Cayo Blanco Cuba

We made another 0700hrs start from Cayos Azuaga on Wednesday 13 February on a lovely, fine, light-wind day.  Unfortunately, despite having moved away from Niquero the previous evening, the wind had changed direction overnight and, even though the wind was very light, when we woke BV’s decks were covered in black soot spots carried over to us from Niquero’s sugar refinery.

Cayo Playa Blanco, just to the west of Cayo Blanco where we spent the night

It took us just over 7 hours to reach Cayo Blanco.  We tried to sail for about 20mins but the wind was just too light to make progress so we motored.  Our route had us threading through some attractive mangrove covered cays and we were delighted [Ed: and relieved!] that the engine ran well throughout the passage. It certainly looks like we’ve cracked the fuel issue that we had off Cabo Cruz, which is a reassuring given the remoteness of the area and the fact that there is little wind and a timeline to meet.

The narrow entrance to Cayo Blanco lies between two reefs of sand with some coral

We arrived at Cayo Blanco just after lunch.  The entrance is narrow but deep and when we arrived with the sun high in the sky it was easy to pick out the shallows on either side – beautiful turquoise waters rather than the cobalt blue of the deep water passage.

The anchorage at Cayo Blanco is deep – about 15m – but this is surrounded by reefs of various depths and some islands, Cayo Blanco being one of them.  We dropped anchor at 1420hrs, relatively close to one side of the reef, intending to snorkel over it but once we were secure the wind got up (a bit late!) and spun us through 180 degrees so we repositioned in deeper water and reconsidered the distance we now had to swim.  With the sea somewhat choppy and the water clarity not all we had hoped for, we settled for a more leisurely afternoon.

Chief hammock tester

Charlotte tried out BV’s hammock…

Not a bad view when lazing in a hammock

… which had a superb view, whilst I messed about in the galley.

BV bread (version 2)

With bread relatively hard to come by in Cuba (we never saw flour in the shops and so assume that it is state controlled and rationed), the first priority was to make version 2 of BV Bread. This mix worked much better than V1, so much so that it rose in the oven far more than I had expected and the top of the loaf took on the pattern of the oven shelf and Pyrex dish above it!

For dinner I cooked up a large quiche (in the aforementioned Pyrex dish).  It wasn’t exactly a fully authentic recipe but it used up some bacon and, more importantly, some rubbery American cheese that we needed to use or lose.

The really good news was that we also ran the generator for a couple of hours to make water and fill the tanks.  To our great relief, the generator ran perfectly throughout so it looks like cleaning the one-way valve in the generator fuel line solved the fuel supply issue.

With the batteries fully charged from the long motor and running the generator, we decided on an open air BV film premiere for our evening’s entertainment.  Back in 2015 Charlotte joined us on BV in the Northern Sporades in Greece.  Specifically, she had wanted to visit the filming locations for the musical Mamma Mia(from Charlotte’s perspective it was clearly the only reason that we had BV in Greece!) and we had managed to visit all the main sites, including the small chapel that features at the end of the film.  Ten years on from the filming of Mamma Mia, a sequel has been produced and, for old times’ sake, Charlotte had brought us out a copy of Mamma Mia 2 – Here We Go Again.  A film night was therefore in order.  One of the advantages of the Cayo Blanco anchorage was that we were the only yacht there and so there was no chance of our disturbing the neighbours singing along loudly (and probably badly) to all the ABBA songs in the film.

At 3am a heavy rain storm disturbed Nicky and me, with torrential rain and winds of 25-30kts clocking around through a wide angle as the storm cell passed by.  So we held anchor watches for much of the remainder of the night though, of course, BV was absolutely fine with the anchor well dug in.  But it’s better to hold an anchor watch and not need it, than not hold a watch and realise (hopefully not too late) that one was required. And in any event, if the wind’s howling and the rain pouring down, if one person is up and on watch the other can (and will) sleep easy.  With no watch being held under those conditions, neither of us sleeps well and we each wake up at the slightest groan of the snubber or extra-strong buffet from the wind. Happily, the storm cells cleared shortly before dawn though it remained overcast for the next day’s passage to Cayo Granada.

Cayo Blanco, Cuba