On the eve of our departure from Cuba, we sit quietly on the side of the dock, the quiet waves lapping against the side of the boat....the moonlit night....all give us a false sense of quiet for we are in a protected harbor with tallish mountains on all sides. But... all day... the 'elephants danced'. As we peered out through the narrow gap delineating the harbor from the Caribbean sea the outlines of the waves could be seen dancing across the gap.....almost as though to playfully beckon us out. The weather forecasts all predict mild seas but, as usual, one little snag....three tropical waves are making their way from east to west, their broadness over large areas give us little to go on......tomorrow will tell....should be an exhilarating ride to Jamaica.

Cuba, we leave with affection for its people and generosity and spirit. We hope to post a video snapshot of our time here when we once again enter the world of Internet in Jamaica. It is our hope and the hope of every Cuban we have talked to that our idiotic politicians get their act together and stop this shameful policy toward such a warm and generous neighbor.....

Aboard we have a third crewmember, a friend of Zach named Heenal and thankfully he is a better cook than I....so as is usually the case...the best.....cooks.

The voyage is 110 miles more or less and with a departure time of about 3 pm tomorrow, August 3rd we hope to make Jamaica the next morning, August 4th on an almost direct course of 197 degrees.

Jamaica has a miserable dog policy...'no dogs from the usa'....so we are bit anxious, once again for Mango.

An attempted fix of the jib is all we have ..... we are ready for it to collapse....we have two other spinnaker type sails aboard which might have to be pressed into service of some sort.

The reef lines have been fixed and antichaffing gear put in place.

Shearwater is about to begin the next leg.

---------- radio email processed by SailMail for information see: http://www.sailmail.com