Date: 20.2.2020
Author: Carl
Postion: Marina Hemingway, Havana
Geographical position: 23°05.243N; 82°29.984W
Etmal: 0

Today was departing day. After nine days we are finally leaving Cuba with new crew members, food and energy. But the day started pretty boring for me. After I had done my 4-6 harbourwatch, during which we played 4 in a row on the welldeck, I slept until the morning meeting at 8 o’clock. At the meeting, Tamsin, who came back yesterday, told us we were going to prepare for going to sea at 15:00, because otherwise we would have to stay in the marina for another 24 hours, as the water here is only deep enough for us to manoeuver in during high tide.

We were done half an hour later, so that meant we all had to find a way to occupy ourselves for the rest of the morning. Most of us grabbed their laptops or their diaries/Klarheitsbooks and wrote, watched or played in or on them. Also some intelligent people went to bed to catch up on sleep before going to sea and back into the routine again. Me, I was doing sudokus and crosswords which I got from my parents with the letters which arrived with Captain Chris. A big big thank you at that point to my parents, you saved my day (please keep sending them).

At first some people and me were trying to solve them together, but then our engineer Bruce suggested we should try a duel. So I copied some sudokus and played against Ruben. After a Go! We both started solving the same one and whoever finished first won. I don’t want to make others look bad on here, so I’m not going to write who won. But I won. Three out of three. And that is how we passed our time until lunch.

At around 13:30 we had to stand by to be shuttled to the immigration office in the RIB, to clear out of Cuba. When we were all back from that the engine was turned on… but oh no, we weren’t ready to go yet. More officers came onto the ship, accompanied by drug-sniffing dogs. It was hell for me knowing there are dogs on board, as I am highly allergic. But everything turned out fine and we were finally allowed to leave Cuba.

Then the most impressive part of the day started: Capatain Chris manoeuvering us out of the Marina. I was on the helm, following his orders and seeing the magic happening. Going out of the Marina was very difficult. One thing which was nice was that our former Captain, Ben, had parked us in backwards. So we were able to get out forward.

Still we had to get around three sharp corners in a row with sometimes only 10 centimetres underneath the keel. But Chris got us out like he did it every day. He gave relaxed orders and I swear we were always just centimetres away from every corner. It was amazing! From this moment on everyone had a lot of respect for him.

At sea the day came slowly to an end. Silja and Johanna mastered their fear of heights and did their Pelican Monkey. So everyone has their monkey certificate now. I was very proud of the girls -they rocked it! After another awesome meal for dinner, I sat down with Noé to watch Arrow, a series she downloaded. It is great that we are on the day watch now, because we get both freetime and plenty of sleep now, which obviously is great. I can actually do stuff in the evening. So after Noé went to go to bed, I decided to write my daily report and here I am.

Ladies and Gentleman, that was my day. Maybe in the end some last words about Cuba. The people there seemed very nice, but you could also feel something was a miss there. In general we mostly got to see the more touristic sides of Cuba and Havanna, and you could see the Cubans were doing their best to give us a good experience in their country. And it was a really nice experience. But we didn’t get to see much of peoples’ real lives there, which for me was a bit sad. In Havanna I talked to some people and even though they are very nice they are having a hard life. I learned that a lot of things are different here and in the last days we got to see a more of the other side of the Cuba. But anyway, for me, it was very nice being there and seeing what the country is like.

Greetings to all of my family and friends, I love you all!
Big Kisses to home!