My wife and I visited Cuba in March of this year (2017). We applied online for a
permit from the US Coast Guard and after about a week received a request for further information. We had selected “Education” as the reason we were visiting and responded with a note expounding upon the fact that we were / are not in any academic program, our studies were to be self directed etc. About ten days later we were e-mailed a
permit. We contacted our
insurance broker and Yachtline agreed to extend
insurance cover for the two week trip. There were three other US flagged vessels that also visited the marina at Santiago de Cuba and as far as I know, we were the only vessel to have applied for and received permits and insurance coverage.
By coincidence, my neighbor in Santa Fe, New
Mexico had taken a
cruise ship from
Miami to Havana, the week before we arrived. His trip was also billed as for “Education / person-to-person contact”, or something to that effect. They are running
cruise ships out of Miami / Ft. Lauderdale weekly, so if you are concerned that the
DOJ is going to prosecute all US visitors, there are going to be a whole lot of them.
It is true that the visit is limited to 14 days (not 15!! as we were cautioned) and there is no flexibility on the dates, or “overstaying”. If you arrive on Tuesday afternoon and leave Wednesday morning, that counts as “two days”. In fact, we arrived two days later than our permit start date due to
weather issues and although we requested a two day extension to make up for it, the extension was not granted.
Apart from that, the visit was great. The people were overwhelmingly friendly and welcoming but as others have reported, desperately poor. We were surprised that the overnight transformation that occurred in
Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union had not similarly occurred in Cuba, which is still stuck with Stalinist infrastructure, peppered with a few Chinese products.
As far as the reports of the Trump administration intending to roll back the Cuban embargo rules to pre-Obama times, I would have thought that people by now had quit listening to “fake news” from the media. It might happen, after all
Florida commands 29 electoral votes but I personally wait for actions not words.
BTW, we weren't asked if we had a sat
phone and we didn't hide it.
Ed