Cuba! ' by David

There will be a longer and more informative post in time but for now I would just like to inform everyone...including those folks at the NSA that we are in Cuba! It was a long motor across the Windward passage, or as I have come to call it the Windless passage but we finally got into Santiago de Cuba at 7am on Tuesday Feb. 27th.
Our welcome into Santiago was a pleasant surprise especially against the backdrop of Santo Domingo. Everyone was extraordinarliy friendly and have been helpful during our short stay.
I finally got rid of the beard that had taken over my face and this afternoon found a nice Cuban barber to trim me up. What an experience! I got a straight edged shave lying back and listening to Patsy Cline´s, ¨Crazy¨. It was marvelous and it felt good to be rid of the itchy growth that dominated my chin!
Our plans for the next month are as follows

We will leave Santiago tomorrow morning and get into Casilda-Trinidad on March 7th.
We hope to leave Trinidad and Casilda on March 11th and sail to Cayo Largo getting in on the 12th.

From Cayo Largo we will sail to Isla Juventud and the town of Nueva Gerona gettingo in to N Gerona on March 20th.
We will depart N Gerona on the 22nd of March and sail towards Marina Hemmingway getting in there on the 27th of March.

TO MARY AND DANCKER
Mary, it is probably easiest for you to fly to Cayo Largo and sail the stretch from Cayo Largo to Nuevo Gerona, called by many the most beautiul cruising stretch in all of Cuba. You can then take a ferry from Nuevo Gerona to the mainland to get back to Habana.

Dancker,
It will probably be easiest if you met up with the boat at Marina Hemmingway on or about the 27th of March. Dick, Geert and i will sail the boat around the Cape and up the western coast and meet you at Marina Hemmingway there.

While we have only begun our adventure in Cuba it seems as if a month is not nearly enough to explore this amazing place. I hope to provide more substantial updates and accounts of our travels here. To all of you in the world I hope you stay warm and pleasant. Take it easy...

-dg

The Plan - by Geert

This winter I plan to sail to Haiti and Cuba with a crew of family members, friends and volunteers. Travel to Cuba is restricted by the US embargo, but I think I can go legally, as a writer. Haiti is shockingly poor and unstable, but there hasn't been much shooting since the recent elections. Both countries have fascinating history and culture, and their coasts, reefs and islands are virtually unknown to cruising sailors.

I tried to make a realistic plan taking into account natural constraints like the hurricane season and the prevailing winds and currents. Also, I want to involve my family as much as possible. Finally, I hope that frequent stopovers and relatively short stages will enable many friends to join Sea Scout for part of the adventure. Here's a map that summarizes the plan. You can click on it to make it a little bigger:



We would leave the Chesapeake early November, as soon as the hurricane season is over, and head for Bermuda. Stopping in Bermuda allows for a crew change, and will give us a better wind angle for the 1,000 mile trip to the Virgin Islands. Sea Scout would stay in the Virgins in December. Olina, and Nico and Jana (both at university) would fly in for their winter vacation. Early January I'll need crew again to sail to Haiti. We'll have a following wind most of the time, and can stop in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to change crew as necessary. From Haiti we'll sail via Jamaica and the Caymans Islands to Cuba.

I hope Olina, Nico and Jana can join me in Cuba. This is still a legal puzzle. The alternative is that we meet for Spring Break in Cancun or the Florida Keys. I will certainly need crew to sail from Miami to the Chesapeake in the Spring of next year. We'll hopefully get a good lift from the Gulf Stream. Charleston is a possible stop along the way.

P.S. If we follow the route of the above map, we avoid the infamous Bermuda Triangle, where ships and planes mysteriously vanish, without a trace...

Santiago de Cuba

Sea Scout arrived in Santiago de Cuba this morning. All is well. Santiago de Cuba has long been the second most important city on the island after Havana, and still remains the second largest. It is on a bay and is an important sea port.

