{"id":5803,"date":"2016-05-22T23:00:27","date_gmt":"2016-05-22T23:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=5803"},"modified":"2016-05-22T23:00:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-22T23:00:27","slug":"cruising-cuba-a-first-timers-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=5803","title":{"rendered":"Cruising Cuba, a first timer\u2019s perspective."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/b>I will be writing a number of articles and giving a few talks about our visit to Cuba over last winter. I thought that it might be fun to share a draft of one of these articles with you. \u00a0It includes a number of links to prior posts, both Brenda’s and mine.<\/p>\n

So, here goes…<\/p>\n

Since the 1950s and the beginning of the US trade embargo, Cuba has been largely off limits to Americans.\u00a0 This, combined with very limited capital for investment, has made for a country that has been, in large part, \u201cfrozen in time\u201d.\u00a0 To visit Cuba now is akin to taking a step back into the Caribbean of the 1940s and the time of Hemingway.<\/p>\n

Brenda and I have wanted to visit Cuba for many years and as relations between our two countries have begun to thaw, we decided to \u201cjump the gun\u201d, before things really begin to change, and head there aboard Pandora for an extended two month visit in early 2016.<\/p>\n

Receiving needed approvals to visit Cuba for an extended visit from \u201cUncle Sam\u201d proved to be quite tedious and involved nearly six months of research and much back and forth with three government agencies, Commerce, State and the USCG.\u00a0\u00a0 Finding someone to insure Pandora during our visit was not finally resolved until a few days before we headed to Cuba from the Bahamas.<\/p>\n

The US government currently allows Americans to visit for twelve reasons<\/a>, with a journalism general license the \u201creason\u201d we chose.\u00a0\u00a0 As part of this effort, Brenda\u2019s goal was to better understand the fiber arts of Cuba, of which little has been published.\u00a0 In particular, she wanted to find one particular woman in Havana who had been featured in another American\u2019s blog post several years ago and, believe it or not she found her<\/a>. \u00a0This is Brenda and “the girls”. \u00a0\"4-25-16aCuba is a large island, much bigger than most realize, over 600 miles long, and our trip long took us along the entire south coast and a good portion of the north coast.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Along the way we found ourselves about 100 miles, a mere overnight run, from Jamaica, The Caiman Islands and Cancun on the Yucatan peninsula.\u00a0 All much closer than most realize and as Cuba becomes more open, this will likely change cruiser\u2019s perspective of what it is to visit \u201cthe Caribbean\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The ability to use Cuba as a jumping off place to Central and South America, will make the western Caribbean much more accessible to Americans than has been the case for a great many years.<\/p>\n

Visiting Cuba isn\u2019t for the \u201cfaint of heart\u201d as there are very limited services and even fewer marinas, especially along the less traveled south coast.\u00a0 This combined with the requirements of the Guarda Frontera, a sort of military coast guard that makes you check in and out<\/a> of most of your stops along the way can make it challenging at times for those of us who are used to going where we want, when we want to go.\u00a0 \"\"However, if you can make a point of learning to \u201cgo with the flow\u201d you will probably find the process quite straight forward and perhaps even charming. \u00a0\u00a0And, finding internet access can be remarkably frustrating as it\u2019s mostly available in government run tourist hotels.\u00a0 In one case, we actually took a horse and buggy to check our e-mail<\/a>. \u00a0\u00a0Talk about culture shock.\"OLYMPUSOur travels brought us south through the Bahamas to Georgetown and then a three day run south traversing the Windward Passage, past Haiti, around the eastern tip of Cuba and west to our port of entry, Santiago de Cuba.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The process of clearing in with Pandora and getting our Visas approved was quite an experience.\u00a0\u00a0 We both wrote posts<\/a> about this and our visit to the city of Santiago de Cuba<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, everyone thinks of vintage American Cars and remarkable Colonial architecture when they think of Cuba and we saw plenty<\/a> throughout the country.\"\"The Cubans we spoke to were very excited about Obama coming to Cuba, which occurred while we were in Cuba, and many voiced hope that much good will come from his visit as they took on a greater role on the world stage.\u00a0 And speaking of \u201cstage\u201d what a trip going to the Rolling Stones concert<\/a> was.\u00a0\"\" You might enjoy Brenda\u2019s take on that<\/a>.\u00a0 What a hoot!<\/p>\n

However, when you get right down to it, the most remarkable part of visiting Cuba for us was the people.\u00a0 We loved spending time with them, especially in the most rural areas.\u00a0\u00a0 Brenda did a wonderful job of describing what this was like.<\/a>\u00a0 I struggled to capture what made Cuba such a remarkable place for us to visit.\u00a0 This post was my attempt to capture this spirit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All and all, there is really no better way to visit Cuba than to cruise the coast and now is the time as it won\u2019t be long until it changes forever.\u00a0 The pristine reefs, the dramatic scenery and, most of all, the people are remarkable.\u00a0 Don\u2019t miss out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0I will be writing a number of articles and giving a few talks about our visit to Cuba over last winter. I thought that it might be fun to share a draft of one of these articles with you. \u00a0It includes a number of links to prior posts, both Brenda’s and mine. So, here goes… […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5805,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803\/revisions\/5805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}