8 April 2013 Cayo Magua to Cayo Zaza de Fuera, Cuba
We were up early and left just after breakfast. The sun was still low in the sky, so it was difficult to see the water colours, but we were safe enough following the marked channel, Pasa de la Machos. The wind was directly against us, so we motor sailed all the way to Cayo Blanco de Zaza. We dropped the anchor just off a nice sandy beach, but the water was murky and there was not much sign of coral, so we soon headed off.
Our course to Cayo Zaza de Fuera was more southerly, so we had a lovely sail for a few hours, tacking into the approach to the anchorage. The anchorage is well protected from the prevailing winds and pleasant enough. There were a couple of other boats in the anchorage, so we went to say hello before we went out snorkelling. "Songerie" is heading east, so we might see them again.
Once again, the snorkelling was very disappointing. The charts seemed to indicate a lot of coral surrounding the cay, but the bottom is sand and weed and the water is murky. The clearest water that we've seen was in the area around Cayo Largo and we sailed past that section of Cuba. I hope that we haven't missed the best bit...
We’ve been living on Alba for exactly two years today, so I worked out a few statistics. In the past twelve months, we’ve sailed 5,852 miles bringing our total to 9,452 miles since we moved aboard, but we’re still only 1,083 miles to the west of Grenada, so we need to start clocking up some more miles if we are going to travel the 25,000 miles around the world in the next eight years – we’ve only done 4% of our voyage.
9 April 2013 Cayo Zaza de Fuera to Cayo Breton, Cuba
We were up early again - this continuous cruising is hard work. It was very annoying that we had to sail in a wide circle to the north of the cay before we could head south east to our destination. It was an hour of bashing to wind, but it looked to be too shallow to pass to the south of the cay, especially with the sun in our eyes.
Once clear of the reef around Cayo Zaza de Fuera, we were able to bear away a little and had lovely close reach to Cayo Breton. We anchored off the south-west coast of the cay in sand and weed, next to "Songerie", who just beat us in here. It's good holding, but we had to anchor a long way from the shore, so we're not very well protected. Once again the water is disappointingly murky and no sign of coral.
I went over to chat to Yaco and Crystalle on "Songerie". Yaco is a very keen spear fisherman, and like me, was desperate to get out on the reef. So he and I went out hunting on the reef which was two miles away - thank goodness that we have a fast dinghy. The sea was very calm, so we anchored outside the reef in six metres of water. The reef was rocky, but lots of fish - we each speared a 4lb Hogfish and I snared a couple of lobster, one of which was an eight pound monster.
Back on Alba, I filleted the Hogfish while Glenys dealt with the lobster. The large one wouldn't fit into the pot until I'd removed it's feelers and legs - not a pleasant thing to do. Even then, Glenys had to hold the lid of the steaming pot down until it had started to cook.
"Songerie" came for a sunset cocktails, they're from Namibia - you don't often see that flag on the back of a sailing yacht.
10 April 2013 Cayo Breton, Cuba
It was pretty grim weather this morning, with strong 20-25 knot east winds and cloudy, so we decided to stay here for the day. After traveling for four days, we were feeling a little weary.
Glenys did a few chores and made some bread, while I kept out of the way. We had a lovely lobster salad with nice hunks of fresh bread for lunch.
In the afternoon, I inspected the generator and tightened the fan belt. We then ran the generator and the watermaker. I was sitting in the cockpit chilling out, when I heard the generator and watermaker stop and restart. I went down below and turned off the watermaker, then looked in the engine room to find loads of smoke and the sound of boiling water – the bloody fan belt had shredded. I turned off the generator and had a quick look, but it was too hot to touch – I’ll have to leave it until tomorrow. The worrying thing is that there is oil splattered around the front of the generator engine.
We had a quiet night in.
11 April 2013 Cayo Breton to Cayo Cuervos, Cuba
I didn’t sleep very well worrying about the generator. We’re so reliant on it because our watermaker is 230V and needs the generator running to operate. Fortunately we’ve still got 400 litres of water in our tanks, but if I can’t run the water maker then we’ll have to go onto short rations and go to Jamaica earlier than we planned.
The weather was overcast and it was fairly windy, gusting up to 20knots from the ESE, which was exactly where we want to go to the Cayo Cuevas, so we decided to wait until mid-morning to see what the wind does – we have 35 miles to go and we should do that comfortably in 7-8 hours. We expect the wind to drop around noon, so we could still leave at eleven o’clock and make it by the time that the sun goes down at half past seven.
I looked at the generator. The freshwater pump and alternator seemed to be turning okay, so I guess that the belt broke because I’d over-tightened it and it was old. It took me half an hour to remove the remains of the fan belt which had wrapped itself around the inside of the fan belt pulley – the rubber had heated up and fused in place. I cleaned up the generator and tray underneath to remove all traces of oil and bits of rubber. While I was working on the generator, I noticed that one of the sea water hoses had a kink in it, so I turned off the seacock and shortened the hose to remove a tight bend.