Spending time in Cuba

If we learned anything in Cuba it is that the bureaucracy is very effective in creating work for everyone and in preventing unwanted ´mixing of interests´. In Santiago de Cuba about 16 officials from different departments came on Sea Scout to check the vessel, the crew, the luggage, the food, our medicine box, our papers and so on for contraband, bugs, insects, whatever. They even fumigated the boat. So the boat is bugs free now. And lucky we were declared healthy and nothing illegal was found. It was an experience to find out that the officials checking asked us to see what they did, so they could not be accused of taking away anything.
Before leaving Geert had to buy special ´stamps´(sellos) before the ´immigracion´ could let us leave the harbour.
This morning we learned that for every new crew member we must have an extra ´sello´. So I went, as instructed by the official in the marina, to the post office in Trinidad to buy three of them. One for Marissa, one for Mary and one for Dancker. That´s good planning.
At the Correos (post office): ´Sellos d´enrollo? Never heard of. May be you can come back on Monday when the Correos Internacional is open.´
The two ladies in the post office were very kind but they could not help me.
So I decided to go to the office of Cubanacan, the official tourist organisation. ´Never heard of. May be you can try at the bank.´
At the bank, another few blocks away: ´Never heard of. I am very sorry we can´t help you.´
Cubanacan has a ´competitor´ called Cubatur. A few blocks further. After a discussion between five employees that took about fifteen minutes it was clear. I had to go to the Policia de Inmigracion. Outside town. Well, a taxi took me there within ten minutes. ´Sellos d´enrollo? Ah, no we don´t sell them here. We are not allowed to. You have to go to the bank.´
'At the bank they just ...'.
´But the only bank that sells them is the Banco de Credito y Comercio.´
OK, then. I arrived at the BCC at 11.05. On Saturday the bank closes at 11.00. ´But we have to leave tomorrow.' (little bit of exaggeration may help).
´Yes, I understand but I really can´t help you. You may try to go to Cienfuegos.´(That is only 80 kilometers northwest of here.) .
I will take a taxi Monday morning at 7.30 to be certain that I am the first client at the BCC. Or?

