vignettes  from cowabunga

Leaving

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:48:39 -0800

There are certain times in life when one takes that big step—graduation, new job, quitting a job, getting married, having a baby—and there is no turning back. What’s done is done and things will never be the same. Such it was one warm summer afternoon, August 29, 1982, when we literally cast off the ties that bound us, slipped out to sea across the Bay of Biscay—the Golfe de Gascogne—in France, never to look back.

I had lived in France seven years up to that point. My life had already considerably changed from the Southern California, American middle-class suburban upbringing that I was born into. Now I was transitioning again into a whole different universe, but this time in the company of my husband and two young children.

Our dream and goal of living on a sailboat and leading a nomadic lifestyle from port-to-port, country-to-country, didn't happen overnight. It had been gestating for about four years. We didn’t really start out with that intention. It just sort of evolved. I was pregnant with our first child, Sean, when the opportunity to buy a boat presented itself to us. We had already thought about buying a boat rather than a house, and not staying settled in France. My husband, Michel, and I both had a passion and strong desire to travel. We were living in the Bordeaux area of France, and had only been married about four years.

We were pretty sure we wouldn’t always live in France, but we didn’t have any immediate plans on where we would go or how until one day, bam!—we discovered the magic of sailing across a wide body of water under one’s own steam, and awakening in another land. One summer a friend invited us to go on his sailboat on a small trip from the port of Arcachon, France, across the Bay of Biscay to San Sebastián, Spain. OH–MY–WORD—what an eye opener that turned out to be. It was the single most hallmark event that inspired us. It was a seismic, monumental experience! Even to this day, we can both turn to each other and practically note the time and date that we promised each other we would buy a sailboat and travel. It was the perfect solution, which we hadn't yet found up to that point, to taking a family with us. Now we could start to plan on children and know that if we decided to travel, we could take them with us too!

But deciding to buy a boat, and actually finding and affording one are two different things. Nevertheless, we embarked upon some long term planning: I became pregnant and Michel began boning up on his sailing skills, taking weekend sailing courses and weekend outings on the Gironde River near where we lived, through an accredited sailing organization. Aside from our summer week adventure at sea from France to Spain, both of us had only fairly minimal sailing experience dating back to our high school days: Michel’s was through some classes as part of his school's physical education program, and mine was from sailing occasionally with a friend and her father on weekends in Newport Beach, California.

It was during one of Michel's outings that he met a man with a 42 ft. ketch (two masts) for sale in Port Grimaud, near St. Tropez, France. The size and description seemed to fit what we would be looking for, and possibly the price. Seizing the opportunity for a road trip, we took a few days and drove to the Cote d'Azur (French Riviera) to check out this boat. Recognizing that we were novices about boats, and not real savvy on what constituted a viable boat, Michel had contacted a boat appraiser and expert to meet us at the dock, and render his professional opinion of the value, quality, and sturdiness of the vessel. The boat obviously needed a lot of tender loving care, and would have to undergo substantial interior renovation work in order to fit the lifestyle and use we envisioned. However, the hull and whole of the boat was deemed to be in solid, good shape by the expert, and well worth the asking price.

My husband, an architect, owned his own thriving architectural firm at the time. Several lucrative jobs were in the offing and consequently, we were able to purchase the boat. Getting the boat back to Bordeaux proved to be our first hurdle. There were really only two options: sailing it back via the Mediterranean, out past Gibraltar and up the southwest Atlantic coast to the port of Le Verdon at the mouth of the Gironde River, very near the Medoc wine region where we lived; or the more direct inland route, through the Canal du Midi by way of Toulouse and eventually Bordeaux itself. Since it was winter and we were short on time, we opted for the Canal route, which nevertheless was not as easy as it was projected to be. Our boat had a rather deep draft with a six foot keel, and in some places the Canal wasn't quite deep enough to accommodate this. Consequently, the boat took some scraping in narrow places. Michel cobbled together a sort of relay team of friends who helped us bring the boat back in stages—weekends, short vacations—since no one person or persons were available to bring the boat back in one single trip. I didn't participate in this first phase, being pregnant and not willing to face the rough living conditions on board that existed at that early stage.

Our now re-baptized “Cowabunga” settled in its new home near Bordeaux, in the port of Le Verdon by the winter of 1979, where it would be docked for the next three years as we diligently set about scraping, painting, hammering, and transforming.

The renovation project began immediately. First the boat was hauled out of the water with a crane so some major work could begin on the hull. It needed to be completely stripped down to the bare wood, refinished, and new bottom anti-fouling paint applied below the waterline. The two wooden masts were taken down as well, stripped of all the rigging for a new paint job. All the stanchions and every bit of any hardware on the deck was completely removed, thoroughly inspected, kept or discarded, new hardware bought, special ordered, or custom made in order to fit our new master plan. Michel gutted the inside, exposing the original structure and framing, rendering it a bare slate to reconfigure.

I wasn't really much help at this early stage, becoming more and more pregnant by the day. I assisted in scraping off as much of the old exterior paint as I could that was accessible from the least acrobatic standing position as possible. With somewhat of an initial "first stage" timetable targeted to get the exterior basically done in order to have the boat in the water by the summertime, wonderful friends came out of the woodwork to help us during these first busy months. Michel and company spent weekends, holidays, and an occasionally abbreviated workday, transformed into shipyard workers. The project overtook our budget, our birthday and Christmas lists, our dreams, our conversations. It was omnipresent in our day-to-day life.

Michou, our local fisherman friend, would often drop by and lend a hand with this or that once he docked his trawler after an all night fishing trip. He would also lend tools and supply us with buckets of fish and crabs for sustenance. Joel, a plumber who Michel often employed on his construction sites, became a fast friend as he often dropped by the wharf supplying plumbing materials, help, and strong-armed wrenching techniques. Then Philippe, who was to become a very close friend of Michel’s, also assisted when he could, but most importantly was perhaps the only other person besides me who understood Michel’s passion for this adventure. He gave us his treasured 19th Century antique barograph as a gift and it always held an honored perch inside Cowabunga for the 10 years it was our home. Today that same barograph continues to give us our daily weather fix in our current landlocked living room, 30 years after our departure, and also serves as a daily memorial to their friendship since Philippe’s passing several years ago.

