Suliere's Blog

We leave about 6am Tuesday or Wednesday so that we can clear all the bridges before they close for the morning rush hour – then is down to past Key largo where we start to have decent anchorage options. Over the next day or so we head to Key West. We plan to take the Hawk Channel route.

After clearing out in Key West we set a course that will be 203 degree true to Cuba – this of course is weather dependent as we shall be crossing the Gulf Stream before arriving at The Hemingway Marina. The plan is to leave just before Sunset and sail through the night to arrive about 9am at the marina.

Then we aim to hire a car to explore Cuba for a few weeks before working our way in hops to marinas down the north coast so that we have the shortest route from the last marina to Ragged Island where we shall check into the Bahamas. We then work our way up and through the Exumas back to Lauderdale come 1st July.

As USA dollars have a 10% penalty in Cuba we wanted UK pound to exchange and so using debit cards we collected dollars in cash and headed to a Travelex to exchange the dollars to UK pounds. Walking in I just thought, given there were so many Cubans in Florida that they may have Cuban currency – worth asking I thought……. I was wrong, not only did they not have them but the mention of Cuba stopped any currency exchange at all – to UK pounds or anything else!!! The manager explained we needed USA government permission to exchange any currency in the USA if we were going to Cuba. We even told them we were going to the Bahamas first then possibly Cuba but would take residual pounds home to the UK but no – we had mentioned Cuba and so all business was refused despite being UK citizens and even if at anytime in the future Cuba was to be a destination. I even explained that I could go to the next Travelex and buy pounds and they agreed but because the word Cuba was mentioned as a possible future destination they could not do it!!!!! I now know the world is getting madder all the time. 🙂