How Ten Siberians from Three Yachts Met by Chance in Havana

How ten Siberians from three yachts met by chance in Havana. What are the odds of meeting, in a port on the other side of the world, a crew from your own city? — Cuban magnetism, new friends, recipes and routes. It happened like this. In the evenings at Marina Hemingway, not far from Havana, the children and I would cycle along the canals. One evening at dusk, on our way home, my young sailor and I overtook a German couple strolling along, touchingly holding hands. Ladunya’s wheel got stuck somewhere at a road crossing; I shouted instructions on how to get free, while the slender German woman helped our child across the road. “Mum, she speaks Russian!” our young sailor announced joyfully, and we got acquainted. Yulia is from Komsomolsk-on-Amur. She once went to Germany to visit a friend and met Michael there. Now they are married, run a fabulous jewellery shop and travel a great deal. Michael and Yulia gave their snow-white and turquoise catamaran a name with both a maritime and jewellery flavour: “Larimar,” after a recently discovered azure-coloured mineral. Last year, Larimar’s crew crossed the Atlantic, then sailed around the Caribbean and the Bahamas, and visited Guatemala and Mexico—and now, Cuba. Yulia, Michael and a gigantic Cuban lobster :) The following day, Yulia brought us news: “A Russian yacht has just moored next to us. They crossed the Atlantic with the ARC rally—four guys from Novosibirsk. They know you, read your journal and want to meet you :).” Hurray, it looked as though a Russian party was on the cards that evening! Once the heat had subsided and the lessons were done, we went visiting aboard the German catamaran, moving on at dusk to the yacht Celebrity. “We met you just in time—we’re going through withdrawal after flying back from home!” our first mate confided to the other partygoers. The 56-foot Bavaria Celebrity, led by Captain Zhenya and crewed by Stepan and Sasha, crossed the Atlantic in November last year as part of the ARC+ rally, and even took first place in her division. Afterwards, the guys made their leisurely way through the Caribbean towards Cuba. They have some absolutely crazy video footage from the trip! Tempted by images of the azure-and-white Caribbean, thoughtfully sent by his friends over WhatsApp, the fourth crew member, Andrei, finally gave in to their persuasion and flew to the Dominican Republic in search of turquoise seas, colourful reef fish and silky beaches. The morning after he arrived, Ctelebrity set off on the 1,000-mile passage to Havana, complete with night watches, gusty winds and heavy seas. It took the friends a week to reach Cuba, and they were due to fly home the day after tomorrow. “Where are all those paradise islands I was promised?!” Andrei demanded amid general laughter. He had been expecting something a little more relaxing and pleasant than a week-long stormy passage with the autopilot breaking down towards the end. May Day aboard Celebrity. Zhenya, our Andrei, Stepan, Andrei, Yulia and Alexander Stepan turned out to be an excellent chef (on the very first evening, we appreciated the difference between simple snacks “camping style” or “restaurant aboard Lady Mary style,” and food on a yacht with a genuinely first-class professional chef). Yulia and I wrote down the recipe for his amazing marinated meat, and Ladunka even shed a tear when he was the first to fly home—the head chef and the young sailor had become such good friends. Just two evenings spent discussing everything under the sun, laughing, drinking rum and wine, and singing songs to the guitar—and already we were seeing both crews off, one after the other, on their long journeys. With the crew of Celebrity—the guys are flying home until next season Styopa, Zhenya and Andrei flew out first; Sasha left the following day, and a day later Yulia and Michael cast off as well. All the provisions the guys had not eaten migrated into our lockers and filled our refrigerator, which was barely hanging on to life as it was. Larimar set a course for Florida, where Michael and Yulia planned to leave the boat and fly back to Germany to take care of their jewellery business. When we came running to hug them goodbye, we found the berth empty, and spent the next half-hour watching from the shore as the catamaran left the channel and hoisted her white, blue and red gennaker. Once she caught the wind, she grew smaller and smaller. Of course, the guys were unlikely to have noticed us throwing our caps in the air in their honour, but we kept doing it anyway :). Photo from the Larimar crew’s archive And that night, a thunderstorm hit with a bang. The clouds gathered in several groups, ahead and astern, and covered the entire sky. Lightning and thunder bombarded us from every direction, the wind howled at the top of its lungs, while Larimar, as we later learned from Yulia’s email, was busy fleeing the storm, deftly tacking back and forth. The Novosibirsk crew are already home, while the Larimar crew have safely made landfall in Key West, USA. Well then, guys, perhaps our boats will meet again one day on the wide expanses of the world’s oceans :). Have a wonderful summer!—we shouted into the wind, and steered our little ship towards Mexico. We headed out to meet the Gulf Stream :) Larimar in the Strait of Gibraltar A participant in the Marina Hemingway cycle ride :) Our young sailors visiting... visiting a fairy tale (the film An Ordinary Miracle is on TV) :) Stepan, Andrei, Yulia and Sasha. The catamaran Larimar can be seen astern of Celebrity