Ile A Vache - by David

Ile A Vache
N 18 05 753
W 73 41 698

I am writing from the end of the world. If we do not drop off the face of the earth in the next few days we have surely been taken back in time. The world here is that of the 19th century and I feel as if I will not be able to escape (nor do I want to) for some time.
We are anchored in the calmest bay imaginable just a few meters from shore. In the evening as I look down into the black water I can see the constellations of Orion, Cygnus and Cassiopia reflecting off the bay. The ash from my cigar is the only disturbance in this calm anchorage and there is virtually no light pollution.
Ile A Vache is a paradise like island surrounded by palm trees, and beaches protecting the lush rolling green hills and fields that offer salvation for those seeking escape from the dust and grime of the mainland. The 2,000 or so inhabitants on this island work as subsitenence farmers, fishermen, and merchants. They have developed an extraordinary way to survive while living on about a dollar a day (minimum wage in Haiti is $3/day). The fisherman do not use motor boats as has become the norm in most of the world today. Rather they have become remarkably proffecient at constructing sailboats to use as work boats.
These sailboats cost between $100-300 USD to build and are a feat of humanity and engineering. The simplest are dug-out canoes with a bamboo mast and an extra long boom to provide balance for these keeless boats. Additionally they have a small jib which enables them to go wing on wing when catching the land breeze in the morning and the sea breeze in the afternoon. Their sails are made of black garbage bags taped together. As I say these are the simplest type of boat and where very common in Jacmel.
The next class of "yachts" are the more commercial fishing boats. They have a larger hull and actually have a deep keel that allows them to go upwind at a very high angle. They are usually double handed and the crew (as is the case in dinghy racing) operates the jib and provides ballast. In fact many of these types of boats have a trapeeze for the crew to hike out on when heeling over. These ships sail around the channel between Ile A Vache and Les Cayes dropping their nets in the morning and picking them up again by early afternoon. You can occasionally see smoke coming from the deck of the ship as it is obvious the skipper and crew are cooking lunch with charcoal.
Finally, the largest type of ship is the cargo freighter. These ships are anchored just offshore from Les Cayes where the cargo they carry is unloaded onto the dozens of gondolas there waiting and taken ashore to the dirty and grimy streets of Les Cayes. These cargo ships are wooden as well of course and are quite large, measuring some 30-35 feet in length and nearly 13 tonnes. They are quite intricate with a double head sail sometimes and lazyjacks to keep the main sail centered over the boom. They are more like vessels as Geert put it, than boats. They are quite deep and can accomodate (must accomodate) a large number of crew to man the sails and manage the cargo. They carry everything from charcoal to flower to people.
Geerts imagination has begun to run wild with adventures upon these primitive yet sound vessels. In fact we are going out tomorrow with a fishermen to work and sail on his ship. It will be very fun and interesting to see how well they sail and what exactly it takes to make one of these boats.
As we entered and left the harbor of Les Cayes I felt as if I was looking into the past and how the old shipping ports must have operated in the 1800's. Boston Harbor, Baltimore, San Francisco, etc. all must have been very similar to this before the advent of the steamship. As I said, I believe my journey back in time has only begun as Cuba awaits some 150 miles to the west.
Les Cayes is an unremarkable city, filthy and smelly yet lined with old French colonial homes that have been left to decay. The remind you of the Tennessee Williams play and subsuquent movie with Marlon Brando 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. Keeping with Marlon Brando I felt that after hearing the echos of "Stella, Stella", I could see the young actor working as a longshoreman on the docks hauling charcoal off the gondolas and onto wheelbarrows. But that is as far as my imagination and analogy will go...!
Yesterday Geert and I rented two mediocre horses to ride and explore the island of Ile A Vache. When I asked what my horses name was the owner replied, "Horse". I was riding a horse with no name. Fitting as I saw it since I was the only American on the island. Regardless, what Geert and I found was breathtaking. We set off on our own to explore and came across countless people bringing fish to the market, hauling water, sweeping their dirt lawns, etc. We saw a husband and wife arguing, kids kicking a soccer ball made out of tape, and old men dancing to music playing on their new radio. How much of this place is the essence of mankind? They are without a million things that most of us have without thinking about and yet they still argue with their wives, play sports and dance.
This is not meant to further illustrate the cliche of western commercialism or meager happiness, rather to show how alike we all are. Our sorrows, our pleasures and day to day activities can be broken down to a common denominator across just about every culture in every part of the world. For me at least this is comforting. My individualtiy remains intact for my own joys and sorrows are unique to me, yet I find comfort in that despite everything the western world has said and done to Haiti, her people are like the rest of us. They love a sunny day, they love to run around and laugh, they cry, they fight and they survive. Maybe that is what I have learned from my short time in Haiti...we are all alike and no matter what we have going against us, as humans we endure and survive. Haiti has survived for 200 years and while we seach for ways to improve life here, we sometimes fail to remember her humanity and ability to survive.
Geert, Dick and I have many adventures ahead of us in the next two weeks before we depart for Cuba and I can only imagine Cuba will offer her own unique perspective on the human condition and my individual place in this world. For now, we are off to dinner with French sailor named Guy who is sailing around the world.
From the end of the world....
-dg

Cuban pictures (II and last) by Dick

Cubans are by nature very friendly and open minded. I enjoyed them, their meals, their way of trying to make the best of it.
Compared to Haiti Cuba is very clean. One reason is that Cubans do not have anything to spill. Another is the regime. It is everywhere.
Sometimes this regime looks funny (where in the world can you find oil tanks with the text: 'For my country I will die' or billboards especially made for Americans within the 'special interest section' of the USA at the Malecon in Havana?). Then it's intimidating: when soldiers guard embarking ships with their guns loaded.

And the black flags? Their original goal is to 'cover' an LED-screen with newsflashes 'from the free world' on the one and only American office in Havana. But the sign below it says it is to honour the victims of a battle with the Americans in 1868...

Cuba is however changing. In Havana western luxury is more visible than five years ago. But it still is a very thin 'varnish'.

May be this is what I like about it: the crew of Sea Scout did not always understand my sense of humor. The 'Dick joke' became a household word. Do you understand the humor of 'Fidel, 80 years more'? I do.

Two Stories....by David

I.
"Poopie"!
"Mentiroso"!
This exchange lasted several minutes between Cito and Leonardo. The two boys were bitter friends. Cito, 8 and Leonardo, 9 lived in the small fishing village of Casilda, 6 Km south of Trinidad, Cuba. Their fathers worked as fishermen for the state and they lived a decent and quiet life.

