Cuba - by Sea & Air

In days gone by, when travel between Key West and Cuba was unrestricted, there were two ways to get between one and the other:

By Sea

or

By Air

Despite what you may have heard, there is no Key West - Havana Bridge-Tunnel

.

Two years ago Key West International Airport was approved to offer flights to Cuba.  However, the efforts of several potential operators (one of them was Cape Air)  to gain approval for such flights from both American and Cuban authorities failed for various reasons.  Now, however, there are reports that an operator, that is someone with planes and pilots, may be on the verge of success in getting the needed approvals.  We're following that and will provide updates as they become available.

As with everything related to Cuba, there will be significant restrictions on who can travel and what they can do while there.  The Huffington article gets into that.

As far as sea travel goes, there are no commercial operators who currently offer passage between the islands.  I asked one of the owners of the Key West Express fast ferry  several months ago if his company was making plans to offer such trips, and he assured me that they are,

The matter of Cuba opening up for Americans to travel freely across the windward passage (and for Cubans to do so also) has been a subject of conjecture for many years.  The impact of those events will very likely change the tourism dynamic for Key West in ways that are not yet well-understood.

Nevertheless, we're prepping ourselves to go over.  Although it might be nice to be among the first to go, we'll wait until we are free of any restrictions that wouldn't exist if we decided to go to anywhere else on earth.  Janet's 70th birthday is February 4th; maybe that'll be our target.

This Year in Cuba

I had this report sitting in a Drafts folder since last May.  It reflects on the trip to Cuba made by Jay-Z and Beyonce earlier this year, and talks about ways that not-so-famous people can get to Cuba.

We'll be discussing that here too.

¡Arriba!

Once again, as we're doing at The Real Key West, I'm choosing to resume blogging on this blog as well.

Here in Key West, City Commissioner Anthony "Fat" Yaniz has taken up the cause of re-establishing the historic ties that bound Key West and Cuba together from more than 150 years ago up until the early 1960's.  Yaniz points out that the close relationship between the island city and the island nation was stronger in its day than anything that ever arose in Miami, despite its hugely larger population of émigré Cubans.

Our interest has been piqued by discussions we've had with with others here who've either already made the journey, or shown a desire to make it freely, without the onerous restrictions imposed by the Office of Foreign Asset Control` and other federal agencies.

We had dinner last night with a friend, an artist, who came to Key West in 1980  during operation Pedro Pan.  He was 12 when his parents came here and he  joined them.  He remembers the Cuba of his youth, but he hasn't been back there since 2005.  And he remembers the Key West of the 80's up until now.  Antonio is his name.  We'll be hearing more from him.

We're now exploring ideas on how and when we'll be able to go ourselves.  Bob is interviewing people who've done it, how they've done it, and what they'd recommend that we do.

I aso have a call in to Peter Horton, Monroe County's Director of Airports, and hope to find out what preparations, if any, that are being made to initiate direct flights between the islands.

I've been saying since January, and have said it here before, "This Year in Havana", "This Year in Cuba".

 ¡Arriba!

An Invitation to Key West

The Key West Citizen publishes an editorial today out of the Tampa Tribune.

At Tuesday nights Key West City Commission meeting, Commissioner Yaniz took note of what Tampa is doing and initiated what we hope will be an invitation to Cuban officials to come to Key West to open a dialogue between the two cities with the longest history together.

Tampa officials recently went to Havana for an "educational exchange" under the U.S. government's people-to-people license program.

Marco Rubio puts foot in mouth

Florida Senator Marco Rubio says: 

"Cuba’s not a zoo, where you pay an admission to go in and you get to watch people living in cages, to see how they’re suffering. Cuba’s not a field trip. I don’t take that stuff lightly. You just went to Cuba and to fulfill your curiosity, which I could have told you about if you’d have come seen me for five minutes, you’ve left thousands of dollars in the hands of a government that uses that money to control these people that you feel sorry for."

Rubio has never even been to the real Cuba, only Guantanamo.

We are the 93%.  Let our people go.

John Kerry on Cuba

Here's another editorial (from the Tampa Bay Times) remembering what Senator John Kerry had to say back in 2009 about the U.S. and Cuba.

Now Kerry is Secretary of State and in position to actually do something about it.

You think he will?

Here's another good piece on the state of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, from Bloomberg News.

