02/05/2010, Matthew Town, Great Inagua, Bahamas
Discouraged with the current economic trends in the U.S. or Europe? Are you an innovative self starter? Do you have good organizational skills, are you a people person? Would you enjoy living on "island time"?
If you answer yes to any or all of the above, there is a business crying out for your attention in Matthew Town, Great Inagua, Bahamas. This is the most southern and one of the largest islands in the Bahamian chain, lying just fifty miles north east of Cuba. For cruising boats entering the country from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba or Jamaica the stop at Matthew Town to rest, clear customs and re-supply is important and should be gratifying. Sadly this is not the case.
The boat basin, where customs inspections are obligatory, is a disaster zone. It is subject to large ocean swells and what little room there is for maneuvering is hogged by half sunken trawlers and sundry maritime craft. We arrived the same day as another cruising boat and since we both needed to check in, had to "raft up" on the wall as there was no other space. Once secured to the wall, the dock is strewn with rubble, rusty cable and scrap metal. There is a "phantom phone booth" whose phone was long ago disgorged, leaving an explosion of wires and glass. The office building is ramshackle and although there is a toilet open, the showers were locked and out of commission. For this mess each boat is charged $6.00 per day. A night spent in the boat basin is to be avoided as the wrecked trawlers are home to armies of hungry mosquitoes who like nothing more than skuzzy sailor for their midnight snack. The whole experience is unpleasant, but it only requires some muscle and a hauling truck to make a significant difference. Then some diligent work to re-establish the facilities, retain willing maintenance workers from the under-employed settlement residents and build a break from the swell to protect harbored boats.
Great Inagua has a falling population of 900 residents, half of whom are employed by the Morton Salt Company, where salt is dried out from the ocean in the hot Bahamian sun and wind and piled ready for shipment on large cargo ships. There used to be a movie theatre in town, now there is not even a playground for the town's children and with no prospects the youth of the island leave and properties are left derelict. A well run marina facility, leased from the government would supply work for countless people. The town's services would all get a shot in the arm with visiting, happy cruising folks re-supplying their boats before venturing further up the island chain. Eventually a small café with internet (already on the island) and easy access to water and diesel, a few waving palms and Adirondack chairs would make it a must stay destination. The people who we met in town were incredibly welcoming and helpful and it would reflect their positive outlook if arrivals by boat were greeted by order instead of chaos.
The island's lighthouse is well worth the hike out to the point, and if one climbs all the way to the top, one is rewarded by stunning views of crashing surf, coral heads, the wildlife preserve, the salt flats and a dazzling flock of flamingoes.
If we did not have other pots to boil we might have gone further than dreaming about it. Anyone out there interested in the challenge?
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02/02/2010, Matthew Town, Great Inagua, Bahamas
Cuba nurtures unintended consequences as the thrush does the cuckoo chick: no development capital for fifty years yields hundreds of miles of what may be the most valuable undeveloped real estate left in the world. A dearth of packaged foodstuff obviates the vast trash problems of other developing nations. Just in passing, we in turn had our own Mandy-sized unintended consequence of being out of e-mail communication while we worked our way from cay to cay, to weather and holing up to shelter from passing cold fronts.
With that behind us we resolved ourselves to the last 200 miles to weather and through the Windward Passage, between Cuba and Haiti , on to the Bahamas. Perhaps there are sailors, some of those gritty Type-A personalities, who like this kind of thing, but we are not they. The NOAA radio offshore weather reports have this rather intimidating pre-amble: " Seas given as significant wave height ... which is the average height of the highest 1/3 of the waves. Individual waves may be more than twice the significant wave height." Sure! And they are and it's those that always seem to jump right on top of us.
Analogies can be clichéd but nevertheless imagine climbing aboard a mechanical bull (as in "Urban Cowboy"), place the evil machine on one of those fairground boat swings (as in certain chunder) and have water hurled at it, gallons at a time. Now ride that beast for fifteen hours. There is no part of this that is fun, it is the price we pay to get our little home from one place to another.
Motor-sailing into violent confused seas, short tacking to try to gain some lee from the land, we watched the Punta Caleta light inch past us at less than 1 knot for more than a whole night. This kind of thing requires resolution and dark thoughts come easily. "If we can't make it around here our only Plan B is back 150 miles or run off to Jamaica, 200 miles south." Don't even think it. It seems feeble when one reads of others taking thirty days to weather foreboding southern capes under sail alone and, in the early hours, the difference between them and I is captured in Auden's recently read words:
... At once from your calm eyes,
With their lucid proof of apprehension and disorder
All that we are not stares back at what we are ...
Once out of the grip of Punta Masai the fifty miles north to Great Inagua, the southernmost in the Bahamian Island chain, marked Mandy's first venture into her third ocean or sea, the Atlantic. Pulling into the roadstead anchorage off the west side of the island in fading daylight we dropped sails and prepared the anchor. In the perfect exclamation point for a difficult passage the engine immediately coughed and stopped. Out of fuel! Sails up again , anchor down and two very much not Type-A personalities dropped dead to sleep in their bunk.
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01/31/2010, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
The very imposing fortifications of the "Morro de Santiago" would keep anyone out
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01/30/2010, Chivirico, Cuba
Our last refuge before the Windward Passage
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01/26/2010
We say goodbye to the land of 50's Chevy's and hard working horses
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01/25/2010
Ural started selling new versions of these Russian made Second World War era BMW clones in the U.S. recently. Virginia and I even went to test drive one in San Diego! Here the originals are ubiquitous and the locals say they run great.
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