Amidst all this, we managed to have our first baby, Sean, born in April of 1979. From day one he was surrounded by, and incorporated into, this project. I would visit the job site as often as possible with our newborn, yet his grandmother was only too thrilled to step in for nanny duty so I could pitch in for a full afternoon of work here and there, baby-free. We were avidly working to make the boat a viable navigable vessel with a comfortable living space to accommodate the three of us by that summer. The idea was to create some supplementary income by utilizing the boat for weekend day charter trips for tourists. Hopefully this would defray some of our costs by touting an introduction to a day at sea, and visiting the various coastal sites, which we did indeed manage to accomplish.

We continued devoting weekends, holidays, and vacation time to working on the boat and short sailing trips with the three of us throughout the following autumn, winter, and spring. By the second springtime, Sean was a year old, and we had more or less worked out the kinks of having a young child on board, having “baby proofed” where necessary (i.e. netting all around the deck between the stanchions, high sideboard for his bed, and a harness when and if necessary on deck).

With a second summer just around the corner, we decided to put our words into action, and try living on the boat full time. What better time to start than in the warm weather? So, by July of 1980, we moved onto the boat for the season, still docked in our home port of Le Verdon. On weekends we would sail while Michel tended to architecture at his office during the week. The summer living experiment went so well that we decided to take things to the next step: move onto the boat for the remainder of the year and see if we could make it through a winter.

At this point, however, I wasn’t quite willing to give up everything yet, i.e. the washing machine, running water, bath and showers in a heated bathroom, and so on—especially with a toddler. So we compromised for the winter and rented a very small one bedroom apartment nearby as a “land base” station for the laundry and showers. We gave up the house we were renting that was close to Michel’s office, about a half hour away.

Working our way through the seasons, we worked out the kinks: a kerosene heater for those cold winter nights; dealing with the condensation that would accumulate over our heads while sleeping in our very small aft cabin; grocery “schlepping” from the car to the dock, to the boat; showers and baths in the apartment at a convenient time between Sean’s naps and the dinner hour; Sean learning how to walk on board and on land; where to store the tools for ongoing work that could be out of Sean’s reach; where to store our belongings and food; enough time for Sean to run on land; and taking advantage of space and room at his grandparents’ place on occasion.

By the time our third summer of the boat came around, Sean was two years old, and we began thinking about baby number two, since we were even more determined than ever to see our voyage come to fruition as a family of four. We had a daily living routine worked out by then, and this next year would see us undertake the challenge of being pregnant on a board. The renovation, improvement, and maintenance work was always ongoing and had become a way of life. Throughout the next winter I grew, and grew until I literally couldn’t fit down the passageway anymore—at about 8 1/2 months. I was due the beginning of March 1982, so for the last two weeks of my pregnancy we stayed at my in-laws’ place, in nearby Montalivet, about a half hour from Le Verdon.

Brendan arrived true to his due date, and after a five-day stay at the hospital (as was the custom in France at the time) we brought Brendan directly home, to Cowabunga, the only home he was to know until we arrived in California eight years later. Only then did he live on land for the first time. Brendan has always been his own person—not easily influenced by anyone or anything. He has always been very pensive (and still is), and I can’t help but think that our particular lifestyle coming at this juncture in our life and coinciding with the beginning of his, reflects very much a part of his spirit and who he is today.

The Final Leap

The first entry of our ship’s log, begun by Michel at 3:00 p.m. August 29, 1982 opens: “...calm night, light breeze, not cold—perfect sendoff.” My journal says: “One dream, one sailboat, 3 1/2 years, two children later, we left today.”

It had been a wild ride from that spring day, shortly after Brendan’s birth when we decided that the moment had come to leave: August 29. Ready or not—and it was more “not” than ready—we would go. But we would never be completely ready. There would always be something more to do, something else to finish, always more money that could be put away. But at some point, one has to make that leap of faith, so we made the decision to jump. It would be the very next August.

As luck had it—and as we also had when we bought the boat—a good opportunity came along. A potentially very interested buyer of Michel’s business happened by at the right place at the right time. Negotiations were concluded, agreements made, and the countdown began. We would need every waking moment from that spring day until August to get ready to go. Some of the interior renovation projects finished up to that point proved not as workable as we would have thought, and Michel pulled out his tools once again for some last minute adjustments. There were sails and equipment to be bought. There was shopping to be done, and storage space to be wrung out of thin air. How much food and water would we need? Did I need all those baby bottles? Where could I store more diapers than usual? Which toys to keep...? Every time I thought of something, down on a list it would go. We would have to sell our cars, give up the apartment, dispose of the washing machine, pare down some clothes, buy some proper foul weather gear.

Eventually the months whittled down to weeks, then days. During the final week we did a final, major shopping trip. We literally had a palette of food goods delivered to my in-law’s house, and then we proceeded to drive carload after carload up to the boat. A new carload could only be delivered once the previous load had been properly stored on board. I only bought the final fresh fruit and vegetables at the last minute, the day before our departure.

Reactions from friends and family ran the gamut of emotions. Some never believed we would actually go, some were sad, some were proud. Michel’s father was perhaps the most bewildered by it all. His son had become an architect—a “someone.” He was proud of his son, and for the life of him could not understand why Michel was “throwing it all away.” His father was of the generation of WWII, and we were of the '60s—so much in between. His mother was profoundly sad. She was close to our boys, and we to her. She deeply apprehended the day we would leave, and although she knew it was imminent when the palette was delivered to their home, Michel thought it better we only tell her once we were gone and at sea, via the marine radio.