It contains this paragraph:

"The Obama administration also has a more immediate problem: Cuba’s decision to relax its emigration policy means that the U.S., which has long granted preferential treatment to Cuban refugees, may face a spike in new arrivals. Any effort at comprehensive immigration reform needs to take those changed circumstances into account."

That makes sense.

This Year in Cuba

Havana Times reprints this article from Progreso.  There's a strong upbeat of news coming from and about Cuba.

I take that as an encouraging sign that we'll be able to (legally) visit this year when, where and how we choose.

June? Anywhere? By boat?

I talked with Antonio about this on Saturday at the SWB Art Fair.  He's Cuban-born but has lived in the U.S. for over 30 years.  Need 8-10 like-minded Key Westers to join a budget-conscious odyssey.

email me: kwshoes@gmail.com

I wrote the prior post the day before I left for Boston to begin a long-planned trip with our grandson, Cameron, who graduated from high school in Rochester, NH in June.  We began talking about such a trip a few years, but it became a commitment about two years ago, and we began planning the particulars early this year.

We wrote about that adventure together in our joint blog called Cam And Bobs Euro Trip, regularly and often at first, more sporadically later.  It tailed off on October 16 to zilch even though we had five days of Europe left to go through before heading home.

I returned to Key West alone on October 22.  I was gone for 47 days in all and I thought little about what I had been doing before I left.  Oh, I read the Key West newspapers, and kept up with some e-mails, and visited FaceBook to post photos, as did Cameron.  We even used Skype sometimes to keep in touch with friends and family through audio and video chats.  But we tried to live in what some people call the here and now, the things that were in front of us rather than the things back home.

Since coming back to Key West I've been embroiled in matters having to do with the land trust of which I have been a board member for the past six years.

CUBA STUDY GROUP

"vii) Authorize the Reestablishment of Ferry Services to Cuba: Current U.S. regulations allow both “aircraft and vessels” to serve Cuba as an exception to the U.S. embargo against the Island.xxii The use of chartered aircrafts to transport Cuban-Americans and other licensed U.S. travelers to and from Cuba has long been authorized by the U.S. Department of Treasury. The next step should be to reestablish safe and secure chartered ferry services to transport the same categories of passengers to and from Cuba. Ferry service offers an affordable alternative to airline travel to Cuba and would allow an increase in the amount of goods that Cuban-Americans and other licensed travelers may legally take to Cuba to support their families and micro entrepreneurs."
I've mentioned the Cuba Study Group before.  The paragraph above is from their latest post, entitled Restoring Executive Authority Over U.S. Policy Toward Cuba.

The web site also includes another white paper titled Lifting Restrictions on Travel and Remittances to Cuba:A Case for Unilateral Action.  First released in December 2008, the white paper begins with this:

The Cuba Study Group recommends that the United States unilaterally lift all restrictions that limit the ability of U.S. persons (citizens and residents) to travel to Cuba. We also recommend the elimination of restrictions on remittances to Cuba in order to authorize all U.S. persons to freely and without limitations send remittances to individuals on the island, with sensible exceptions. We believe such steps are not only consistent with the values of the United States, but also that they will allow U.S. nationals to help the long-suffering people of Cuba and will strengthen the internal pro-democracy movement.   

It was a good idea in 2008, and it still is today.

An Opening?

Reading the signals:

1)  Raul Castro meets with US senators

2)  Seven Steps the U.S. President Can Take to Promote Change in Cuba by Adapting the Embargo 

3)  Restoring Executive Authority Over U.S. Policy Toward Cuba

It feels like something might be up.

Los Van Van

As all eyes turn to Haiti and the devastation wrought there by the recent earthquake, we are diverted from other places and other events that command our attention but don't get it.

It's hard to stay informed about so many things.  It's easier to take note and move on to where the mainstream media want to bring us, where our 'leaders' would have us look.  When a magician does it it's called misdirection, a deliberate move to have the observer look elsewhere while the performer palms a coin, or brings a card to the top -- or takes a rabbit out of an empty hat.

My attention came back to Cuba yesterday with the news that Los Van Van, Cuba's premiere salsa band, would be starting a 2010 world tour here in Key West on January 28th with a concert at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park.  It's a good venue for a large crowd and it's bound to draw one, even at a $30 p/p admission charge.  Here's a taste of the music.

The commenting on the Citizen article [subscription required] has gone hot and heavy among the Fidelistas, the Batistitas, and the rest of us who'd just like to hear some muy caliente latin music under the stars.

Can't we all get along?