If you read the last blog, you know that Geddy and I are now in Havana, living on our yacht, Opportunity, at the Hemingway Marina.
We rang in the new year of 1996 here. I had mentioned that we have an assistant, Corina who spends her days helping us with our quests. (Carina is the blonde with the ponytail in the picture below. We have our driver, Jose, also pictured below.) We had a plan to bring art back to the U.S. along with old memorabilia. With Corina’s help, we located old posters, cigar boxes, and wrappers... always looking for interesting collectibles. The U.S. embargo is still in effect, but we are aware of a loophole allowing art to come into the U.S.
We were both so overwhelmed by the living conditions. There are no stores, restaurants, or supplies of any kind.
One of our new friends, Alberto, a philosopher, shared a lot of the 'inside politics' of Cuba with us. No one ever says Castro’s name, referring to him only by the hand gesture of a goatee.
No one trusts that even a family member will not turn you in for saying or doing anything not allowed. Working opportunities are limited. Most people live on ratios of beans and rice.
Wages, which are the same for everyone, are extremely poor.
There is no internet... world information is non-existent.
The infamous O J Simson trial was in progress at this time and yet, no one there knew about that. The response I got when asking an opinion about extraterrestrials was that no one would take the time to talk about frivolous topics when survival was paramount. We got in the habit of bringing supplies with us from Key West for ourselves and the ones we cared about there. In the last blog, I mentioned that Geddy transported art supplies and medical supplies there via Opportunity. We were able to distribute the art supplies to artists but the medical supplies, offloaded on the docks of the marina and tarped, never made it off the dock. Our government connection who intended to get permission to dispense these useful supplies to local hospitals, eventually told us
that because there wasn’t enough for everyone, then they couldn’t be accepted. All these realities of Cuban life were difficult to understand coming from our background.
Jose was driving us to Cayo Levisa for a diving expedition.... about two hours West of Havana, with stunning fine white sand beaches and spectacular diving, famous for its black coral. Due to extreme weather, a flooded river stopped our journey. Jose left us when a nice man offered to take us across in his unusual motorcycle vehicle! When we returned, we took a 16-hour train ride to Santiago de Cuba, in the SE area of Cuba, and then to Baracoa,
the oldest Cuban city on the NE coast. I am in disbelief about the stove lesson below. The last picture is of an illegal room we rented from lovely locals in Baracoa.
The train ride itself was really awful!
We weren’t allowed to open windows in our air-conditioned car. It seemed that every passenger was a chain smoker! I endured most of the journey with a shawl over my head.
The bathroom was unspeakable!
There was just a hole in the floor instead of a toilet. The constant swaying of the train, made it impossible to have good aim and the floor became a
flood. We were ecstatic to reach our hotel and shower! The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Assumption in Santiago de Cuba was stunning. It faces Cespeda Park, where locals stroll in the evenings... a ritual in Spanish cities and towns.
Pictured Below: A creative Cuban fishing vessel in Bahia de Matanzas, one of Cuba’s numerous vintage cars, and El Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro.
The following pictures are a few of the objects of memorabilia that we were able to get out of Cuba:
Back at the Hemingway Marina, we found that our yacht was under house arrest.
Fortunately, we boarded Opportunity before the police tried to take us to their station. Being on your boat is like being in your own country, they can’t force you off. The police had been tipped off that we had been collecting Cuban memorabilia. While we were away on our trip, the police ransacked our boat, confiscating our collection of memorabilia, claiming it all as their cultural heritage. I had a small locked closet with my spiritual supplies as well as Thai silver jewelry I sold to friends on our journeys. The police were keen to inspect the closet’s contents. They took all of the jewelry and were convinced that a bag of sage I used for smudging was marijuana. I told them it was salvia, an herb, and eventually, it was cleared when tested. In the end, we were branded as “personas non gratis”, and asked to leave the country and never return. We suspected that Carina and/or Jose had turned us in which
saddened us since we had treated them like family. Later, our Canadian friend, Dave, carried correspondence back and forth between us and Carina when he sailed to Key West. Those letters convinced us that this was not the case. We never knew who turned us in.
As we were preparing to leave, we were visited by a stray puppy. Geddy, who had never had a dog, had been playing a game with me for years: if I won a bet, I could have a dog, which never happened. So when he yelled down to me from the cockpit that there was a puppy, I was shocked. While I went to meet the puppy, Geddy grabbed a handful of chocolate cake, gifted to us as a parting gift, to give to the stray. She was initially suspicious of eating it but changed her mind after a taste. Later when we found out that chocolate was bad for dogs, she would argue that it didn’t kill her.
Yes, we did sail away with her. We named her Starr because of the white pattern on the back of her neck. We called her, Opportunity’s first stowaway.
Our sail to Key West with little Starr was stressful at first due to diesel fumes causing us to be ill and then we developed a water leak in the engine room. When we radioed a passing container ship for help, they refused us. We then radioed the Coast Guard, but fortunately, Geddy fixed the leak before they arrived allowing us to cancel the SOS. Despite the embargo, it was easy to clear into Key West. The process was to go to the customs office in town, and answer a few questions in the negative: Did we bring in rum, cigars, people? Did you spend any money in Cuba? No, no, no, and no, our Canadian relatives there paid for everything! Naturally, we didn’t mention Starr.
