February 04 – February 26, 2025; 17528 nm and 2169 days after departure from La Rochelle

Back in Cienfuegos we leveraged being at the marina. Extended one day to do some errands and give Altimate a nice clean up. (The marina or better government rules forced us to put Altimate in the marina dock when leaving the boat for more than 24 hours). Errands were done but the clean up didn’t happen due to recurring power outrages. No power, no water pump. As easy as that. Gravity was only able to provide poorly dripping water out of the hose. It didn’t matter to us but it gave us another feeling of how often power was not available. A few days before we went to Havana we had met Derya and Orhan. A very nice Turkish couple who happened to own as well an Ovni. A very rare happening (we had only met a couple of other Ovnis since we left La Rochelle). We immediately felt connected and had already spent some nice afternoons together. We took them to our so far favourite place, Piña Colada and introduced them to our “tuk-tuk” friend Joana. A great Cuban woman who was always willing to help but also had the sense to make some business. Whether we needed laundry done, a grocery tour, changing money, propane filling or just some info, she was the one to ask. On top of that she offered a fun tour with her tuktuk to visit the vicinity of Cienfuegos. So far, knowing that we still had a lot of time, (remember, we were still waiting for our heat exchanger), we hadn’t considered to book her tour yet.

Oh, that reminds me, I haven’t given the current state of the delivery at that time. Oh boy, El capitano was in a bad mood when thinking about that. The current info we had was, that the package had left SVB and arrived at Frankfurt airport. BUT that info we have had already for a week. Kind of frustrating. The tracking just showed that the package was ready for getting on a plane. No more further info. How could I blame my dear Capitano for being just a little furious? It was a shitty feeling! After all, there was a little risk of loosing about 3,500$ and not having a repaired engine. Hey, who cares? That’s the fun of living our life, ain’t it?
Anyway, our new Ovni friends had organised a tour with Joana and asked us to join them. It was a fun day with lots of sights to see! Our first stop was at Laguna Guanaroca a bit south east of Cienfuegos. A beautiful protected sanctuary where colonies of flamingos and various aquatic bird species were domiciled. At the lagoon we got -for a change- the luxury of being rowed in small boats to cross the calm water. The lagoon was beautiful and it was cool that we were the only visitors. Like that we could see many cormorants, egrets, pelicans, and herons in the surrounding mangroves. Living on the water ourselves that was not that exciting for us, but when -if I remember right- Wilfredo, the boat man, told us there were oysters growing at the mangrove roots I got extremely excited. I asked him if we could stop and eat some. “Claro que si” he said. And just like that we were half inside the mangroves and Wilfredo was picking and opening the oysters. They were absolutely delicious! What a nice breakfast. I did not know that oysters would grow on mangroves, unfortunately they need brackwater to grow. So no hope to find them on mangrove islands surrounded by just seawater.

I could have stayed there just eating oysters, but we were there to watch flamingos. Booooring! No, in fact it was very cool as we could approach the flamingos pretty close. They were unbothered by our nearly silent advance, calmly ducking their heads underwater for tasty shrimp. The latter was the reason they had this crazy pinkish colour.
Next we were heading to the fort “Castillo de Jagua”, located near the entrance to the Cienfuegos bay. The best part of going there was me driving Joana’s tuktuk. Well at least it was for me. I had so much fun meandering around the potholes or other obstacles in the road. Don’t know what the others thought though. But I didn’t care, I had fun! Naughty me! After a visit of the fort we had lunch at a nice little restaurant at the seaside in the village of Jagua. When our bellies were filled and we rather would have taken a nap we headed back to Joana’s tuk-tuk which we left on the other side of the bay entrance of Cienfuegos. Here as well the ferry was an experience. A guy took his motorcycle and managed magically to put it on the bow of the boat and later got it down without a ramp. Crazy but fascinating! For our last stop Joana took us to “Playa Rancho Luna” where we stretched our legs and had a nice walk at the beach before finally heading back to our boats.

The following days we erased some tasks of our never ending to do list. Things like repairing the spray hood or trying to get propane. Nothing special but projects which had to be done. Our credo was: working half of the day and playing the rest of day. The days passed by with life music at Piña Colada, bar hopping with sailor fellows and exploring more of Cienfuegos while walking through different neighbourhoods. Marc and Anette, a Canadian couple who lives every year for several month in Cienfuegos, invited us for supper to their home. When in Cuba, they always live together with a Cuban family, Gisela and Barbaro. We were spoilt with a nice bbq and also had the opportunity to experience local life. Gisela and Barbado were fun people and lived in a small house in the eastern part of the city with, if I recall right 3 rooms. Marc and Anette occupied one room, it was living in a classical shared apartment connection. The way we lived when we were studying. Yet, kind of a win-win situation for all of them. Marc and Anette supported them financially in lots of ways like e.g. remodelling their home or just fixing things and the Canadians had the opportunity to live with locals. For us it was definitely an interesting insight of Cuban living situations and a great evening with nice people.