Time was running out on August 29. We had to sail with the high tide at 3 p.m. By 2 p.m. friends began to gather on the dock. Michou hovered around with his trawler, ready to escort us out of the harbor. Summer tourists milled around, as they would come and go from the nearby ferry. Sean knew we were getting ready to sail, but I don’t think he understood the magnitude of what we were about to undertake. By the deadline hour, we had a small crowd on the dock, there were hugs, kisses, good-byes and promises to meet again father south or on the other side of the Atlantic. Some of our friends boarded Michou’s boat. We dawdled as long as we dared, and then finally fired up the engine, threw off the lines, and angled the bow out the harbor. Michou and company followed us out as far as the lighthouse at Cordouan, a champagne bottle was thrust back and forth, the coast got smaller and smaller, and then it was just us.

© 2011 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

Cayenne the Jungle Book: Insects and Caimans and Sloths, Oh My!

Wed, 9 Nov 2011 21:06:59 -0800

Cayenne, French Guiana, sits just above the equator around the latitude of 4° north, on the northern coast of South America. We were undeniably in Amazonian territory in this French outpost, just the other side of the Brazilian border. An unlikely settlement on the fringes of the jungle, Cayenne seemed to barely keep the wilds of the jungle at bay, with the dense green and humid tropical forest gobbling up the main road leading out of town just a mile or two outside the city limits. Here Amazonian watershed rivers and tributaries nourished a very vibrant equatorial jungle ecosystem.

We arrived in Cayenne after a short sail of about a week from our previous anchorage in Fortaleza, Brazil. Even as we were at sea, sailing 100 miles off the coast, we were struck by the strength and influence of the Amazon River, because even at that distance offshore from the mouth and delta of the Amazon, the water was an opaque muddy hue. And it even tasted fresh—not salty seawater!

The Amazon's influence was pervasive, even in our anchorage in the Cayenne River estuary—also a thick muddy, milk chocolate colored waterway. From our tethered spot in the river, we were reminded daily of the jungle as its looming green canopy was the first thing we saw in the hot morning sunrise, and the last thing that engulfed the sinking evening sun. Everything grew bigger here. From our vantage point, super-sized two-inch long "palmetto" cockroaches occasionally flight-landed on our deck, as once did a fist-sized beetle that dive-bombed through the main hatch right into my galley sink! One time while walking on the harbor wharf, I almost blindly stepped on a prehistoric looking, dinosaur-sized insect, and during a family camping expedition deep in the jungle, giant oversized centipede-type creatures known as “scolopends” crawled amidst some of the overhead rafters. These creepy crawlers can grow up to 12 inches long and are actually quite poisonous.

On other occasions while on inland excursions, we would be hypnotized by flashes of deep luminescent blue as morpho butterflies flew past us with their 5-to-8 inch wing spans. And some intrepid souls indulged their fancy for evening caiman hunting, venturing out to some river tributaries, armed with flashlights as they targeted the reptile’s tell-tale red eyes poised on a river surface, steered by their sunken snouts gliding just below the waterline.

The reality of being in Amazon forest territory really hit us the day we were on a family sightseeing trip and we were forced to stop our loaner car in the middle of the road for quite a spell—the time it took for a sloth to cross the road— and for a really long time! It seemed like something out of a cartoon: every movement carefully articulated in slow motion.

We had come to Cayenne to find work, and a respite from the continual tourist visa paper chase. After two years of sailing up and down the Brazilian coast, having gone as far south as Buenos Aires, Argentina, our tourist visa options had run out for Brazil. Originally we had wanted to go up the Amazon River, as far as Manaus, but time constraints due to our final finished visa status, forced us to change our plans. Through our contacts amongst the cruising grapevine, reliable information had it that we could easily find work in Cayenne. Since French Guiana is a "departement"—a sort of permanent "state" territory of France, having evolved from its former days as a French colony—targeting work here seemed a good option for us since my husband is a French citizen, and I possessed full legal French immigrant status at the time. We hoped to be able to pad our savings a bit, thus extending our travel time a while longer.

In short order, Michel, an architect, found work in an architect's office, I found a part time job as a bilingual secretary with an American shrimping company, Sean started kindergarten, and Brendan accompanied me to work where I was able to leave him with a babysitter—one of the fishermen's wives. He spent the mornings with Desirée and her little girl Tasha in their simple cottage on the shrimping compound grounds, just a short walk from my office.

Our seven-month sojourn in this jungle way station was far from boring. The anchorage was filled with with about 50 boats, mostly French cruising families, all in temporary “civilian” modes: jobs, children in school, or some sort of respite or revaluation situation of their travels and sailing life thus far. “Rush hour” occurred every weekday at 8 a.m. when a wave of dinghies carrying families, couples, and the occasional solo sailor would be powered up by outboards, heading for the main dock and on to a landlubber’s 9 a.m.–5 p.m. “grind.” The dock was lively with activity and chatter as everyone landed and tied up to the dock, almost unrecognizable in “civilian” clothing—as opposed to our usual sun-bleached shorts, bathing suits, and T-shirts—before we all faded away walking, biking, or driving off to our destinations. It was one such morning that Brendan fell through the dock as we alighted on land, and I had the scare of my life when I saw him disappear into the opaque chocolate colored muck for what seemed like an eternity. He was saved and lives to hear the tale told again and again, as I have recounted in detail in a companion entry among this collection.

All four of us would pile into our dinghy and merge on the water with the tide of dinghies headed for the shore. Michel took Sean to school on his bike while I waited with Brendan for a ride from a colleague, who drove us just a short distance down the road to Sahlman Seafoods, my job, and Brendan’s nanny. By this time in his short life at 5 years old, Sean already had previously attended pre-school in France and Brazil. This would be his first real classroom experience in a regular class and a first in that he was in the minority as a white child—the only one in his class, I believe. The native Creole population of French Guiana is black, and there were very few white children in the school. Needless to say it was a curious turnaround for us, and on occasion we witnessed and experienced prejudice and racism towards the white population.

