Sea Stories 2

Treasure Cay
26 40.33 N 077 16.92 W

Don Trisha and Cheryl have spent the last 10 winters cruising in Cuba. Because they are not American citizens, the US Coast Guard leaves them alone. There is not much in the way of cruising guides to Cuba telling one where to go or how to navigate. Therefore they had to learn much if it themselves by direct experience.

The only guide they did have for reference was written by Nigel Calder. Mr. Calder, a Brit, is famous among cruisers. He wrote "Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual," which almost every cruising (including us) has on boat. Mr. Calder, an editor of New Scientist Magazine, also writes numerous magazine articles. Anyhow, Mr. Calder also wrote a cruising guide to Cuba. How he did it is the subject of this story.

As Don and Trisha relate it, Mr. Calder had a fancy recording depth sounder. When he came to a new port, he anchored out, put the recorder in his dinghy, and steered a straight line course in to the anchorage. If the recorder showed depths no less than 5.8 feet (that's what his boat needed) then he documented it in the cruising guide.

When Don and family tried to follow those routes on Road to the Isles, the had lots of trouble. 5.8 feet was marginal for them. Sometimes they had only an inch or two of water under the keel. They had to get out in the dinghy to scout and proceeded very cautiously. In one case, they had to traverse a lagoon inside the reef for several miles, all the time with only inches to spare. That would be a very anxiety ridden trip.

After safe arrival at the ports, they would relax and get to know the locals. Several times they said, the local fishermen would say, "Why did you enter the harbor that crazy way?" "Huh?" said Don. "Well," explained the fishermen, "the water is very shallow where you went, but if you moved over a few hundred feet, the water is 14 feet deep." "Ay ay ay," is the appropriate Cuban expression for that. Even in the case of the miles long passage inside the reef, they were only a few hundred feet from a deep channel the whole way.

The problem was that Mr. Calder concerned himself only with finding a feasible route in with at least 5.8 feet depth; any feasible route. He never explored from side to side to find the best route..

Now, when they open up Cuba, the first thing we're going to do is to buy Cheryl Barr's cruising guides to Cuba, not Nigel Calders.