Another day I met up with Anne-Sofie, the Swedish lady who also lives with her husband Göran every year in Cienfuegos in wintertime. They also lived with a Cuban family, Marie-Lou and her husband, but right in the middle of town at “Parque José Martí”. The family used to own a company for lamps including a big building. After the revolution everything was taken off from them. They were left with (I hope I remember correct) half of the house they used to live in. That was the apartment which Anne-Sofie and Gören now shared with the family. Compared to where Gisela and Barbado lived it was bigger and nicer. Well, at least in my opinion. Anyway, we met up for a girly day to go limited Cuban shopping and just have some fun. Sofie introduced me to several small shops which I wouldn’t have recognised as such. Marie-Lou also joined us a bit later. She was very knowledgable in local art and artists. So we didn’t only have a girly fun day, it was – at least for me- as well an educational day. The original reason of our meet up was that I was looking for a sewing lady who could tighten ( yes tighten! not widen 😉) some of my skirts. Ok, I didn’t loose any weight, I just had bought the skirts too big and couldn’t return. But it would have sound good wouldn’t it? Anyway, they knew a young sewing lady, Carmen where I left my skirts to be modified. Knowing that all Cubans need things, I asked her whether she would need some needles for her sewing machine or anything else I might could share. She said she was desperate in need of fixing pins. When picking up my clothes I was happy to be able to bring her indeed a whole package of fixing pins as well as sewing needles. She was so happy that she even didn’t want to be paid. I was happy I could help not needing those pins anyhow but of course I insisted to pay. Telling her that was a present! That only shows again how Cubans have to manage their life and living. Imagine having a business and you are not even able to get the most basic tools? For us unimaginable but for most Cubans normal live.

Bam! You won’t believe what happened the next day. It was valentines day. Ok not very interesting for us but while we were just finishing some repairs of the spray hood, Yoa from the marina came by by boat to tell us that we have to come ashore immediately with money! What? Could that be, that our heat exchanger suddenly arrived? I mean, never ever did anybody use the boat from the marina to come to the anchorage. We were sooooo excited, could it be true? Off we jumped in our dinghy and went ashore. And there it was, our package waiting for us in the office of Yoa accompanied by the delivery man who was waiting to get paid some small fees. We just couldn’t believe it and were more than excited about the unexpected arrival. Soooooooo cooooool!!! Now we liked valentines day😉 and went off to Piña Colada bar to celebrate the delivery with our friends.
Replacing the heat exchanger and elbow exhaust was easy and fortunately nothing was leaking after testing. Now we could again plan our further Cuba travel. Yet we were not in a hurry as we really liked it in Cienfuegos. So only slowly we got ready to leave. Joana helped us getting the groceries, we tried to find before leaving and she also did some more laundry for us. Everyday we said goodbye to some of our new friends. On our last Saturday we were invited to Sofie’s birthday party. That was the first party in ages we had in a house! Ok better to say “on” a house as she celebrated on their roof top. It was a nice little party with her musicians friends and some other locals. But to have some music and light they had to let run the generator which spoilt a bit the party feeling. (Lately they had only power for 2 hours a day and never knew when that would happen. Göran told us once, that he sometimes, when he hears that the power was back on, gets up in the middle of the night and cooks a meal to take advantage of the power.) Those generators are pretty noisy so we had to really speak loud. Still we enjoyed it very much and were very grateful to have been invited.

Our further plan was to travel west. Have a few stops at some of the small islands and then check out at Marina Los Morros de Cabo de San Antonio at the tip of Cuba to head to Isla Mujeres/Mexico. On our last Sunday we had invited Joana and her family for lunch at a nice family owned restaurant. A little appreciation of their help. Joanas daughter couldn’t join us but she brought her mom. A sweet old and super skinny lady who was smiling most of the time. Only when we took a foto she didn’t. It was hilarious eating with her. I have no idea how she did it but she was eating like she needed to eat for the next two years. How could such a skinny person eat so much? And even better, she said Norbert would eat so much even though she had almost managed to eat double of what he has eaten. It was just hilarious and I wish my Spanish would have been much better to communicate better with her. We were all heaving fun and enjoyed the food very much. But then we had to say goodbye as we had planned to leave within the next two days.

January the 26th of February we finally left the bay of Cienfuegos and went off for further explorations.