It was also a “first” for Brendan in that it was the first time he ever spent a few hours of the day away from us, in a “daycare” situation—also in the care of a Creole woman. Brendan was only 2 years old, so still very young, and not particularly outgoing nor friendly to new people at this stage in his life. So it was a bit wrenching for him at first when I left him for the mornings, punctuated by his frantic crying. Desirée assured me that it didn’t last long, and that eventually he warmed up to her and Tasha. It was hard to willfully put him through such a situation, but I knew I couldn’t always spare him certain sorrows; it was part of the lessons of life.

It wasn’t all work, however, during our stay in Cayenne. The anchorage became quite a community. Upon our return to the dock in the evenings, many of us would linger, socialize, do a bit of laundry, or set up impromptu dinner invitations. A shower had even been set up in the harbor, and it was a very welcomed convenience. One couple even indulged their entrepreneurial spirit and invested in a food truck where we would gather for a beer and some good cheer before heading back to our respective nests.

Amongst the many families in the anchorage, we counted about 30 children in the mix. We had made friends with many of these cruising families from various previous stops in Brazil, and it was really quite nice for all the kids now to have this time and opportunity to spend several months with each other. As it turned out, Christmas was just around the corner, and many of us adults decided it would be fun to really mark the occasion for the kids.

There was an old Brazilian “tapouille” boat in the anchorage—a large flat-bottomed barge-like sailing vessel used on the Amazon and surrounding rivers to ship goods from place to place. This one was in pretty decent shape, quite big with a nice interior space, and it sat idle in the anchorage. The owner agreed to let all us yachties use it for a Christmas party for the children. What started out as something humble, turned into a huge extravaganza as more and more people in the anchorage wished to participate. We collected money to buy a present for each child, and cornered a volunteer to play Santa. A talented seamstress among us was able to create a quite acceptable Santa costume out of a red king-size bed sheet that I donated to the cause. Each child approached Santa for a gift. It was the first time Brendan saw Santa, and he was rather hesitant. Sean couldn’t believe his good fortune: Santa in the flesh! In true French fashion, the potluck event became quite elaborate with some very gourmet items, and we all felt blessed with genuine Christmas cheer as over 50 people partied into the night.

The actual town of Cayenne was quite pleasant, with its 1800’s colorful Caribbean colonial architecture. The town nestled right up to the harbor and was easy to get around by walking or riding a bike. The population was a spicy eclectic cocktail mix of native Creoles, mainland French expats, Brazilians, Haitians, Surinamese, and British Guyanans of Indian descent, Hmong refugees from Laos (who mainly lived in Cacao, a settlement ensconced in the jungle), Lebanese, Chinese, and peppered with an occasional American and a survivor or two from the former Devil's Island penal colony. The additional influence of French culture and language intertwined with a Creole voodoo heritage rendered a truly unique flavor to Cayenne.

The daily open-air market was quite an experience. Aside from the many colorful exotic, tropical foods expansively displayed, it was nevertheless disconcerting to walk by the stalls that featured dead, hanging monkeys, caimans, and other unusual animals that made up some of the diet of the locals. I’ll never forget the time I passed a woman carrying two hefty iguanas, their legs rubber-banded together, under her arm along with her bulging bag of fruits and vegetables.

Not far down the road from Cayenne lies the city of Kourou, the European equivalent of our Cape Canaveral, and headquarters for the European Space Agency and the Ariane rockets that were being launched at that time. It seemed so incongruous to have such a high technology-oriented base planted in the middle of the jungle, yet French Guiana’s location near the equator made it an ideal spot for rocket launches into the proper orbits and consequently, the European Space Agency chose to build the launch facility here. Like Cayenne, the forest canopy literally laps at the boundaries of Kourou and the gates of the space center. There were a few launches during our tenure there, and on one occasion a group of us had an opportunity to watch a launch from an exceptional and original site—La Montagne des Singes, or Monkey Mountain.

It was an incredibly clear, still, and striking moonlit evening. Several of the yachties had cars, so quite a few of us were able to head out of town to this high hilltop vista spot. We all just sat down on our blankets and had a clear view across the top of the tall dense forest to the floodlit launch pad straight ahead, a short distance away. The ocean fanned out to our right and looked like one of those magazines photos, sparkling under the the high moon. As the countdown hit its final mark, the launch pad lit up like daylight, a huge flame pushing the candle-shaped rocket up into the night sky, then tracing an arc towards the moon. It really looked like a huge firecracker high over the ocean, and then suddenly the flame trail was out of sight, headed on its voyage. For a brief moment, I think I understood how incredulous some of the native inland Amazonian tribes must be when they see such a sight, as we ourselves witnessed such a modern phenomenon from a very ancient jungle.

The red chili, or Cayenne pepper, originates from Cayenne and is named after this city—and aptly so. It is a place well peppered with life, novelties, and experiences. The equatorial heat and diverse people added a touch of spice that never ceased to surprise us. Although it’s not a tropical paradise, it is indeed a tropical treasure.

© 2011 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

The Devil's in the Island

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:43:38 -0700

Devil’s Island: a reality or a myth? The world became acutely aware of the reality and history of this infamously fabled place when the book Papillon was published in 1970, depicting the isolation and rampant mistreatment of prisoners in this equatorial prison. Devil's Island, or L’Ile du Diable, is located in French Guiana, a "departement" or provincial state of France, in the northern part of South America, just the other side of the Brazilian border. Formerly a French colony, French Guiana as a “departement” today falls wholly under the jurisdiction of the French government. The official language is French, the laws are French, and the schools are French. For all intents and purposes, it is France—with an exotic creole, Amazonian twist.

Just off the coast of French Guiana, Devil's Island is actually one of a trio of islands, known collectively as the Iles du Salut. Ile Royale and Ile St. Joseph are the companion islands, but in anglo-saxon jargon the name “Devil’s Island” has become synonymous with the whole lot. They lie about 15 miles off the coast of French Guiana, and just a short day sail from the main city of Cayenne. We lifted anchor from our muddy, Amazonian watershed anchorage in Cayenne for this northwesterly spot, having just spent seven months on the mainland on a “work furlough” of sorts. Michel and I had both found jobs, thus adding some extra padding to our savings, and at the same time Sean began his first foray into formal schooling, attending kindergarten for the first time.

