CUBA LIBRE CHRONICLES

PREFACE

I am a slow writer.  I make many changes, multiple corrections, and take sharp turns to port and starboard as I write about my chosen subject.  I also take mucho time to let the events affecting my subject matter percolate and distill in my head. I would make a horrible newspaper writer and have great admiration for those who are able to observe, record and write under deadline. It is not my skill set. So to those of you (and there have been a few) who knew about my sailing trip to Cuba and have been bugging me about reports concerning same, this is for you.     

As much as I had looked forward to and subsequently enjoyed AURORA’s passage down the Tenn-Tom from Kentucky Lake to Mobile AL, I had one more adventure niggling away at the back of my mind even as Kristine, Brett and I floated down through the center of our great country.  Back in the summer of 2015, friends we had met when AURORA first arrived in Kentucky a year prior asked if I had any interest in sailing to Cuba with them for a few weeks on their boat, TALARIA, a cutter rigged Tayana 43. They did not have a great deal of sea experience and I think they felt having an experienced ocean sailor along made some sense.  And also, we liked each other, always a plus in close and constrained boat spaces.

         For my part, I salivated at the opportunity to re-visit a place I had seen once as a pimple-faced teenager in 1961.  Furthermore, as a published journalist, I qualified now under the current US rules regarding US citizens traveling to Cuba.  (the rules seem to change every couple of days)  And, Cuba plays a role in a follow-up sequel novel to my Fayal Roads epic of several years ago that I am finally working on again. Details needed to be worked out but I desperately wished to make that passage. In situ research and a chance to see Havana again before it becomes Starbucks and Mickey D’s South (and it will because big money always wins) was the overwhelming impetus to make it happen.  
              And so it has.  The CUBA LIBRE CHRONICLES begin now, so stay tuned my friends.

Havana skyline is best seen from a distance

    As with all of my Roger’s Rants, opting out and getting off my mailing list is easy and pain-free for you, if not for me.  I hate losing even one reader.  Personal failure still bothers me even at my ¾ century mark.