March 2008 eBook - Latitude 38

LETTERS
See us next month at
Jack London Square
April 16-20
Of the three, I'd say that Latitude gets the most attention.
Jorge G. Mickey
Baja California Sur
Jorge — We need to separate the issues a little.
If you want to catch a ride on a boat headed south, you'll
have the best chance if you hang around the more crowded
marinas in Mexico or become part of sailing events. If you're
in Todos Santos, it's a relatively short trip to the marinas in
La Paz. Spend a day or two visiting the marinas and getting
your name around. Unfortunately, most of the Ha-Ha boats will
already have migrated south to at least Puerto Vallarta, if not
Zihua, so you're a little behind the curve. However, you might
come over to Paradise Marina for the Banderas Bay Regatta
to see if anyone is about to dash south right after that event.
Nonetheless, there aren't going to be many — if any — boats
headed to the environs of Cuba from the Pacific Coast of Mexico
right now. It's a long way, most people don't want to rush, and
neither they nor their insurance companies want them in hurricane
zones during hurricane season, which is likely when
they'd get there if they left now.
The whole issue of visiting Cuba, by boat or otherwise, needs
to be addressed separately. If you're an American citizen and
your ultimate goal is to get to Cuba, you've got a big legal issue.
The laissez-faire attitude of the Clinton administration toward
U.S. mariners sailing to and staying in Cuba is long gone, having
been replaced by the Bush administration's policy of really
cracking down on U.S. mariners in Cuba. It's our understanding
that there are very few, if any, American boats in or are going
to Cuba at this time.
If you want to run the legal risks — and there are potentially
big fines involved for "trading with the enemy" — the Cuban
government would be more than happy to help you. For instance,
instead of stamping your passport, which would later
be seen by U.S. officials, they stamp your tourist visa, then
keep it when you leave.
Your best sailing option for going to Cuba is getting a ride
on a non-American boat in the Caribbean that's headed to
Florida via Cuba. The closer you get to Cuba, the greater the
chance of finding a boat heading there. As such, you might try
the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, or the Caribbean coast of
Mexico. In late spring, the French sometimes run rallies that
start in Martinique or Guadeloupe and end in Cuba. It's great
downwind sailing.
The other option is to fly to Cuba from Jamaica, Mexico, the
Bahamas or Canada along with, among others, all the sex tourists.
Activists claim that foreign men visiting Cuba are able to
order sex with Cuban girls and women as easily as they can
order a mojito. Sex with children is another terrible offshoot of
poverty in Cuba. If you fly to Cuba and are found out by U.S.
officials, you could be in hot water.
As we've written repeatedly, we think that U.S. citizens
shouldn't just be allowed to visit Cuba, it should be mandatory,
if only to make everyone realize how much better — although
far from perfect — our political and economic system is, and
just how terrible the Cubans have it.
⇑⇓THE SHIP USES LESS WATER THAN THE YACHT
We on Maltese Falcon passed through the Panama Canal
in early February in company with my classic motoryacht
Atlantide, which is now heading north to San Francisco. The
Falcon cleared the Bridge of the Americas at low tide by a
couple of meters without incident.
Our Canal passage reminds me of the long-standing dispute
over the question of whether it takes more water for a
Page 48 • Latitude 38 • March, 2008