Stories and the reputation of the Iles du Salut were infamous and common knowledge in France as being a hell on earth during the heyday of prison operations from 1854 to 1952. Established under France’s colonial dominance, and known more commonly as the “bagne,” or penal colony, banishment to these islands surely meant the kiss of death. It was a hot, mosquito and insect-infested place. Prisoners easily fell prey to illness, disease, and the ravages of the equatorial heat. Bodies were habitually thrown to the sea and sharks became accustomed to the regular food supply, thus insuring their roving presence around the islands. Escape by swimming to the mainland was nearly impossible—although Papillon claimed to have accomplished this feat.

We were anchored in the calm, small picturesque harbor of Ile Royale—the main island. From the highest point on this island, there was a commanding view of the anchorage and its neighbors. There was also a small, simple hotel and restaurant. A small dock accommodated a tourist shuttle boat that arrived daily from Kourou, the nearest coastal town, and headquarters for the European Space Agency, the space center launch facility for the Ariane rocket series at that time. Ruins of the prison hospital and vestiges of many the former prison administration facilities dotted Ile Royale.

Devil’s Island itself was difficult to access since there was no safe and viable way to travel the short distance from the main anchorage at Ile Royale. There wasn’t a protected spot to anchor a boat, and there was no beach or dock where we could land with the dinghy. The rapid current between the islands was too dangerous to navigate with just a small dinghy. Nevertheless, Michel did venture over there by himself, making a tenuous dinghy landing on a rocky outcrop and was able to tie up for a short solo exploration. From our vantage viewpoint while exploring Ile St. Joseph, we could see that he arrived safely.

Devil’s Island was completely covered in palm trees, and notorious as the place where political prisoners were held—notably the French military officer Alfred Dreyfus, who was sent there after his unjust conviction for treason in France in 1895. To “accommodate” such prisoners, there were only individual isolated huts on this island as opposed to the many cellblocks that we wandered amongst on Ile St. Joseph.

We spent most of our time exploring Ile St. Joseph, where the bulk of the actual prison cells were located. Buried and hidden in the deep tropical jungle foliage, rows and rows of abandoned cellblocks and tiny window-barred, brick cubicles punctuated the island. We literally hacked our way through the dense foliage with a machete in the jungle that was taking over, and seemed to be growing before our eyes. A thick palm and coconut tree canopy shaded us from the heat. Suddenly, rows of cellblocks just appeared, framed by the foliage. Long crawling vines curled around barred glassless window openings, cushioned by moss, ferns, and thick above-ground tree roots. Countless prisoners’ drawings were everywhere on the walls, depicting their lives, their torture, their despair. Many of the cellblocks had no ceilings, just cell-barred openings from wall to wall, affording no privacy from the guards who paced above.

It was a haunting sensation walking in the footsteps of these prisoners. It almost seemed as if they had just left recently in a hurry, as there were still cots, dirty mattresses, and chamber pots strewn about in abundance. We poked around for a long time trying to imagine such a hell in such an island paradise. We were lost in time and our frame of minds. We had no point of references to compare what were seeing and feeling to our experiences up to this point in our lives. Here was a distant past, yet it still seemed so recent in our calendar year of 1985. During their tenure, the prisoners condemned to hard labor tediously built miles and miles of picturesque cobblestone paths and low-lying stone walls throughout the islands. It rendered our walk in paradise these many years later a peaceful, calm experience.

Entering one huge airplane hangar-type building, it seemed as if we had entered a living natural history museum exhibit. There were still leg and wrist chains hanging from the walls. Long, Tarzan-like vines dangled down two stories from rooftop holes, poised motionlessly in the air. They were framed in eery soft, veil-like sunlight, punctuated by a prism effect, poking through broken roof tiles that created makeshift skylights. Imagine a hot steamy sunrise in a still-life tableau, viewed through a huge mosquito netlike veil. It was a unique, one-of-a-kind moment that felt like a scene straight out of a lush Disney animated feature.

There was a small, protected beach with shallow pools that we returned to several times to spend some afternoons. The boys loved it. We were the only ones and they could play and frolic in complete safety. Scattered about the islands were numerous curious little creatures known as Agoutis (ah-goo-tee). They were quite cute, actually, somewhat of a cross between a squirrel, a rabbit, and a rodent! About the size of a jack rabbit, reddish color, and a face somewhat “squirrelish,” or maybe even part rat, with big hind legs, they randomly wandered about the island, always catching Brendan’s rapt attention. He had just turned 3 years old at the time, and he would stop dead in his tracks, so taken with this little animal as he excitedly waved his little arm and finger, shouting haltingly: “Ah, ah, ah...ahgooTEE”!

We spent 10 days wrapped in the time warp of the Iles du Salut. Today more tourist facilities have been established and thus the islands aren’t quite as isolated as when we discovered them. But we have our unique memories and photos, and the assurance that very few people will know them as we did.

© 2011 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

Cuba Suite: Let Them Eat Lobster!

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:49:23 -0700

Food in Cuba was rationed. Yet, we literally gorged and overdosed ourselves on lobster. We had so much that we even fed it to the cat. I canned it, made pizzas with it; I sought a hundred different ways to prepare lobster…we had to become creative. And it was all free! We couldn’t pay for it; they wouldn’t let us pay for it. Our money was flatly refused.
Although there were a lot of negative facets for Cubans as they went about their daily lives, the government certainly did something right—maintaining, conserving, and even growing the lobster population. There was quite a strict fishing policy in place to preserve this resource they knew to be a valuable asset to their export economy as well as to their coastal ecology. We had found the nirvana of lobster central, but by pure accident.