I found myself in the middle of this arguement outside Cito's home. Cito had asked if I wanted to play baseball and naturally I jumped at the oppurtunity. I soon found out that my acceptance included much more than just a baseball game. Cito had a tennis ball that he brought with him outside where we met Leonardo. This is when the arguement began between Cito and Leonardo.
From my high school spanish I gathered that Leonardo had slapped a woman across the face, thus reducing him to the title of 'Poopie'. Leonardo, to his credit remained cool and simply called Cito a liar whereas if I had been falsely accused of such a grievance at the age of 9 I would have started a fight. Regardless, Leonardo was to be known as poopie throughout the entire game.

Cuban baseball, at least for 8 year olds in Casilda consists of one tennis ball and three rocks. The batter holds the tennis ball in his hand at home plate and uses his fist as a bat. The fielder then attempts to field the ball and race to either first or second or home (there are only three bases in Cuban baseball) to get the batter out. Three outs for Poopie, six outs for Cito.

As I was hesitant to get in the middle of such a divisive game I could not resist the temptation to run the bases and see Cito and Poopie chase after the ball. I got up to bat and with all my power (and a little deviousness) hit the ball as far as I could. Cito and Poopie just watched as the ball soared over their heads and own the dirt road. They looked at me as I rounded second and headed for home, a look that showed they were obviously not happy with my flagrant display of seniority. I got home laughing and smiling and looked at the two boys. Simply, I had cheated according to them. My record breaking home run was illegal and the run did not count since it was too far away. While I tried to reason with Cito and Poopie I could tell that at the ripe age of 22 that I was no match for Cito and Poopie, two experienced Cuban baseball players.

I dropped my head further when I was informed that not only did the run not count, but that since I cheated I had lost my turn at bat and had to return to the field. This is how the afternoon went as the sun wanned and set over the horizon to the west. We went back inside Cito's home to the cool concrete floors and the sounds of Bucanero beer popping open. The world of Cuban baseball in this quiet town is a mural of passion, absurdity and laughter. Much like that of the Cuban people.


II.
We were led down the cobblestone streets, past the tourists, across from the museums, and onto a dirt road that resembled so many I saw in Haiti. The dirt road was uneven and jagged rocks marked the detours you had to make along the way. We had come to dance and we were being led to the end of civilization. A fitting place in all honesty for one to learn the provocative dance of the salsa.
We came to a door that opened into a cool, spacious living room filled with family pictures and a few small chairs. The woman, rather large but in a way that said she lived a good life, called herself Danielle. She led us to the back of her home and down some steps into an empty room with a concrete floor. The two of us novices smiled at each other nervously. What had we done? How had we ended up in this godforsaken place, with our pale skin, gringo accents and classic tourist look?
Danielle returned with a fan and a CD player. As she plugged the music into the socket she shooed her chicken out of our dance hall. Clearly we would not be alone during our dance lesson.

As our lesson began I vacated my nervousness with a false sense of confidence. "Nostros aprendemos rapido" We learn fast. This phrase would be Danielles favorite for the next two hours as I stepped on toes, spun the wrong way, tripped, fell, and generally learned very slowly. Despite this however, we spun, shook our hips, stepped "adelante y detras", and by the end of the two hours had gotten through a whole salsa song with as much as a single noticable slip.

We were experts. Or so we thought. What Danielle neglected to tell us as we headed out her door and to the Cuban salsa club that night was that we had no experience and the two hour lesson included no instruction on the thousand of other intricate dance steps of the salsa. Not to mention the style we so dearly lacked. In other words, we learned the notes, not the music.

While our evening was filled with large spins, subtle trips and lots of expletives from this perfectionist it was remarkable how we were accepted by the other dancers. We were two gringos who braved the beast and stepped "adelante y detras". Danielle would have corrected us and laughed at our mistakes but we were happy. The salsa is not about the notes, its about the music. Cuba is not about the notes, its about the music. We left the club and walked out onto the Plaza Mayor into the cool, breezy night content and happy.

Pictures from Cuba (I)

I split the Cuban selection in two: 'pictures made at sea' and those 'made on the land'.
The nice thing about being at sea is that what you see is constantly changing: the light, the colours, the waves (or no waves at all), sometimes there are clouds, at night you can see the moon and the stars (& planets). Anything is always or seems moving.
Sometimes you see other life, mainly animal life: birds, dolphins, we caught and ate a barracuda, bought and ate lobster and a red snapper from fishermen.
During my seven weeks in total we spotted five commercial vessels, about fifteen fishing boats and a few yachts. Ideal circumstances to train my 'sitting to sit'. I am very good at that now.
It's harder to make photos of what I just described. And when you realise the most important thing about navigation is that you constantly look for things you cannot see...
I tried however to give you an idea.
And, when David will be back on the log the contest for 'the best sunset' will open officially.

