sun set on the evening of our second day travellingit the morning of the third day a capitano just waking upalready on our third day I could get rid of all the warm clothes we needed to wear when leaving Beaufort, I was wearing all that and still was cold after a few minutes outside in the cold wind; meanwhile we had reached t-shirt weather- that felt so much betterday 4 or 5 we caught a beautiful MahiMahithe weather was sometimes challenging, that day the wind was low and we tried to go faster with the two heaadsails sailing close hauledmy little x-mas tree was swinging like crazy on the passage but didn’t get any harmstay sail and main sail reefed yet we were flying while passing Guantánamo and after 8 days in the morning we reached Santiago de Cubawe were passing “el Castillo del Morro” just before arriving in Santiago de Cuba
Marina Marlin and first pics
we were super lucky as a fellow sailor took a picture of us from the Castillo de Morro when we were entering the baythe anchorage of Marina Marlinthe Austrian boat which was docked opposite of us; his crew member was at the Castillo when we arrived and later gave us the above picturethe small Marina Marlin, Altimate on the left dock side
Santiago de Cuba
Maïder, the French girl and the two of us heading to town in a taxithe driver left us here at Céspedes Parka nice building at Céspedes parkthere were so many cool carsthe view direction the bay of Santiagosomebody famous had lived there – I forgot whothe harbour of SantiagoMuseo de la Lucha ClandestinaI though: ” what a cute modern little fiat”we were having lunch somewhere, due to luck of varieties of food I guess the menu was everywhere the same; rice, tomatoes, cabbage, cucumber or pepper, fried platanos and fish or chicken or pork the restaurants were simple but always clean and what I liked a lot the tables were neatly setwe had a quick visit at the cathedral statue of Cuban patriot Francisco Vicente Aguilera at Plaza de DoloresPlaza de Doloreswe had a little rest a lot of houses have a morbid look yet still with a distinguished touchmore old cars, some look oldsome of the cars were very pretty and polished to shineour taxiin between our ride back to the marina our driver picked up his son back at the marina at sunseta different view of the marinawe found a restaurant close by and had some drinks with the crew of the Austrian boatClaudia, Robert and Maïder from the Austrian boat and El Capitano de Altimatethey offered as well a couple of rooms at the restaurant, that was the lobbydiesels was delivered in jerry cans to the dock, we got lucky we only waited 4 days to get the dieselone of the mariners took this pic when we got the dieselwe took a stroll around the area of the marina, a lot of beautiful nature the boats “Paseafique” and “Anthem” of our Australian friends anchored in the bay of the marinajust another amazing sunset from above the marinaAltimate was moved a few meters to make space for another boat to come
Visiting Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca and Cayo Granma
the ferry stop, it does look very well maintained from this perspective we passed Altimate (on the right) with the ferry“our” ferry heading further to island Granmathe big entrance of Santiago de Cuba baywalking up to the fort, on the way already some small watchtowers for piratesthe fort on the hillwalking over that iron bridge would have been the short cut to the fort, fortunately Robert had told us that it was a hardly walkable bridge extremely corroded – nothing for my way nerves regarding my fear of heightsthe entrance of the fort area, we were so early that not even the few souvenir sellers were presentthe lighthouseI can’t recall having seen such beautifully ornamented canonssuch a pretty viewwe were passing by with Altimate when arriving to Santiagothe impressive fort but here one can also see the smoke from the industries in Santiagoproud El Capitano?the view from the fort direction Santiago townthere was a foto shooting at the fort I asked to take a pic and what it was about but I forgot, I only remember that it was for a special daythe museum area was rather empty and this wheelchair must have been importantheads of important prisoners?down at the little beach beneath the fort we saw again the foto shooting crew, this time they were taking pics of beachwear here we were waiting for the ferry to come to Cayo Granma, the caballero was selling his freshly rolled cigarsif you run out of “cup” cuban pesos the people are always very happy to take dollars insteadafter our lunch we walked around the island that takes about 10 minutes the view of the marina and the ugly chimneys waiting for the ferry to comewe even found a bench in the shade waiting for the ferry to take us back to the marinaon the ferry
Another trip to Santiago
This time we just wanted to get some fresh food, rum and “queso blanco”, a feta like cheese which is very typical in South America. To take advantage of being in Santiago we visited the famous cemetery “Santa Ifigenia” before buying groceries. Getting the groceries turned out not as easy as we had hoped. The poor driver tried hard to find Queso Blanco. I thought it would have been easy peasy to find it, at least in town. Well not quite. Our dear driver was eager to help and asked many people. After zigzag driving through town including several stops and more asking he finally found a guy where I could buy my wanted queso blanco. When I paid the cheese, the caballero passed me the cheese in my hand without paper or anything. So finally I was standing there with my precious cheese in my palm, holding it like a valuable trophy or a fragile bird. My astonished face must have been a hilarious picture. Actually its a good system it safes a lot of plastic or other kind of wrapping material (even though unfortunately I do not believe that’s the reason) but it would have been nice to know before to be prepared. Anyway an old man appeared out of nowhere and passed me a small plastic bag. He was happy to make a small business and I was happy not to carry my happily purchased cheese all along carefully on my palm or getting it smashed in our bags. Unfortunately we did not take pics as we were very noticeable and all eyes on us in that area, but damn it would have been a fun foto collection.
we had some drinks the night before with the Australian and in the end we had a little dance with the nice ladies the restaurant our taxi our young driverthe floor final resting place of Fidel Castro at Cementerio Santa IfigeniaMausoleum of national hero Jose Marti a monument to Pedro (Perucho) Figueredo, author of the National Anthem of CubaMausoleum of national hero Jose Martia snap shot out of the taxi , a common transportation
Hallo ihr Zwei, danke für die Fotos und Erklärungen .Ãber die anstrengende Tour beneide ich euch aber nicht, da ich schon mit meiner Kofferabholung ein- und auspacken gestresst bin. Aber ihr seid ja erfahrene Segler und leidet auch nicht unter Jetlag. Für heute erstmal liebe GrüÃe von der Tante.
SY Altimate 
Hallo ihr Zwei, danke für die Fotos und Erklärungen .Ãber die anstrengende Tour beneide ich euch aber nicht, da ich schon mit meiner Kofferabholung ein- und auspacken gestresst bin. Aber ihr seid ja erfahrene Segler und leidet auch nicht unter Jetlag. Für heute erstmal liebe GrüÃe von der Tante.
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