Once I’d replaced the fan belt, I started the generator and it ran fine for five minutes and then cut out because it had overheated. After a minute of panic, I realised that I’d not turned the seacock on – idiot!! I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to check that I’ve not damaged the sea water pump impellor by running it dry.
We upped anchor at ten o’clock and motored to the north of Cayo Breton and then directly into a 20-25 knot wind with horrible steep waves slamming straight into us. The only way that we could make any head way was to motor sail at 45 degrees to the wind, which we did for an hour until the wind and waves subsided a little. It’s not easy sailing east against the trade winds, but we can rely on the wind dropping in the afternoon around this area. By noon, the wind had dropped to 10-15 knots and we were able to motor directly east to Cayo Cuervos, arriving at four o’clock.
Cayo Cuervos is fabulous. It’s a set of small mangrove cays set in a semi-circle around a lagoon. The water is 5-6 metres deep in the lagoon and the islands have small beaches. The whole cay is surrounded by coral and the water is fairly clear…
For the last five nights, we’ve been putting the mosquito netting up in the cockpit, but this evening we decided not to because the cays look so small that we assumed that there weren’t many mosquitos on them – wrong. Ten minutes after sun down, I had five bites on my shoulder and hand, so the mosquito netting went up and I was paranoid all night.
12 April 2013 Cayo Cuervos, Cuba
It was a lovely morning, blue skies and light winds – perhaps we should have waited in Cayo Breton for another day?
I sorted out the generator. The sea water pump impellor was fine and we don’t seem to have a serious oil leak. I ran the generator for 30 minutes to test everything and then ran the watermaker for an hour. Everything works, so that’s a great relief.
Glenys was doing a few jobs on deck, when she noticed what appeared to be a small cockroach near the gas locker. When she tried to get closer, it disappeared into the gas locker. This prompted a major investigation – we had to find it and kill it immediately. We'd had an invasion of cockroaches on our previous boat, Glencora, and it had taken us months to get rid of the pesky little things. We pulled everything out of the gas locker and killed a long wasp-thing which we found in there. There was no sign of anything else, so we breathed a sigh of relief – mistaken identity and mild paranoia.
After lunch, we went for a trip in the dinghy and finally found somewhere decent to snorkel. It was only shallow, but there were some nice outcrops of coral and lots of fish to look at. We spotted several large lobster, but we’ve still got some lobster left from the ones I caught a couple of days ago, so we weren’t that fussed. Eventually, I decided that I couldn’t leave them behind and snared a smallish one, but it turned out to be a female with thousands of eggs under her tail, so I let her go.
We were back on the boat at four o’clock, so we chilled out reading and playing the guitar. The mosquito netting went up at five o’clock and we were feeling very smug when hordes of the little buggers descended upon us at dusk. These are the most voracious little buggers that we’ve seen for a while – they look more evil because they are jet black with white stripes on their bodies. I was a little too smug because later in the evening, I discovered that I had another line of four big bites on my shoulder where I’d obviously been leaning against the mosquito netting and they’d bitten me through it…
We retired down below at ten o’clock, when one of them managed to crawl under the netting and was buzzing around Glenys’s ear. Fortunately, we have another mosquito net that fits in the companionway to act as our second line of defence.
13 April 2013 Cayo Cuervos, Cuba
I checked the generator this morning and found that we do have an oil leak and there was oil splattered everywhere. I cleaned it all up as best I could and I suspect that there’s a damaged oil seal behind the fan belt pulley which was damaged when the fan belt wrapped itself around the pulley. I put some oil absorbent pads around the engine and ran it for half an hour and I can clearly see that the oil is being sprayed from the fan belt pulley. This is not good news and we’ll probably have to get it sorted out in Jamaica.
We chilled out for the rest of the morning running the water maker and doing a few admin jobs. After lunch, we went snorkelling. We took the dinghy out between two small cays and headed south east, where we found a good section of reef in about 6 metres of water. We saw a beautiful large, White Jellyfish and I speared a nice sized Hogfish, which we had for dinner.
The damn mosquitoes descended on us in force again. Tonight I only had two bites after a mosquito breached our defences.
14 April 2013 Cayo Cuervos to Cayo Manuel Gomez, Cuba
There was absolutely no wind last night and it was very, very hot – we didn't sleep well at all - just lay there sweating.
In the morning, we removed the mosquito netting from the cockpit, but there must have been some of the little buggers lurking around and we both got bitten while tidying up ready to sail. I think that we've just proved that Glenys gets bitten as much as I do, but her body doesn't react like mine - fifteen minutes after the bites, I had a ¼” diameter itching lump and Glenys had nothing…
We motored ten miles to Cayo Manuel Gomez, which is another collection of mangrove covered islands. However, it's a nice enough place to look at and the holding is good in 3 metres of water over sand and weed.
We went snorkelling in the afternoon again, which was very good, but I didn’t get anything to eat. I tried to spear a big Hogfish, but my little pole spear wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the thick scales around its head. I also stalked a huge black grouper and got within four foot of it, but then I hesitated for too long to get a good shot and it evaded me. I also caught a couple of lobster, but both turned out to be female with eggs, so I let them go - not my best day's fishing...