Dick

Key West!

We arrived at noon yesterday after a marvelous moonlit passage from Havana. In the federal building we raised many a border agent's eyebrow and had to listen to some threatening words ("There is no direct traffic between Cuba and the US!" "Boy, are you in trouble!" "You face deportation!"). After many questions and paperwork we (they) got things straight, thanks to Dancker's visa, my status as a writer and Sea Scoout's Dutch papers. There may very well be a federal follow-up in Washington, but we'll cross that river when we get there. For now we are happily back in the country and the boat has a cruising permit for a whole year.

Dick, thanks so much for the pictures. They are great!

Sailing

Hey guys,
Day before yesterday I was on my way with three girls (Misa,Petra and Martina)to Cape Hatteras area in North Carolina.We had really nice trip around the eastest most point in US.We travel acrooss two islands on ferry.At the evening we got to small town called Morehead city .I met there my new friend Geert from Holland.He is sailing guy and he has been on trip for couple of month from Cuba.He has lot of interesting story from his sailing trip he had shared with me.Today we sail from Morehead city to Oriental.We saw dolphines on our way.He let me ride his 30 feet long boath all the way to Oriental.It was exciting to ride boat by your self.In Oriental we pick up another crew membrer Bob from Baltimore.Tommorow we will sail all day to Belhaven(NC)
I forget to mention that Geert's culinary galley(food skills) are great.Today we had mexican specialty.
Michal Michlo

Notes from Havana - by Geert

The forecast called for 15 knot easterlies; we got 25. We hoped to get a boost from the Gulf stream; we got 12 foot waves dead on the nose. It took us four days to sail the 180 miles from Cuba's western capes to Havana. We tried riding the stream, we tried sailing inshore, looking for calmer seas, we even tried to motorsail - a pathetic mistake with a 15 HP engine. We damaged two sails, the self steering vane couldn't deal with the waves, the engine quit when the fuel line got clogged. In the end we did it the hard way: tacking toward and away from the reef under stormsails and steering by hand, doing one to two hour shifts. One night David got so tired he started feeling sick. Another night a wave threw me through cabin and I busted my finger so badly that I lived on heavy duty painkillers for a while.

We were elated to reach Havana, but also exhausted, and had no appetite for officials. Still, they could not be avoided. They came on board with no fewer than three dogs. One to sniff for drugs, another for explosives, and the third for people. All our portable electronics (GPS, VHF radio) were taped and sealed. I suppose in case we wanted to use them to help Cubans escape. Cubans are not allowed on the boat, anywhere. When we leave a port, we always have an inspection, and two gueardsmen stay on the dock, in case a refugee would try to jump on at the last minute. This is a lovely country, but also a police state.

In Havana we for the first time were asked for a bribe. While his dog was snniffing around in the forward lockers, the drug enforcement guy said: Listen, between you and me, my wife's birthday is tomorrow, and I want to give her a nice present.

David left yesterday. He has been on the boat for three months, and was an invaluable member of the crew. He is flying to Panama, where he'll join British cruising friends Nathan and Maggie aboard 'Nakatcha'. They are headed for the Galapagos Islands and points beyond...

I only had a glimpse of Havana so far: a gorgeously beautiful city. More explorations tomorrow. This morning I visited Dr. Felicidad Debro in the local clinic. She cheerfully told me that I'll lose the nail of my busted finger. It will fall off by itself, she said, and if not, I'll cut it off before you leave.

Weather permitting Dancker (who is already here) and I plan to sail on early next week. Destination: Key West.

A sign of life from the Free Republic

of Ile A Vache

We still are in Port Morgan at Ile a Vache, where, as rumour goes, people don't pay taxes and hardly obey the Haitian law. Why should they? They catch their own fish, harvest their own fruits and coconuts and potatoes and have no other infrastructure than 'bridle paths' where people and little horses and mules wall sometimes in line (there is hardly any room to pass). No electricity, water comes from a well. Haiti is almost an hour by motorboat from here.
Many stories are being told here. Which one should we believe?