Back in Key West, we moored Opportunity in the bay and moved in with our friend, Pritam, a spiritual vegan developer Geddy knew from Maine and Vermont. He was living in a quaint typical Key West cottage with the obligatory white picket fence. Pritam hired us as assistants in his development office where one of our first duties was to promote an upcoming charity concert with the band, Blood, Sweat and Tears. David Clayton Thomas, the lead singer, is giving me a lesson on how to tell Starr’s age by her teeth. However, his teeth technique was a bit off from what the veterinarian told me a few days later. Starr was diagnosed with red mange with a dismal prognosis. I gave her the meds from the vet, but I prayed deeply thinking she was too young and innocent to wear this disease for life. When tested later, she was mange-free to my relief. While living at the white cottage, a young cat jumped out of the entrance coconut tree and adopted us. We named him Coco Kitty. He was one of the many feral cats captured and neutered in Key West as a tribute to Ernest Hemingway. He once lived and wrote here in Key West and was infamous for his colony of polydactyl cats.
Opportunity got loose from her mooring during a storm... all 30 tons of her roaming free in the crowded harbor.
Our friend Dave, saved the day by rescuing her. She did cause some minor damage to another yacht owned by another friend, Owen. It could have been much worse. We moved Opportunity to a slip at Oceanside Marina after that, living aboard with Starr and Coco. These two furry friends were endlessly entertaining! Coco would hide on the dock ambushing clueless Starr, resulting in a chase. One time Coco, the hunter, dropped a wet slimy sea cucumber on my chest from the hatch above the bow sleeping berth at 5 AM... this was a very rude way to wake up!
Still working for Pritam, I spent a month hiring a personal macrobiotic chef, Sal, for his family. It was worth the effort. Sal stayed with Pritam for years, traveling and cooking for him as an integral part of his family. Geddy and I started a new business while living in Key West, Cultural Crossroads, a Global Art Exchange. This was really an extension of our import business.
In May I flew to Boston to visit my Dad in Norwell as well as visiting Vermont to see how Sal was adapting. While in Norwell, I sold an extensive collection of vintage signs that had been a part of Geddy’s Pub’s décor to an antique shop in Norwell. I regretted this later, wishing I still had this amazing collection. C’est la vie!
In preparation for a trip across the country with animals and inventory from Opportunity, we
bought a new GMC Yukon XL and a 16’ trailer. But first, I flew back to Hansville to deal with
a new issue. When we sold Geddy’s Pub, our Hawaiian accountant, Klaus, neglected to file
the Maine state income tax.
I now needed to come up with a staggering, $56,000.00!!
Pritam flew in from Vermont to look at buying some of our Burmese Spirit Mask collection. Thankfully, he loved these uniquely wonderful antique masks. His purchase helped defray the panic I was feeling over this financial burden. Pritam also bought the Boston Whaler, which landed back in Key West after its solo journey from Havana. We had dear friends, Daniel and Madelaine, living in the Hansville house. They had taken on a conversion of the barn while we were gone and this was the first time seeing their accomplishment. The garage doors were replaced with 8’ wide glass and wood double doors, the interior had been sheet rocked, carpet laid on the first level floor, and plumbing installed for a full bath and kitchen.
We sailed from Key West to Fort Lauderdale on June 1, 1996. We were against it, losing ground on our first night off the coast of Florida. We altered course to the inside passage and arrived at our friend Don’s dock in Fort Lauderdale three days later.
Coco Kitty took a huge dislike to sailing and flew off the deck before we even tied up!
We then left Coco with Don, took a bus back to Key West with Starr, and drove back to get Coco. On June 15th we started our cross-country trip: Atlanta, Chattanooga, Nashville, and St. Louis, but by the time we reached Kansas City, we discovered we had broken a tie rod in our trailer. Being novices to trailering, we never thought about how much weight the trailer could handle. The maximum weight should have been 5000 lbs. and we had 13.500 lbs.! We had the trailer repaired and rented a U-Haul truck to split the weight for the remainder of the trip. I drove with Coco in the Yukon and trailer while Starr rode with Geddy in the U-Haul. On we went to Denver, Salena, Glenwood Springs, Moab, Arches, Salt Lake City, and Boise, arriving home June 22nd. We stayed with many friends along the way: all lovely reunions.
On a summer visit from my Dad, he decided to buy the 2.5 acres adjacent to our home with the barn to build a house. He was ready to retire and move West to be with us. Geddy was asked to be the best man at Jeff’s wedding in Bar Harbor in August. Jeff’s finance worried that he would be arrested at the wedding. In order to avoid this, he agreed to spend 5 days in jail instead of paying a fine for an old police warrant in Bar Harbor.
At the Seattle Gift Show in August, I met Darryl and Prasert, importers from Chaing Mai, Thailand. We became fast friends, flying to Bangkok on September 22nd to organize new containers of goods. Before heading north to Chaing Mai, we visited with friends Naiyanee and Pete, Dolly, and Mae. A visit to the ancient city of Ayutthaya resulted in extraordinary finds. Ayutthaya is known for its stone carving. We found carvings there, that Darryl and Prasert arranged to have trucked to their warehouse in Chaing Mai in wait for container loading. We arrived in Chiang Mai on September 29 and spent 23 long days working to ferret out more treasures to complete two 40’ containers of goods.
Pictured above, I am with Darryl and Prasert with a truck loaded with our goods… and a typical warehouse scene inventorying statues and more.
Despite the hard work, we made time for some fun, here with giant Atlas moths, a huge python, and the endearing Thai elephants.
Our containers arrived on December 3rd. We brought in 4 of these 11’ tall deer, each carved out of a single monkeypod tree. We were able to unpack these containers before we went to Norwell for two weeks for the holidays. It has been a busy year. Next year will prove to be adventurous as well!
Watch for more on our adventures in becoming 4Creature Comforts soon!
In between, be sure and save the date for our next Open House starting Sept. 14. Come celebrate fall with our BUY 3 - GET 1 FREE -- sitewide!
SAVE on all clothing, pottery, fairy dresses, kids fun sweaters, and more! Don't forget we offer FREE SHIPPING on most items when your purchase is $100+
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