In this video, Sailing Completely Alone in South Cuba, Cruising Cienfuegos & Cayo Largo, we cruise the endless expanse of the completely deserted south of Cuba from the Garden of the Queen to the city of Cienfuegos to Cayo Largo where we visit the small village and sea turtle sancuary, home to rare Albino Sea Turtles! #remoteplaces #sailingcuba #cienfuegos #sailingchannel If you like our videos and want to see more/better videos, more often you can become a patreon supporter: https://www.patreon.com/sailingbalachandra If you haven't yet SUBSCRIBED and wan to see more please click the SUBSCRIBE button above, and be sure to give this video a like! In August of 2017 we sold everything and moved aboard Balachandra, a 1986 C&C44 sailboat, then sailed it over 300 nautical miles to Halifax Nova Scotia to spend a cold Canadian winter in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic. Sailing Balachandra is our YouTube sailing vlog inspired by other great channels such as Delos and La Vagabonde, which documents the sailing adventures of myself and my partner Nawal as we navigate the globe. We also dive into lots of DIY boat projects both above and below decks, and share with you all of the pros and cons of living aboard full time. Sailing Balachandra is published weekly so please subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos! This video was shot with equipment from Optrix by Body Glove, Nikon, Apple, GoPro, and Polaroid Opening Theme Music: License Info: Beautiful Story / Taketones.com Used with a Paid Licence / Permission PURCHASED MUSIC: LINK: https://taketones.com/track/beautiful-story LICENSE N: TTEXTENDED157339559892860327 EXTENDED Special Thanks to our Cuban friends Group Nucay for giving us permision to use to use their album "Tropicalissimo" throughout our YouTube series. Other Music: the YouTube Music Library Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sailingbalachandra Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sailingbalachandra Instagram: http://instagram.com/sailing_balachandra
Closed Captions (CC):
in this episode we sail into the garden
of the queen
and visit kyle brigantine then sail onto
sienfuego then we sail for beautiful
kyle largo to enjoy our first mojitos
and a sea turtle sanctuary
last time on sailing bella chandra we
made a video
about all of the things that have broken
or failed on board our sailboat since
leaving nova scotia
and cruising full time in the caribbean
if you're new to the channel hi i'm
noelle and i'm dan and we're sailing
bella chandra
we sailed all the way from halifax nova
scotia
to the caribbean that's right we're
sailing around the caribbean now and if
you haven't subscribed
to our channel just go below this video
look for the big red subscribe button
and press that button
we were so happy to finally be underway
again after sitting on anchor for four
days waiting for
a cold front to pass bringing 30 knot
winds from the north
cell phone and cellular data is sporadic
at best on the south coast of cuba
to send any messages to friends and
family we had to deliberately sail
towards and hug the coastline of cuba
[Music]
many of the channel markers around cuba
are damaged or missing
navionics charts are somewhat accurate
but caution must be taken as some shoals
and reefs are not accurately charted
read the water and don't try to anchor
at night unless you have guidance from
local knowledge or active captain
[Music]
so we just finished riding out a nasty
cold front that lasted
i don't know four or five days and we
were kind of hugging the south coast of
cuba during that whole time
and finally the wind has died down
enough
that we can sail offshore and out toward
the reefs
of southern cuba which is also called
the garden of the queen
we're just heading that way right now
and we should make landfall on our first
little island really soon
we got the weather this morning from
chris parker over our
single sideman radio because uh there's
not great internet anywhere down here so
uh we were able to get the forecast for
the next few days and it looks pretty
good
should be brisk winds for the next two
days but nothing we can't handle
we might get gusts up to 25 or 30
tonight but there's a protected
anchorage in there that we can grab
things are looking pretty good and it's
beautiful out here
[Music]
kyo brigantine is a small spit of sandy
paradise at the edge of the garden of
the queen
we found sandy holding in 15 feet of
clear water and stayed for two days
enjoying the beach
while in calm easterlies
[Music]
after a good rest we were off once more
sailing through the garden of the queen
one thing we did not expect about cuba
is just how
huge it really is it always seems to
take much longer than we expect to make
any real headway
here things that look small on your
chart always turn out to be much much
[Music]
larger
all right so we are well past the garden
of the queen now and we are headed for
san fuego and we've been sailing pretty
much all day yesterday
we slept the night in one spot where we
anchored and we're sailing all day today
and we're just approaching san fuego
we'll probably be in san fuego just
after dark but the anchorage is wide
open
and pretty easy to get into and i think
we shouldn't have any problems anchoring
at night
[Music]
and so we arrived in sienfuego this town
has recently reached unesco world
heritage status
as it screams history with 18th and 19th
century architecture
and beautiful thoroughfares we found
that most cafes restaurants and shops
were open and we were able to buy some
provisions
san fuego is a must stop if you plan to
visit the south of cuba
[Music]
the people of san fuego were very
friendly we enjoyed
clean public spaces take out street
pizza for only one dollar
and we were lucky to find the only bank
machine in all of downtown
which would accept a canadian debit card
so we could get some cash
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
[Music]
after a few days in sienfuego we were
off again
bound for cayo largo
[Music]
look at dad tree
it's pretty bad i gotta coax here when
you're looking at the camera
[Music]
all right so we did an overnight sail
from san fuego
to kyle largo which is the first island
on the south coast heading west from san
fuego
which has an airport and lots of beaches
and some resorts
like a popular destination spot but it's
also very beautiful
and it has a marina so we can check in
there we can go to shore
so we're kind of excited about this one
we didn't get any footage last night
because we decided we would night sail
we're in this pattern right now where
all the wind is at night
and then it kind of just dies during the
day so unfortunately that means we have
to
leave in the dark and sail in the dark
but as long as there's no
underwater obstructions that we have to
worry about we can do it after kyle
largo
there's going to be a few other small
islands where we can drop the hook for
the night be almost right in the gulf
stream as we come around
the west of cuba and heading up for
havana and that'll be our last stop in
cuba
[Music]
the marina in cairo largo was
practically deserted due to the pandemic
however all shops were open during
certain times of the day
and we enjoyed our very first mojitos
before walking the village and visiting
the sea turtle sanctuary
uh
the sea turtle sanctuary is a home to
several very rare albino
sea turtles they allowed guests to
handle and
feed the turtles
although these baby sea turtles were
very beautiful we couldn't help thinking
how their lives must be
living together crowded into these plain
water tanks
we've seen plenty of wild free sea
turtles as we cruise from anchorage to
anchorage here in the caribbean
it seems so strange for us to see some
in captivity
where so many are able to swim freely in
the wild
[Music]
thanks for watching if you enjoyed this
week's video please don't forget to
leave us a like
or a comment below that's right or hit
subscribe it's a big red button just
below the video
and if you haven't checked out our
patreon page it's always a good time to
do so
patreon is a place where you can give
back if you like what we do and you want
to support us
thanks see you later
[Music]