Yesterday I visited the 'main village' called Madame Bernard for the second time. It takes a 'stiff walk' of more than one hour and a half to get there. And three liters of water and a liter of Coke (temperature is 30 degrees Celsius and more).
On Monday I visited the market. I've never been in Africa, but it felt like it. Yesterday I went to see an orphanage with 55 children, led by Soeur Flora. Twenty of them are handicapped (from autistic to spastic) and are taken care of twice a week by a postman from Quebec, who goes out swimming with them. It is sad to notice that these children are kept out of society and rejected by their parents, probably because people believe there is a curse on them. Therefore they also cannot go to the seashore on market days, to avoid confronting them with the people out there...
We plan to sail on to Cuba next Sunday. We will stay in Santiago shortly. The harbour seems to be really filthy... And we are looking forward to visit the archipelago west of the Sierra Maestra...

Island life - by Geert

We went sailing with Manis and Lino in a 20 foot wooden boat named Nannantan bondje, which is creole for waiting for, or expecting the good lord. The boat has long bamboo poles for sprit and boom, and cotton sails that look like they were cut from old tablecloths or bedspreads. The wind was good and the boat sailed very fast. The mainsail is enormous, and cannot be reefed. For ballast we had two bags of sand that we moved around as needed to keep the boat level. On the wind Lino put a long pole athwartships, sticking out two meters on the high side. David climbed on holding on to a rope from the top of the mast. And on we went, Dick steering, David doing a trapeze act on the pole, and Manis and Lino bailing furiously.

We sailed to Ile Permantois, a tiny island north of Ile a Vache, It is home to about 60 people, all fishermen and thier families. They live in straw huts in the shade of palmtrees, fish in dugout canoes and little boats like Manis's, and dry thier catch on wooden racks on the beach. On a clear sunny day it looks like a paradise. In fact these people are rock bottom poor, They dry, and eat, even the tiniest minnow they catch.

Our sail was delayed because a woman from Ile a Vache had died in Les Cayes, on the nainland. She was eight months pregnant. According to local custom, a eccentric mixture of catholicism, voodoo and the influence of various protestant missionaries, babies, even unborn ones, have to be buried seperately. So the dead baby was removed from the dead mother. In the evening hundreds of people gathered and wailed on the beach when the bodies arrived by sailboat, in the pitch dark.

We have visitors every day. Islanders come to the boat in their dug out canoes, offering bananas, coconuts, mangoes and fresh eggs and lobster for sale. If we want beer, we hail a canoe to go and get it, and do our laundry the same way. Some islanders sell themselves. On several occasions we were offered women, by men. One afternoon Vilna, a woman who also does landry, came by peddling her canoe wearing hot pants and lots of costume jewelry. She asked in creole: Are there no women on this boat?

This may be the last dispatch from Haiti. We plan to sail on to Cuba on Sunday.

Passage notes - by Geert

We reached Casilda after a week long cruise through Jardines de la Reina, an extensive achipelago of mangrove and coral islands. All are uninhabited. We only met a few fishermen, and a Dutch sailor returning from an Antarctic adventure.

The sailing was excellent, but we also for the first time in months felt the influence of cold fronts over the north american continent. North winds of 30 knots forced us to hide for two nights in a tight mangrove anchorage at Cayo Breton.

We have a full crew of three, and use the self steering vane less and less. Steering by hand is much more accurate, especially downwind and in a swell. It is also much faster. Day before yesterday we averaged almost 6 knots, with a double reef in the main and a reefed genoa.

Casilda is the harbour of Trinidad, one of the oldest cities in Cuba. Some of the colonial buildings have been restored with Unesco money, but fortunately, there are still many beautiful ruins left. It's a very quiet town. There are some taxi's and air conditioned buses for western tourists, but the Cubans use horse carts and bicycle taxi's. The communist government and the US embargo have almost brought this place to a standstill.

I'll quickly post, without spell check, before internet time runs out.