We set sail from Havana a few days after Christmas, 1988, for points west on the coast. We weren’t really sure where we were headed. Detailed and current charts of the coast and harbors didn’t really exist, and what did exist was mainly the property of the military. A Spanish couple on their sailboat in the Marina Hemingway had some information, and they generously let us copy it.
Our original plan was to sail around the island of Cuba, or as much as we could, and obtain proper authorization to do so. We insisted with several inquiries to the harbor officials for such an authorization, and they just seemed mystified. It seemed there wasn’t any set procedure for this, and that we could just “go.” This seemed odd, and too good to be true. That’s not what we had read according to other cruisers’ accounts, and we really wanted to cover ourselves from bureaucratic entanglements. We insisted they provide us with some sort of permit, or written permission, duly stamped in triplicate, that could undoubtedly satisfy some prickly bureaucrat we were bound to come across down the road.

Most tourists in Cuba at that time were either from Canada or European communist eastern bloc ally nations, visiting via group-organized guided tours. They would typically stay in official government tourist designated resorts. Renegade individual tourists such as us, were not common, and consequently the Cuban system didn’t really have set rules on how to handle us, nor our request to travel freely about the country.

Eventually Michel established a rapport with Señor Antonio Pardo, the “Jefe de l’Aduana” (Customs Chief) at the Marina Hemingway, and together they set about creating an “official” travel plan. The two of them poured over charts, identifying viable harbors for us to enter, pointing out the military stations that were off limits, noting dangerous rocks, coastal outcroppings, and coral reefs that needed to be avoided. Together they came up with a guideline itinerary, and Señor Pardo said he would inform harbor officials along the way of our possible visits, that we would be free to roam with no timeline to maintain, and that authorities wouldn’t question our presence.

Thus after one night at sea, we targeted the fishing village of Santa Lucia, west of the Marina Hemingway, en route to the western tip of Cuba. This would be our first attempt at entering a Cuban harbor with no viable chart and just a bit of sketchy information. Towards late in the afternoon, we were pretty sure we saw two channel buoys that had been indicated to us. Since unknown reefs were an ever-present danger, our depth sounder was always on. We tried to call up a harbor authority on the VHF radio, but there was no response. Once we were inside the channel, we flagged down a fishing boat and they very kindly led us the rest of the way. The channel was lined with mangroves and eventually—at a bend in the waterway—the fishermen waved us onward. Not to worry, they reassured us, it was deep enough for our keel. We wouldn’t hit high ground. More mangroves suddenly provided total shelter from the breeze while we continued to motor in a still, peaceful calm. Finally, in a short distance, we eyed some factory smokestacks, a few barges, a crane, a few fishing skiffs, and a military vessel all nestled quietly in a snug muddy little bay, or more like a cul de sac. A Guarda Frontera officer waited patiently onshore. It looked pretty drab but it was what we wanted: our first real look at a slice of the real Cuba. There was no turning back now.

The Guarda Frontera officer was most polite and congenial. He briefly looked over our passports and papers, and confirmed that everything was in order to his satisfaction. He indicated a gate behind him, and that we were free to come and go as we pleased. As we typically proceeded when in a new place, Michel would set out first on a quick reconnaissance tour. Upon his return, we gathered up the two kids and went on a brief walk about the village. It was indeed a walk into a past, frozen in time. Santa Lucia had the feel of a frontier-era town. Most of the houses were windowless wooden-slat huts—some with thatched palm leaf roofs—all lining dirt-trodden streets. There was a simple bakery, an egg stand, and a shoe cobbler, and since most daily necessities were rationed, people were waiting in line, as we had previously seen regularly in Havana. One villager passed us in an oxen-drawn cart, while another diligently transported a pig in a wheelbarrow.

Most traffic was on foot while an occasional soldier passed by on a motorcycle sidecar or in a jeep. There was a 1940s era (we were later told) aerial skyway mining tram that crossed a good portion of the village, transferring copper from a nearby mine to a dumping spot in the harbor. Sean and Brendan were in awe of all of this. Although rundown Havana was definitely not as modern as Florida, Santa Lucia was indeed a completely different reality. We drew stares dressed in our comparatively bright, colorful clothing, accompanied by our young redhead and blond-haired boys. It was obvious we weren’t local.

We later made the acquaintance of Oscar, a young man who pointedly made his way to our dock and volunteered to guide us around. A tad suspicious that this was a planned tactic to restrict our movements, he turned out to be a most congenial host and a valuable resource. He showed us where and how to buy food, and gave us a tour of the local copper mine—a true walk back in time as 50 year-old machinery and techniques maintained the daily operations. Oscar also graciously took Michel to his family home, introducing his mother who spoke some English. They plied him with “dulce de limon,” Russian wine, and engaged him in political propaganda discourses on the Cuba of today.

Curiously, foreigners in Cuba could only use U.S. dollars to purchase items. They were not allowed access to local pesos. Furthermore, there was no reason to exchange money for Cuban pesos since foreigners were only allowed to frequent “Diplomercados”—stores reserved for tourists that only accepted payment in dollars. However, Michel was determined that we have some pesos in hand. We didn’t know what lay down the road and he didn’t want us to be restricted or hindered for any reason if we lacked some local pesos for some purchases. Besides, traveling as we were, outside of the official resort circuit, there were no Diplomercados around. Although in theory there was no way for a foreigner to exchange dollars into pesos, I learned to never underestimate this Frenchman on a mission. He found a black market money exchange connection in Havana, and as it turned out, our original exchange of $100 went a very long way over the next few months.

Thanks to Oscar, we learned that we could get some supplies in the “bodegas”—the little local food shops—to procure such basic necessities as bread, milk, etc. The shop tenders were most courteous and anxious to make our acquaintance. We were always waved to the front of the line, and since we had no ration tickets, they wouldn’t let us pay for items. We couldn’t anyway. Shopkeepers didn’t dare accept our pesos since that would put them in a difficult situation. There wasn’t any way they could spend any extra pesos even if we did pay. Rarely did people use money since they used ration tickets for most of their daily necessities. Consequently, we left Santa Lucia with our $100 in pesos intact.

