UPDATE February 26th Ash Wednesday: On doing an early morning check on the weather, I decided to postpone my departure. The wind is dead on the nose, and the North winds will stay that way until the usual Eastern Trade wind returns on Monday. I prefer to pay 4 days moorage here and hav e a nice beam reach to Key West instead of beating my brains out against this northerly. So, you are all invited to the Big Party here on the 28th.

Carnival on the eve of Ash Wednesday have been a historic part of Cuba’s festivities. But Fidel put a demper on it and religion. No Joy here anymore. Since my last blog on the 15th., I have managed to get the critical repairs done. On Tuesday the Anchor winch was fixed, a broken fuse. On Saturday the auto-pilot was working again. I am not alltogether sure, but I believe it was just understanding the many different switches that had to be coordinated. Nothing broken. Each fix cost me $20, try that elsewhere. I had hoped to find someone to fix the Aries Wind Vane, but that will have to wait until Florida.

I was in the starting blocks this morning but smarter sailors than me, talked me out of it. Because of the weather conditions. And it would not have happened anyway because my $423 bill for my ten days here is still in limbo. But for sure, tomorrow morning, if I can get more evidence from the ABN-Amro that my bill has been paid. I wrote that that I had lost my Euro Credit card. I figured that I had enough cash $ to pay my bill. No, not really. So, what to do? They may chain my boat to the dock and send me to Gitmo (the USA lock-up on the Guatanamo Navy Base. ) But, lucky Jack, was able to wire transfer the bill in Euros from his Dutch ABN-Amro account. But the comrades have not been able to verify it yet. Just everybody count your blessings that most of you, unless you live in Vietnam, Cuba, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, China, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Russia, do not have to put up with these robots. We, in the USA have narrowly escaped this for at least the next 8 years.

I will turn on my Tracker after clearing customs tomorrow morning. You know the link in the upper right corner of this blog. You may again see some weird tacks against the wind but eventually I should put tdown the anchor in Key West.

I left off on the last blog on Saturday the 15th. The next Sunday I missed my routine mass service. I was unable to find the schedule for the nearest church in Santa Fe. To go to the city of Havana with a 50/60 $ roundtrip taxi was beyond my sence of duty towards my faith. On Monday, without my trusty folding bike, I was going to walk the 8 miles to Santa Fe to get some vegetables, fruit and meat, but I managed to hitch a taxi ride with 5 other passengers for $1.50 and the same coming back. There were a few buses running, jampacked.

On the 21st., I invited my friends, Miralys Perez and Osmany, the couple I lodged with in their Casa Particular after my February 3rd 2022 shipwreck,  to dinner on the boat. This turned out to be another sample of the communists robots. I had to get pictures of their id’s and obtain passes for them. They had to be outof the marina gates by 5 pm. But, anyway, it was a good time as you can see by the pictures and video. I squeezed in some Nopalitos, fresh from the marina property. These are the young shoots on the large cacti. Very popular in Mexico. Some of you might remember that I survived on them and Porcini on Ibiza in 2013.

Miralys and Osmany

On Sunday my friends came to get me for the 9 am service in the O.L. of the Assumption church in Baracoa, where they live. The original church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-Cathedral_of_Baracoa  was built in 1810 and because of the suppresion of religion under the communists it is now in a small parish church. But the cathedral building is still standing, waiting for a revival. The majority of the congregation were the students at the enormous campus of the Medical University of the Americas in Baracoa. Most of the attending students were from Africa. The choir in this picture sang in French, Spanish the Gloria in English and the Sanctus in Latin.

The African Choir

The Cuban priest

There were just a handful of local parishioners. I was introduced to one of them, Jose Cruz. This is another one for my “Small World” experiences novella: He had studied engineering in the United States. His best friend, who also studied in the U.S. and stayed there, began in a seminary and switched to pediatrics. He asked me where I was from and I told him that I was from the North West and it turned out that his friend lives in Puyallup. That is my current mailing address where my oldest daughter moved a year ago. His friends name is Quidio Penaliv (?) One of his five sons is the current president of The Seattle University. The first lay person to head the Jesuit university. Our Lisa studied at the S.U. I will probably get some reaction from my N.W. friends that they recognize the name. And when I visit Lisa next I will bring him Jose’s greetings.