More on the bamboom - by Eugene

I met Geert in early January in Fajardo, on the east cost of Puerto Rico, for what should have been a short (300 nm.) and uneventful passage to Santo Domingo. Yet, from the very beginning I realized that my time on Sea Scout would be anything but uneventful. In Fajardo the boat was tied up at a dock in Puerto del Rey, a vast, supposedly secure, marina. Of course, everything is relative, especially the security which was purely fictional. The day after I arrived, the boat was burglarized in broad daylight while Geert was having a shower, leaving his vessel unattended for just a short while. Back on board he noticed hat something was amiss and that an I-Pod and charger had been stolen. That evening three burly officers from the local Policia came to the marina to investigate the theft. In fact, all they wanted to see was the boat’s documents and our passports, and off they went, obviously puzzled by the boat’s Dutch registration, which they couldn’t decipher. No doubt, their report, assuming there is one, will be gathering dust at the police station, awaiting a far from certain follow-up.

Still distressed by that episode we set sail on January 8. As luck would have it we were in the wake of a cold front and had to cope with erratic winds, confused seas, and adverse currents. We tried everything; reaching under spinnaker, wing-on-wing with two genoas, jibing back and forth under main and genoa. All to no avail. We could barely do 4 knots. Instead of reaching our intended destination on the west coast of Puerto Rico, we only covered 90 miles in 26 hours. That brought us to La Parguera, a small town close to the southwest corner of the island. Surrounded by a maze of narrow waterways that crisscross endless mangroves, La Parguera is known as the Venice of the Caribbean. There we spent a day at anchor in a tropical paradise, amid mangroves and reefs. On shore we did some provisioning, sampled the local bars and restaurants, and used the computers at the town library to check our emails. The next day we left just before sundown, headed for Isla Mona, a mostly uninhabited island, mid-way between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. That meant crossing the Mona Passage, where the North Atlantic meets the Caribbean Sea. Most boats sail south, down the passage, going with the flow. Since we were sailing westward across the passage we had waves coming at us every which way, except the right way.

Bouncing and rocking like a bronco, Sea Scout headed into the night, scooting along at over 6 knots on a broad reach. Down below, the din of clanging pots and pans made sleeping impossible. After securing the galley, Geert’s son, Nico, and I finally dozed off before going on watch at 2 a.m. Well, that didn’t quite work out. At a quarter to midnight there was sudden bedlam; a loud cracking noise and some expletives. Judging by the confusion on deck, something was wrong. What and why I wondered. It turned out that, to avoid colliding with a south-bound cruise ship, Geert and David who were on watch had done a hasty jibe. Everything would have been OK, but for the fact that the preventer was still attached to the boom. Under the stress of the jibe, the boom had snapped in half, at the point of the preventer! To make matters worse still, the mainsail was torn. Fortunately we were out of harm’s way, bobbing on the waves, watching the cruise ship disappear.

Regaining control of the situation we dropped the main, lashed to broken boom to the coach roof, and motor sailed under genoa and staysail. At daybreak we could see Isla Mona ahead, and a Coast Guard cutter astern. So we kept looking ahead. Because its waters are home to countless sea turtles Isla Mona is known as the Galapagos of the Caribbean. It also happens to be US territory, and beckons would-be boat people fleeing from Cuba and the near-by Dominican Republic. Hence the Coast Guard.

At anchor we came up with a plan; make a new boom with whatever the island would yield. Nico and David swam to shore and, ‘lo and behold, came back with a 30-foot bamboo pole, straight as an arrow and stronger than steel. Removing all the fittings from the broken boom, they set to task to make the bamboom. It worked, and the next day we left for Santo Domingo. The bamboom, rigged with the spare mainsail, worked so beautifully that we made good time—who needs a fancy boom! We arrived off Santo Domingo just after daybreak, averaging close to 6 knots over ninety miles.

Before heading into the harbor we tidied up the boat to impress the local officials. That was totally unnecessary. As in any poor country the only thing that impresses local officials is dollars, the more the better. To wit, the customs official demanded a ‘little present’ ($10), the immigration official brazenly demanded a fee of $80, the so-called drug enforcement agent also wanted cash, as did various other members of our welcoming committee. As for the local marina, its waters are strewn with flotsam, the bathrooms are dismal, and one has to pay for water. But the weather is glorious, the Colonial city delightful, and the local beer as good as any.

I am back in Washington DC where it is snowing, and Nico is back at university in Berkeley. For their part Geert and David are still in Santo Domingo, enjoying the weather and, no doubt, the beer, awaiting repairs/replacement of the boom. When that is done they will sail to Haiti where other crew will join them. As for the bamboom, it will stay on board, just in case.

Eugene Versluysen
Washington DC