moore really visited this place when he talked up their system of universal health care.

Anyway, we went to downtown Havana, which is beautiful and had lunch at a government owned restaurant where the food was fair but plentiful. I asked why and our guide explained that although it was government owned, the employees were raking the cash register and thus were interested in a plentiful clientele. Another day we went to another restaurant in the Old City and I asked for French fries but was told they had no potatoes. I asked the guide if he would have potatoes if the restaurant was his and his answer was, “What color potatoes would you want?” There is NO comparison between the Cuban food in Miami and the food in Havana. Such a pity.

In Cuba there are two currencies, the peso that is worth nothing although it is the currency with which the government pays the people and the CUC (convertible currency). The CUC is based on the dollar but Castro has established that the government takes 20% of all money being changed, including the dollars sent to their families by Cubans living in the US and abroad. The government has a hand in EVERYTHING. It resembles the Mafia as they have a cut into everything anybody does. My guide had to give 20% of his take to the government; otherwise he could not buy at any government store with that money. The guy has a car that he bought from the government (a used car as you're not allowed to buy new cars) and when he wants to sell it, he can only sell it back to the government at what the government wants to pay you. It seems to me that you're basically renting the car from the government.

There are prostitutes everywhere and EVERYBODY is asking if you want any. I guess everybody gets a cut from what the girls charge. Really pathetic. Only foreigners can come aboard any yacht and no Cubans can come aboard unless you pay the government fee or give a payoff to the guards, especially for the prostitutes. I contracted a guy I felt sorry for, to clean the engine room of my boat but I had to first pay $25 to the government as a “contract” and then pay the guy doing the work, otherwise he could not come aboard.

The people and even the officials were very friendly but you could tell that everybody was uptight about talking politics, etc. I feel sorry for the people of Venezuela, as this is what their future holds, VERY SAD. I had a fuel leak from one of my engine senders and was able to get a Cuban mechanic to fix it but there are NO parts, no good tools, or any kind of service that would solve a mayor problem on any yacht. Some 10 hours out of Havana, my starboard engine overheated and I shut it down, but I decided to continue to Mexico and Isla Mujeres as going back to Cuba would be futile and very expensive. We continued on one engine and after 56 hours we arrived in Mexico and after hiring a mechanic, the problems with the engines were solved and after 3 days of relaxation we continued to our final destination, the Rio Dulce of Guatemala.

The trip to Guatemala was not very pleasant, as we could not find a way to get away from the Yucatan current. I moved closer to land and further away to no avail and, although the current became weaker, it still was affecting us, sometimes reducing our speed to 3 knots. It took us 88 hours to arrive at Livingston, Guatemala, the entrance to the Rio Dulce.

TAINA was finally at its second home and in the hands of the mechanics (very skilled) who will do a mayor overhaul on the engines and transmissions and the group of Guatemalan craftsmen who will paint and bring TAINA to a near new condition. The work at the Rio Dulce is just as good as the work being done stateside but very much cheaper.

All in all, it was a great experience but I will think twice about returning to Cuba, especially to the Havana area. I am tempted, however, to return to the south coast and the wonderful coastline and islands that Cuba has and which, according to other cruisers, is very different from the capital. If I do, it will be after making sure that EVERYTHING on the boat is working perfectly and with plenty of spares and tools on board.

Capt. Jorge Gonzalez
M/V TAINA (US registered)

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