We said goodbye to our lovely sandy beach at Cayo Blanco and headed off west down the south coast of Cuba to the fishing village of Cabo Cruz. The coast line here is sheer cliffs with incredibly deep water. We dragged along fishing lures, but caught nothing more than weed.
Unfortunately none of our charts covered our destination in any detail. The point here is a major through fair for shipping and the channel that passes by is very well buoyed, but the reef protected village on the point has no depth information. Our guide book gave us a list of way points that we used to edge our way through the buoyed entrance into the anchorages encircling reef and a suggested anchor point. We found depths a little shallower than the guide book, but the bottom was a harmless mix of grass and sand and the tides are only 30cm maximum here. We anchored just short of their suggested way point, but still well off shore from the the town of Cabo Cruz.
The humans had heard that there was good snorkelling and fishing here. They packed up their snorkelling gear and spears into the kayaks and abandoned me for the reef that surrounded and protected us from the Caribbean Sea. In the warm calm waters here they found an extensive healthy reef system running well into the harbour. Exploring the sandy channels running through and around the diversity of hard corals the humans found lots of examples of different fish species, but all a little small. The few larger fish they spotted were smart enough to keep their distance and make a quick retreat. But the reef was also home to lots of large conch and they collected 6 of the biggest examples for the pot.
The guide book told the humans that Cabo Cruz was a port with out a Guarda Frontera station. The reef protected harbour here is too shallow to get much boat traffic. You can use the anchorage as a rest stop, snorkelling and fishing stop, but you are not ‘supposed to’ go a shore exploring. So I had to amuse myself on the boat for the night watching the humans extract their conch and make cracked conch with a new recipe using milk as a tenderizer.
We did have some company. A french boat joined us and anchored close beside us. I barked and the humans waved, but we got no response, so we left them to their privacy. The two boats did attract some local attention. A youth swam out to the boats to try and barter for lobster and when the fishing boats headed off for the night they all swung by and waved hello. Other than that we had the evening to ourselves with the rhythmic sweep of light from the towns impressive light house.
There is still not much wind predicted, so we will not be making much headway. The humans are moving us around the point, and a little north on the mainland, towards the city of Niquero. There is a Guarda Frontera station here, but the humans fear there may not be a beach for me to run about on. For that reason, and the lack of winds for sailing, the humans are going to stop at Ensenanda Guana along the way. Our guide book says there is an anchorage right off the beach here. Sounds like a nice place to stop for the night.
Hopefully we do not get into any trouble sneaking ashore here???
end:
Photos, charts and additional information we added once we got some internet. Use link below:
Review of Southern Cuba Part 1- including the pictures you missed
