In this video, Cuba for Cruisers, Clearance at Santiago, we arrive in Cuba, sail past the infamous Guantanamo Bay American Naval Reserve, then on to Santiago for customs clearance, immigration and PCR testing at the Marina. We visit the town of Santiago, then Dan finds a welder who can repair our broken traveller. #sailingcuba #canadiansailors #liveaboard If you like our videos and want to see more/better videos, more often you can become a patreon supporter: https://www.patreon.com/sailingbalachandra If you haven't yet SUBSCRIBED and want to see more please click the SUBSCRIBE button above, and be sure to give this video a like! In August of 2017 we sold everything and moved aboard Balachandra, a 1986 C&C44 sailboat, then sailed it over 300 nautical miles to Halifax Nova Scotia to spend a cold Canadian winter in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic. Sailing Balachandra is our YouTube sailing vlog inspired by other great channels such as Delos and La Vagabonde, which documents the sailing adventures of myself and my partner Nawal as we navigate the globe. We also dive into lots of DIY boat projects both above and below decks, and share with you all of the pros and cons of living aboard full time. Sailing Balachandra is published weekly so please subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos! This video was shot with equipment from Optrix by Body Glove, Nikon, Apple, GoPro, and Polaroid Opening Theme Music: License Info: Beautiful Story / Taketones.com Used with a Paid Licence / Permission PURCHASED MUSIC: LINK: https://taketones.com/track/beautiful-story LICENSE N: TTEXTENDED157339559892860327 EXTENDED Special Thanks to our Cuban friends Group Nucay for giving us permision to use to use their album "Tropicalissimo" throughout our YouTube series. Other Music: the YouTube Music Library Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sailingbalachandra Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sailingbalachandra Instagram: http://instagram.com/sailing_balachandra

Closed Captions (CC):
in this video we arrive in cuba

we undergo quarantine in pcr test

procedures

we get our broken traveler repaired then

we visit the town of santiago

last time on sailing bellachandra we

faced some serious sea conditions

in our final days of our passage to cuba

[Music]

if you're new to the channel hi i'm

noelle and i'm dan and we're sailing

bella chandra

we sailed all the way from halifax nova

scotia

to the caribbean that's right we're

sailing around the caribbean now and if

you haven't subscribed

to our channel just go below this video

look for the big red subscribe button

and press that button

we're passing guantanamo bay cuba right

now

the american military naval zone

and there's a like a three mile radius

you have to stay outside of

when you pass it and when we first left

the shoreline we were in some really bad

chop and we're like oh my god like

this is crazy like maybe we should turn

back i don't know if we're gonna make

this but

um once we got you know offshore quite a

ways it calmed down

quite a bit actually we've got the sail

up and uh we're having a nice like

sunset sail

past guantanamo bay cuba now

they're so far away you can't really see

that much of the base

[Music]

but it's all along this coastline here

[Music]