After a few days, it was time to move on, and Oscar was able to give us more detailed coastal chart information. Most importantly, he mentioned we might like to stop at Ensenada El Cajon, a lobster fishing station, or a "Casa de Pesca." And indeed, we never would have stopped there if it hadn’t been indicated to us. It was literally a few rickety shacks on stilts, nestled together along a freestanding dock, out in the middle of nowhere, in a large body of shallow water. Although seemingly completely open to the weather elements, coral reefs broke the ocean swell, providing protection for this outstation. Since leaving Santa Lucia, much of the coast was peppered with underlying coral reefs, and thanks to Oscar’s indications, we were getting the hang of navigating through such mazes, blazing our own trails. Thus, we glided up to this dock and tied up our lines.

No one was around, yet it obviously wasn’t abandoned. There was a generator, a cold storage room, signs of daily life, several aquariums holding lobsters, and even a cat with its litter box, and food and water dishes. Someone would surely show up soon.

As it turned out, we had arrived over the New Year’s holiday, and day or two later a fishing boat did come in with four men on board. Our presence surprised them, and they duly radioed authorities to confirm who we said we were. Once reassured that our presence was “legal,” they couldn’t have been more gracious. We ended up staying several days and they fully included us in their daily routines. Every evening the dock came alive with frenetic activity as big trawlers came in and unloaded their huge catches of lobsters. Once a boat docked, each one set about his duties feverishly—unloading and sorting, talking loudly, shouting, and laughing. Michel, Sean, and Brendan gleefully joined in the daily fray and the fishermen rewarded us with buckets and buckets of lobsters and fish. It was too much. We ate lobster every night and then we began using all our known tricks to save more for a rainy day—preparing and cleaning lobster for freezing, cooking, and canning. Never would such an opportunity come our way again.

Lobster fishing played a prominent role in Cuba’s economy as a valuable export (as I was reminded from the many television commercials I had seen in France with the lively jingle touting the tasty treat of “lobsters from Cuba”). The fishermen were very mindful of this. The government issued strict guidelines regarding the legal size of lobsters that could be caught, the times of year they were allowed to be fished, and rules regarding juvenile and females with eggs that were to be thrown back. Consequently, there was an abundant lobster population, despite the huge amounts hauled up daily. Their population in Cuba was not diminishing, but instead, thriving.

We developed a genuine friendship and rapport with the men as we settled into their daily routine at this coastal outpost “island.” They were eager to have us try their cooking, and I would reciprocate offering some of my bread and cake. They also treasured a bottle of whiskey we offered—a rare treat for them. Sean and Brendan became very comfortable, whiling away hours with the men, helping them with various tasks, picking up some spotty Spanish, sitting with them in the evenings, and even watching the movie video ET with them at one point. The boys learned to snorkel here, reveling in daily outings in the clear turquoise shallow depths.

Later, we learned that we had been quite reckless when we first arrived in the area. Before finding the station, we were anchored for a day or two in a nearby shallow area, protected by mangroves. Anxious to discover the waters, and lobsters, Michel and the boys did some exploratory snorkeling, mostly as an introduction for the boys. The fisherman later told us that was a very dangerous thing to do since a type of Cuban crocodile inhabited the waters, especially near the mangroves. Now, at the Casa de Pesca, Sean and Brendan snorkeled in safety near the dock.

Our cat, Bagunça, even had a rare treat and was able to “go on land.” We didn’t usually let her off the boat if we were at a dock, for fear she would panic, run, and get lost on land. Not only that, we were warned that Cubans eagerly caught stray cats and ate them! Since the station was a space other than our boat, and thus more room for her to stretch her paws, she was able to explore a bit without our worrying about her getting spooked, lost, or becoming someone’s dinner.

After a peaceful, enriching five-day stay, it was time to move on. There was much more to see and discover in Cuba. We needed to fill up on diesel fuel and the fishermen were able to accommodate us. Like with the lobsters they showered upon us, they refused payment for the fuel as well. For the same reason we couldn’t pay for food in the bodegas, we couldn’t pay for either of these. The government provided the fuel for the trawlers and the fishermen were state employees. So, how would they justify receiving extra cash for fuel or lobsters sold to us? And, there wasn’t much they could buy with any cash anyway. Like the bodega shopkeepers, they met their needs with rationing tickets they used on the mainland.

As we did often during our travels, we regretfully bid farewell and looked forward to our next targeted stop: a real tropical island, deserted beach, something we missed after living anchored for three years in the Florida Intracoastal Waterway.

© 2011 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

Cuba: The Other Side of the Divide

Tue, 9 Aug 2011 12:09:59 -0700

From the time of the tale of Adam and Eve, there is something about a forbidden fruit that makes it all that more enticing. Likewise, our curiosity was stoked about stories of sailing to Cuba, and the cruising experience on the other side of the divide.

In our French sailing circles, as well as in the French sailing press and "cruising" magazines, Cuba was touted as a great place to visit with a sailboat: far from the West Indies' madding crowds, inexpensive, a genuinely friendly population, new things to explore and discover, and not to forget, the history. Needless to say, in 1988, Cuba was still an American nemesis, almost a cartoon-type archenemy scenario. Despite this politically charged propagandized press coverage, some American sailing magazines as Cruising World occasionally published articles about yachties who managed to sail and spend some time there. The articles would even highlight pointers and serve as "how-to" primers of circumventing the official deterrents to go there. Our intrigue grew, so we put Cuba on our more immediate radar list.

After a three-year sojourn in Central Florida, anchored at the locally famous Dragon Point landmark in Eau Gallie near Melbourne, we finally chose one fine November day just after Thanksgiving to lift anchor and head down the Intracostal Waterway from Central Florida to Key West. Key West would be our last stop in the U.S. for a long time, and our springboard to jump the 90 miles to Cuba.

Prior to beginning this trip and truly envisioning sailing to Cuba, we needed to find out the real scoop about whether or not we really could travel to Cuba, and how to go about it, legally. I first made a phone call to the State Department, inquiring as to if it was really forbidden to travel to Cuba. If other American boats had gone there, how was it possible? I was told that the U.S. government couldn’t forbid an American from going anywhere. The State Department in many cases issues warnings when there are safety concerns, and in the case of Cuba, the stipulation was that should Americans venture there, they were not allowed to bring back any items purchased there, and would be subject to a fine and the items confiscated if so. Fine. That wasn't much of a deterrent for us since we wouldn't be coming right back to the States. Next we contacted Cuban authorities to find out what visa was required, if any, and how to go about procuring that.

