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| Beautiful classic sailyacht. |
At Cienfuegos, sailors gave us the bad news that the Italian fly-fishing company in the Jardin de la Reina, is now chasing sailboats away. They claim it is a National Park and soon we will not be allowed to anchor there. The cherry on the cake is that we are also not allowed to SWIM, SNORKEL OR DIVE!! We have been to many marine parks like Bonaire, Gran Cayman, Belize and Bay Islands. There spearfishing or anchoring (on the reefs) are forbidden in certain areas. The Cienfuegos marina or Port captain know nothing about this new law. After a few days of stocking up fresh veggies, cigars and Cuban rum, we sailed to the Jardin.
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| Early morning coffee on the beach for the dogs morning run.. or should I say hunt? (Canela became a viscous hunter, disappearing for hours, hunting iguanas or anything moving.) |
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| Jaco smoking fish and cigars. |
Our fist stop was at Cayo Zaza de Fuera, with very good protection for the strong North wind the following two nights. This is still outside the park and with the diurnal effect of light wind in day time, we went spearfishing in the mornings. The reef is about 4NM from the anchorage. We went with the big boat to the submerged reef. Jaco dived while I stayed onboard drifting with Songerie until he signals to come closer. This worked very well, now I can keep an eye on Jaco and the dogs happy at the same time.
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| Canela came second during a hunt. We do not know what bit her, but it seemed not to bother her too much. |
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| Delicious yellow mouth and yellow fin groupers for the bottling pot. |
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| The man on the hunt. |
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| S/V "Lela" took this photo on our way to our favorite Cayo Alcatracito. They running with the wind, while we were beating as close to the wind as possible. |
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| Beach BBQ at Alcatracito, last year we were at least 4 boats now only us and one unsociable US Catamaran... |
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| Prawn boats coming in at Cayo Cuervo. |
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| Conch and prawn stir fry on toast for breakfast! |
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| Chinese style prawns. |
After the fly-fishers chased us away from Alcatracito, we sailed to Cayo Cuervo, which is outside the park. In previous years there were always at least 8 yachts at anchor in this bay... this year "Songerie" was the only yacht for 10 days!! Jaco and I have spend many nights alone at anchorages, but we tremendously missed our buddy boat "Nomad" with Nate and crew Ana. They were marvelous company, eager, free-diving dive mates for Jaco and perfect rum and beach party partners!!
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| Bucket prawns for free. |
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| Christelle pickled a few bottles of prawns. |
Jaco dived the reefs in the area a couple of times, but the water stayed too murky with little visibility.
He managed to find enough fish, conch and lobster, together with fresh prawns from the friendly boats, we "managed" to survive (like kings)!
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| Freash prawns, fish, lobster, conch with Spanish chorizo... mmmm Paella! |
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| Tandoori style prawns and "roosterkoek" (Afrikaner bread cooked on a open fire) |
Although we had no company, we still enjoyed a sunset beach BBQ.
I tried my best not to worry too much and ignore the absence of the dogs around my feet, while they are avidly hunting like mangrove rats!
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| Another perfect beach BBQ. |
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| Passing through the very narrow Cayo Breton channel. |
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| We always BBQ the fresh fish heads first, keeping the rest of the meat for the following day. |
When all fresh produce were almost finished, we sailed back to Cienfuegos, stopping at Cayo Breton and Zaza de Fuera.
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| The "kids" keeping bow watch, on arrival at Cienfuegos. |
We are not sure what the reason is for the lack of boats in the Jardin: was the fly fishers chasing them away, sailors vary of over crowded anchorages with the embargo lifted for US boats or the bad winds the past season? Whatever the reason, we are not sure whether we will return to the Jardin de la Reina.
One can understand that Cuba wants to preserve their sea life, but if they want to stop sailboats from spearfishing they should first stop fishermen fishing with nets. Bottom trawling results in a lot of bycatch and can damage the sea floor. A single pass along the seafloor can remove 5 to 25% of the seabed.
It is also ridiculous to forbid anchoring, cause all anchorages is on mud, or sand...no damage to any reef.
