SAILING IN CUBA
Sailing Area
Cuba goes beyond all sailors' dreams - a favorable, warm climate year-round, steady winds, unique natural beauty and open-minded hospitable people contribute to this as well as the reliable nautical infrastructure, which is receiving well-aimed promotion and extension by the Cuban government. To the sailor, the whole coast and off-lying islands are fully accessible with the only exception of one prohibited area in the vicinity of the infamous "Bay of Pigs", or Playa Girón. Cuban national waters (12 nautical miles off the base line) may not be left and no persons may be taken aboard who are not on the officially approved crew list. About twenty marinas and nautical centers all around Cuba gladly welcome yachts under all flags and offer all conceivable services.
For their own security – and the safety of the yachts – it is requested the guests do not sail at night within the reef areas. However, there is no objection to go for a longer distance in deep waters in the dark or leave early from port or anchor to make a favorable landfall. For those who have enough time it is possible to circumnavigate the island of Cuba – which would amount to some one and a half thousand nautical miles.
Cienfuegos
Cienfuegos is a very vivid Cuban city, an environment of many cultural and natural attractions without the seclusion of a "tourist ghetto": Cienfuegos, La Perla del Sur, the Pearl of the South, makes all these requirements meet in an ideal way.
Its geographic situation in the center of a ten-mile-deep bay, with an entrance only some hundred yards wide, has made Cienfuegos an important harbour. Today the port, with sugar for export as its most important product, ranks second only to Havana. The city maintains the beauty of its setting as well as its rich architectural heritage from the 19th century. The Teatro Tomás Terry, where Caruso once performed, and the Palacio de Valle, a Moorish-styled villa of an early 20th-century sugar tycoon which nowadays features a restaurant, are among Cuba's most famous historical buildings.
Marina
The Cuban marina chain operates 8 marinas all around the Isla Grande. Marina Puertosol Cienfuegos is in business since 1984 and has all necessary installations and services, like electricity and water supply to the yacht, fuel and gas sale, border, immigrations and customs clearance, restrooms and showers, garbage disposal, card phone for international calls, weather reports and nautical charts and a round-the-clock security and guard service. A further extension of the marina is planned. The Cienfuegos Club is located at the marina which has its own small beach, restaurant, cafeteria and bar. Besides, Puertosol offers many convenient additions to the yacht charter programme from provisioning service and airport transfers to sightseeing excursions and diving programmes - including the rental of equipment and hiring of diving guides and instructors aboard the sailing yachts - local experts are available for all your desires. Advance reservations can be made by Cuba Select Travel.
The Weather
Climate: Cuba lies at the rim of the tropics and therefore has only two "seasons": the (comparatively) drier and cooler between November and April and the (comparatively) warmer and more humid between May and October, which has dry and particularly hot stretches in July and August. For our standards, it is always warm with an average January minimum of not less than 18°C and far more than 30°C in August; the sea temperature is never below 24°C – all these being the statistical values of Havana at the "cool" north coast.
Wind: The reliable trade winds are blowing constantly from easterly directions with a tendency to the north in winter and to the south in summer. Wind speed averages at 10 to 15 knots in winter and 5 to 10 knots in summer, when calm times are also possible. Especially where the mountains reach close to the coastline, catabolic effects can be observed to influence the prevailing easterlies. This weather system is subject to two main disturbances: the nortes or northers in winter, violent intrusions of cold air, which affect the north coast with nominal drops of temperature that cause all Havana to catch a cold and make many harbour entrances virtually impassable. Hurricanes can only arise at water temperatures of more than 27°C in the Atlantic and are therefore limited to the late summer months with a peak in September and October. Modern meteorology is able to predict these tropical storms very reliably.
Tides: Along the whole Cuban coast there are only minor tides which reach a maximum of 0, 6 m at the northwest coast. At the south coast we have an irregular semidiurnal tide of less than half a meter, which, however, should be taken into account in island passages and shallow areas. Currents are, except in very narrow passages, very moderate.
Magnetic variation: The local magnetic variation increases from west (Cabo San Antonio in 2000: ca. 1°W) to east (Punta Maisí: ca. 8°W) with an annual increase of ca. 8’W.
Coastal Formation: Even in the age of GPS and chart plotters, the sharp eye of the skipper remains the most important navigational instrument. "Eyeball Navigation" is mandatory, most of all the correct recognition and interpretation of the colour shades of the water. An elevated position and polarizing sunglasses are very useful at this "living" coast: coral and mangroves don't stick to navigational mapping and have certainly developed on since the last survey! Outside protected lagoons there can also be a significant movement of the sea in shallow waters. The bottom of the sea rises more or less vertically from a depth of more than a thousand meters to close beyond the surface. The most significant gradient on the whole earth is near the southeast coast of Cuba: from Pico Turquino (1972 m) in the Sierra Maestra down to a depth of more than 7000 m below sea level.
Navigation
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Cuban waters were precisely surveyed and charted with Soviet aid and a hydrographic service was installed. Nautical charts in colour print, depths in meters and texts in English from ICH (Instituto Cubano de Hidrographia) enjoy an excellent reputation and should be preferred to the British and American charts, which are also available. A series of 26 charts (ca. CUC 16 each) in 1:150.000 scale covers the whole island, and there are detailed maps down to a scale of 1:5.000. This material is also published in the form of seven "Chart Kits" for pleasure craft, at a price of ca. CUC 50 each and available for example in Havana's Marina Hemingway or in Old Havana's Tienda „El Navegante“: La Habana-Vieja, Calle Mercaderes 115 between Obispo and Obra Pia, Tel. 0053-7- 613625)
There are two excellent Cruising Guides in English language, which complement each other very well by the information contained, so that both can be recommended alike. Both originate in circumnavigations of Cuba by their authors and have an according structure: "The Cruising Guide to Cuba" by Simon Charles has besides the nautical data a lot of general information related to the country, is written in a very sympathetic, personal style and thus also becomes a good general travel guide, its chart sketches are very comprehensive, but "only" manually designed in black-and-white. Cartography is the strength of Nigel Calder’s "Cuba – A Cruising Guide", with two-colour charts based on own GPS-based surveys, and nautical information generally is far more detailed here. Both authors clearly indicate what is based on their own observations and what is "second hand" information.
Simon Charles: The Cruising Guide to Cuba; 340 pages; 23x15 cm paperback; 2nd edition.1997; Cruising Guide Publications; Dunedin, Florida; ISBN 0-944428-36-6. $ 24, 95 (ca. 31 EUR).
Nigel Calder: Cuba – A Cruising Guide; 260 pages; 28 x 21 cm paperback; 2nd edition 1999; Imray, Laurie, Norie & Wilson; St.Ives, England; ISBN 0-85-288-4133. £ 30, 00 (ca. 53 EUR).