Unbeknownst to many, there was (and probably still is) a diplomatic representation called the Cuban Interests Section office in Washington D.C., then located within the Czechoslovakian Embassy. However, since Michel was doing some architectural work at the time for NASA in Cape Canaveral, he thought it more prudent to avoid calling this Cuba antenna in the States and opted to contact the Cuban authorities at their embassy in Paris. They informed us that it was not necessary to obtain a tourist visa before going to Cuba, either for French or American citizens, and that sailing directly to Havana is very straightforward. All we needed to do was hail the port authorities on the VHF radio as we approached the harbor, and they would give us instructions from that point on, no strings attached. Hmmm, this really seemed too easy. There must be a catch.

Armed with that information along with our valid passports, we prepared to venture forth to the land of the infidel Fidel.

Setting sail from Key West in the morning for basically an overnight trip, that did indeed prove to be the case as the Cuban coast came within our sights by daybreak. In fact, it went even faster than that as we could see lights of Havana at 1:00 a.m. Not wanting to enter an unknown harbor at night, we sort of “paced” back and forth for most of the night until daybreak.

It did seem strange to set out from a U.S. harbor, out into the open sea with a compass direction straight for the "enemy" and no one to stop us. I kept expecting a Coast Guard vessel to ominously loom just over the horizon, accosting us with a menacing PA system, inquiring as to our intentions. Instead we quietly slipped out, and just as unceremoniously hailed the port of Havana once we were within proper VHF radio distance the next morning.

Our arrival and welcome from the Cuban authorities was one of the most unexpected and gracious experiences we ever encountered in our six years of sailing up to that point. Our only other such memorable warm welcome was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It must be the Latin nature of the beast. Once hailed on the VHF radio, and the proper language connection established, the Havana port authorities informed us they were sending out a military escort to guide us to the Marina Hemingway, 10 miles west of Havana. We weren't too sure what to expect from this "military escort." Would we be seized after all? Would there be hefty fines to pay? Would we be suspected spies? We were sure they would be brandishing guns, demanding to do a full search of our boat.

One distinct advantage we had over many other yachties, as we had experienced over the years, was our two young children on board. They often seemed to serve as a "free pass"—something like a "get out of jail" card when customs or immigration authorities and the like would come on board. I admit that we often used this angle, purposely taking them with us when conducting entry and exit formalities with harbor officials. It just made things easier, and in the Latin latitudes, our redhead and blond boys were always popular curiosities.

The Guarda Frontera patrol boat crew proved to be very courteous. They simply bid that we follow them to the marina channel, where a young man in a small outboard came out to meet us. From there he took over, and the military escort bid us good-bye. He continued to lead us into the marina channel, and signaled that we tie up at the entrance, in front of the customs office. Still wary up to this point as to the consequences of our being here, we thought that now the trouble would begin. Several customs officers came aboard, extremely cordial and matter-of-fact in their manner. There were just a few papers to fill out, an obligation to hand over to them for safekeeping during our stay the .22 rifle we kept on board, and a quick perfunctory inspection of the boat. I pointedly asked if there was a problem that we, on board an American-flagged boat, were in Cuban waters with the intention of staying for a while. “None,” they answered. We were as welcome as any other tourist from any other country. “We don’t have a problem with you being here,” an officer told me. “It’s our governments that have a problem with each other.” Once these first formalities finished, we were instructed to continue on to the immigration and health authorities’ station inside the marina itself.

Firing up the engine again, we continued briefly down the channel and turned the corner, revealing quite a site. An expansive, completely empty marina lay before us after clearing the jetty. There were hundreds of slips, and including us, only three boats at the time. Incredibly clean, bright turquoise water framed canals and canals of decay: decaying docks, upended chunks of broken cement with rusted iron rebars poking through, dilapidated buildings…30 years of neglect.

We prepared our dock lines to tie up to the spot they indicated. Several impeccably uniformed officers appeared one after the other. They inspected boat papers, passports, and without ceremony, issued temporary tourist visas. Again they were very polite, pleasant, and not at all surprised or alarmed that we were on an American boat. It was a non-issue for them.

Once we were deemed legal, a certain Nadia, the government marina pubic relations official, appeared and officially welcomed us with her excellent English and informed us that she would do the necessary paperwork to procure our official permanent tourist visas. However, she wasn’t alone. Nadia was accompanied by a young man, dressed formally in pressed white slacks, a white waiter vest, a white apron, sporting a large, elegant serving tray laden with coffee, orange juice, water and mojito cocktails, complete with a serving towel dressed over his arm! He made quite a tableau framed by the hot sun and decaying cement. We didn't know what to make of this. Never in our right mind could we imagine an American marina welcoming a foreign traveler in such a manner.

We delighted in this unexpected pleasure and honor and settled in at the Marina Hemingway, aptly named for the celebrity whom Cubans seemed to hold so dearly in their hearts. The marina itself, it seems, was Ernest Hemingway’s old stomping grounds. He would set out from here on his regular fishing trips. Along with the marina honoring his name, there was also the Hotel El Viejo y El Mar (Hotel the Old Man and the Sea), Restaurant Papa’s and various statues erected in his memory.

The next day Nadia returned with our visas, valid for one month and good for two subsequent renewals, thus good for a total of three months! That should fit the bill since we intended to stay a while in order to sail around as much of the island of Cuba as we could. First we would get to know Havana, spend Christmas here, and learn the ways of the locals and the culture before heading out for coastal exploration and total immersion into a Cuban experience.

© 2011 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

vignettes from cowabunga

Leaving

Cayenne the Jungle Book: Insects and Caimans and Sloths, Oh My!

The Devil's in the Island

Cuba Suite: Let Them Eat Lobster!

Cuba: The Other Side of the Divide

vignettes  from cowabunga