when we had first arrived it was really

late at night

there was these men in fishing boats

with bright lights shining into the

water and we couldn't really

see what they were doing and whether or

not they were fishermen but

we kind of pieced it together right away

on the vhf a gentleman is calling us

calling us uh sailing barco sailing

barco

embarco means boat in spanish

they gave us directions as to where to

anchor but we were confused by their

directions

we were so sleep deprived we couldn't

figure out his

instructions as to where to anchor and

we ended up just dropping the anchor

right in front of the smoke towers

these refinery towers and we read on

active captain

that this refinery spewed out a lot of

black material that might end up on your

boat so we're a little nervous about

that

we were just about to go to sleep for

the night and then sort of deal with

things in the morning when the light

you know when the sun was up but uh just

as we were about to go to sleep we came

up with the vhf radio again

uh not the same gentleman from the arena

and he gave us instructions

to move the boat to another spot where

we were supposed to actually anchor

right at this point the sun was just

starting to come up so we could see what

we were doing and uh we went into this

spot where it was about 35

almost 40 feet of water i don't like

anchoring in water that deep but

it's a pretty calm little bay so it

didn't matter

so we dropped our anchor there and we

went to bed

we didn't even have warning when the

health authority showed up it took us a

few minutes to

gather ourselves and be prepared it

would have been nice if we had had

a heads up as we were still really

groggy they did

board the boat two nurses

and the rest of the people stayed in the

dinghy it was only the nurses that had

come aboard

they did the two pcr tests and the

customs officials stayed on board but we

handed them

photocopies of our documents and we had

our swab tests

our paperwork done pictures taken there

was no

questions asked about zeus no they

didn't care at all about the dough

and i think you could have done this

without photocopies but they were pretty

happy to have copies like physical

copies right there

in advance of us visiting the marina

with our actual paperwork they could

take it right there on the boat so

yeah i think that was good if you're

planning to go to cuba and you're going

to do your first check-in

it might help to have some copies like

physical paper copies if it's possible

it was very short of a wait for our

results to come back

it had taken us 24 hours to get our

results back but the boat

that had followed us had to wait 48

hours

i felt really bad for them you could see

them stirring on their boat they just

couldn't wait to get to shore they did

the same passage as we had from st

martin so i could feel their pain i

think maybe they arrived on a sunday

it might have been the clinic might have

been closed but

yeah surprisingly of all the pcr tests

that we've had in the caribbean cuba was

the fastest with the results it would

just

move tornadoes really fast but they did

the

blood test it only had cost us 30

dollars

for our pcr tests each and entry fee

i believe it was 250 yeah it covered our

visas yeah you could

cover the marina as well yeah yeah

we had stayed at the marina for three

nights and it cost us

0.75 cents american per foot per

night and it included free electricity

and unlimited water

yeah fairly cheap compared to other

marinas for sure

and diesel is available at the pump and

i believe we

paid 20 usd for

one 20 liter can of diesel so i ended up

showering on board i didn't

want to use their bathrooms there was

like mosquitoes everywhere you know what

really made the marina nice i really

liked the people the staff were super

friendly very

accommodating they're very

open in discussion and their english was

there was always at least one person

in the marina on duty that spoke

a fair amount of english the people in

cuba seem to come across really nice

uh it's almost the same experience we

have when we

fly to cuba and go to a resort on the

north coast

it's the same hospitality the same

attitude and we really love that about

cuba

they are definitely hurting right now

for income and supplies and whatever

like it was bad enough before kobit 19

that they

because of the embargo and uh the

limitation that they have on

like international products but now with

kobit 19 and you know

and a shortage of all these products as

well it's it's really bad

people are not afraid to ask for things

and they're happy with

like an empty bottle to a used pair of

shoes

to you know old tools anything at all

pretty much that you're willing to give

up they're willing to accept so it's

pretty amazing

and we were able to barter a few things

for fresh vegetables

which is some things we just gave away

as gifts if you are planning a trip to

cuba

i strongly uh recommend that you save

all of the old electronics like from a

toaster to whatever

and if you have room in a carry-on just

shove all your electronics into a bag

and take it with you to cuba because

that is what they they truly would

appreciate

they're especially looking for old cell

phones and it's or maybe just sad really

because

there's we know in the world there's

piles of used cell phones just

sitting you know in heaps where people

have sent them in to recycle and there's

a

some kind of a recycle program or not i

don't know but

here in cuba an old used cell phone

actually has value

and you can trade that or give it as a

gift to someone and they'll appreciate

that versus like what we do home

people change phones so quickly yeah

the local marina called us a taxi to

take us to santiago

the round-trip taxi cost 25 u.s

santiago is clearly a very busy town

with many people

out on the streets in their daily

routine however due to covid19

many people are not working and plenty

of workers are sitting idle

at jobs due to closures and curfew

virtually all of the stores are closed

there are no museums

bars restaurants churches or any sites

related to tourism left open

we did manage to order a pizza but it

was very obvious that finding any

supplies here in cuba was going to be

extremely difficult

what stores we could look into had

virtually nothing on their shelves

it was clear to us that the rules and

regulations enforced by the government

surrounding the 19 pandemic are very

different here in cuba than they are to

the rest of the caribbean

the town square and central park of

santiago

is virtually the only thing left worth

visiting in santiago during the pandemic

we walked around town

enjoyed the sun the vintage cars spanish

music

and the general atmosphere of a busy

cuban city

left on standstill

now that we had arrived in santiago my

first order of business was getting our

broken traveler repaired

unfortunately this meant i needed to

find a welder who could weld

stainless steel the last time i looked

for a welder was in dominican republic

and a welder who could weld stainless

steel at that time was impossible to

find

however luck was on our side in santiago

there is a steel

ship building company in walking

distance of the marina

and lucky for us they had a stainless

steel welder on site who could fix our

traveler

i don't speak any spanish but i drew

some easy to follow diagrams of what i

wanted to do

to strengthen the traveler clip the job

only took a couple of hours

and ended up costing me only seven

dollars us

amazing now the traveler is welded back

together with extra steel for added

strength

the work was very professional and very

clean i feel very good about the

strength of our new traveler clip

now that our mainsail is back online we

can now sail to wind

which will be a huge help when we round

the west coast of cuba

heading for havana thanks for watching

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