We are making our way north and west through the protected waters of the Golfo de Guacanayabo towards the city of Cienfuegos. The huge bay here is littered with shallow sand bars and mangrove covered Cays. There are a multitude of deep, wide and well marked shipping channels between these obstructions, but still plenty of sea room for sailing.
To make the sailing day short and manageable in day light hours we will be stopping regularly at Cays along the way. Some of the Cays are worth visiting with lovely beaches and snorkelling, while other have little to offer but a respite. We neither fancy longer trips or feel it is safe to travel over night as the majority of fishing vessels here have no lights.
Now choosing what Cays to stop at is not so easy. We had done some research before we left, but Cuba is not the most popular cruising ground, and there is limited information available. You have to rely on accounts of the few cruisers who have published their individual trips and Nigel Caldere’s very outdated (pre Hurricane Sandy) cruising guide. This is further compounded by limitied information on the charts that have not been updated since 1927! The charts seem to be pretty accurate about the shipping channels and most major obstructions, but there is little information on depths anywhere near prospective anchorages. So in short, we are kind of ‘flying by the seat of our pants’ and have to be extra careful.
Before we headed off to explore the Cays we needed to ‘check out’ of our last main land stop for a while. I sent one of the humans to pick up the signed dispatio from the friendly Guarda Frontera ashore so we could leave. We would not be seeing any more officials on the unpopulated Cays between here and Cienfuegos. We raised the sails and pointed north to our first night time stop, the Cayo Rabihorcado, one of three Cays that make up the Cayos de Manzanillo off shore from the mainland city of the same name.
We had a fabulous sail with light winds on the nose. The Golfo de Guacanayabo is so sheltered you get little more than a wind driven chop something we had not experienced since leaving the sheltered waters of the Grand Bahama Bank. We reached the flat calm waters inside the horse shoe shaped Cayo Ribihorcado well before dusk but, as we were warned, this is only a rest stop. There was no place to land ashore on this large rocky mangrove covered island. The shore line was lined with abandoned fishing vessels and you get a lovely evening view of the twinkling lights of the city on the mainland.
Despite anchoring well offshore the no-seams from the mangroves found us in the still air of the morning. Not a place you want to hang around in too long. By the time we lifted anchor and raised the sails the a south westerly wind had picked up. Again we had a ‘cracking’ sail with the wind on the nose and made good time to our next stop, the Cayo Rabihorcado. This Cay we had heard had a nice lagoon and beach on the North East side. Sounded perfect in the present wind conditions.
I became very excited as a beautiful long white sandy beach came into view as we approached the Cay. I could not wait to run free and go for a swim. But of course there had to be a problem! As I told you our charts had very little information and only seemed to indicate that there would be shallow water running well off shore. We slowed our approach, pointed the nose of the boat into the wind, and very carefully inched our way towards shore. The depth decreased very quickly, and as soon as it was shallow enough to see the bottom we found ourselves surrounded by coral heads.
You do not want to anchor in coral heads. First it takes a long time for them to grow and anchors and anchor chains can destroy decades of growth in a matter of seconds. Second, they can damage and snag up anchors and anchor chains. You really want to find a clear patch of sand with about 20-30m of swinging room depending on your depth. We hunted around for sand, but when we did find a patch big enough, the sand was too shallow to hold the anchor. We had a little scan up and down the coastline of the Cay, but found the same, so we returned to the area off ‘my beach’. This time we tried anchoring much deeper hoping the sand would also be deeper, and it worked. A long kayak ride, but worth it to have a run ashore!
I am sure we were of great amusement to the fishing vessel also anchored here. They seemed to rest all day and than head out fishing at night when the winds die down. They are back this morning and I am sure we will continue to be of great amusement to them as we plan to stay here another day. The winds are forecast to remain light, there is a nice beach here and probably some great snorkelling around the coral heads, but most importantly the humans need a day to do some ‘domestica’. The humans need some clean water to get some laundry done.
Now all you lucky people all probably throw your clothes in a machine and turn it on. Then you probably just throw them in a drier after they have been cleaned for you. A washing machine on a boat is a little more complicated. First you need room for a machine, a generator to produce enough electrics to run it and a watermaker large enough to produce enough water. Do not forget room for enough fuel to run the generator too. If you do not have room for all these things and the spares to keep it running you have to resort to ‘good old’ hard graft. The system my humans have adopted seems to work for them. They have some tub size buckets, that stack together for easy storage, that they use for soaking laundry. They fill 4 buckets with sea water and 1 bucket with fresh water. The first bucket is soap, second 1st rinse, third fabric softener, fourth 2nd rinse, last bucket fresh water rinse. They start with bedding, towels, undergarments, t-shirts and shorts and finish with bathing suits and my stuff. They employ the ‘wine grape stomping’ technique to clean the clothes, but it is good old ‘ringing’ to remove the water from fabrics. A mangle would be great, but they are pretty big and difficult to mount and store on a boat. When there is a washing machine ashore they do take advantage of it. There are plenty of railings to hang clothes to dry, but getting the height for bedding is harder and is best done when the winds are light to avoid loosing anything.
With the winds lightest in the morning, that means that I better get the humans to work. They have laundry to do and I have more iguanas to chase.
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Photos, charts and information we added once we got WiFi. Use link below:
Review of Southern Cuba Part 1- including the pictures you missed
