Welcome Aboard!
Since Excellencies magazine put out its 27th issue, our reporters worked on a story that praised the lovely tourist conditions for sea enthusiasts in Santa Lucia de Cuba, in the province of Camaguey. Some 158,000 sunbathers later (and counting) have proved us right. Better yet, we came back and once again we got an eye-popping experience.
As so many things have happened in this spinning, ever-changing world, the fascination of Santa Lucia de Cuba is still there, an unknown and peaceful spot protected by a guarding coral reef that seems to be gazing at passing ships from a privileged position that overlooks the Old Channel of the Bahamas. Time appears to tick by differently in this neck of the woods. Silence is music and the nonstop eastbound breeze brings back the echoes of the first conquistadors, the very first slave smugglers and larger-than-life pirates that chanced upon this 13-mile-long beach as some kind of cherished treasure a few centuries ago.
An ideal location for hands-on relaxation, Santa Lucia de Cuba has a stock of 2,000 rooms clustered in three- and four-star hotels that make up this picture-perfect environment. We stayed at the Brisas Santa Lucia Hotel. As soon as we checked in, the staff told us we were entitled to an excellence Beach Club equipped with a variety of outfits, plus a marine tour to the nearby coral reef lying near the point where the sea meets the sky, given away by a continuous emanation of white foam.
“Welcome aboard!” is the way our friends at Cubanacan Nautica greeted us upon arrival aboard some hefty sail-and-motor catamarans docked by the Tararaco Nautical Base. We made out other vessels owned by the same company; some of them used by anglers and scuba diving buffs.
It sounded like a normal high-pitch greeting to me, but with a special kindheartedness, the one that you usually hear in eastern Cuba. We walked straight to the skipper of the boat and his crew. They took us on a grand tour around deck and finally we sailed on a journey known here as the Coral Tour. Some prefer to lean their backs against the rattle-and-shroud nettings, feeling the waves beneath and staring down at the bottom of the sea to discover the corals.
Every single detail about the excursion is well planned and thought of. The boat features a well-assorted alfresco bar, a spectacular show starred by starfishes (no pun intended), coupled with the best snorkeling session money can buy. I was stunned by the beauty of the sea bottoms, the harmlessness of the surrounding marine species that swam to us in troves to wave hello. This scene takes place in shallow waters below 23 inches deep.
Later on, we took a swim ourselves, trailing behind Chichi, the lovely snorkeling guide, as we dived through coral formations that glittered under the tides. There were guests from nearby hotels, too, who had bought this tour at a very affordable price. For the first time in my lifetime, I laid my hands on a husky starfish (Oreaster reticulates) and, believe me, there were hundreds of them all around. The sailors told us these species live in colonies and, as a curiosity, they regenerate any lost limb.
From that snorkeling position known locally as El Megano, we made out the not-too-far-away Sabinal Key and its U-shaped beach of white sands that really meets the eye. “That's Bonita Beach,” they uttered, “prettier than its name. Tomorrow we'll go there on a tour that includes a delicious lunch of lobsters and shrimps.” Temptation, of course, overtook us.
It was 9:00 o'clock the next morning and we were at the hotel lobby, ready to go to Bonita Beach. “Welcome aboard!” the guide cried to us, a greeting that we heard time and time again wherever we got to in the course of that amazing morning. This was a much bigger catamaran, outfitted with restrooms and springboards. Its crew members were also smiling and nice to us, like the ones we'd sailed with the day before.
Almost unexpectedly, we were shaking and knocking Cuban maracas and claves in a makeshift musical band that our guide had mustered up in a jiffy. We steered a little bit into the five-mile-long canal that stretches out alongside Nuevitas Bay, riding atop the waves past El Bucanero (The Buccaneer) Restaurant at Los Cocos Beach.
From the deck of the catamaran, we stole a long look at the other side of Sabinal Key, at the ruins of Fort San Hilario –built in 1831 to bar corsairs from entering the village of Nuevitas- and sailed past the site where Cubanacan Nautica divers feed horned sharks with their bare hands. They reminded us of the fact that this is the most spectacular animal show ever staged in Cuba, and one of the world's best-known for its conception and prestige. Besides, Camaguey's Scuba Diving Center is named after the show: Scuba Cuba Sharks' Friends.
We headed back to the open sea to carry out a dazzling snorkeling session through the coral reefs across from Bonita Beach. Here I found coral species that are now long gone in other parts of the Caribbean Basin. The catamaran came up to the foreshore and we set foot on the whiter-than-white sands of the beach. There's no softer powder-thin sand than this one and the coastline spreads evenly on both sides, hedged by the typically lavish Caribbean vegetation.
We'd never tasted a better lobster than the one we tucked in here, not even in Europe's fanciest restaurants, maybe because right here, they cook shellfish based on the experience of a lifetime at the sea. The location can't be any better, so awe-inspiring that many of us grumbled a tad when we were told it was time to return. In just a couple of hours, you can feel great peace of mind and pleasant sensations to remember for forever more.
Santa Lucia de Cuba is a family place, a spot where you could meet legendary original sites and live the kind of personal adventure you've always dreamed of. Right here in the Caribbean, at Cubanacan Nautica, a heartfelt “Welcome Aboard!” is within everybody's reach. When it comes to laid-back, emotion-packed days full of relaxation and pleasures, Cubanacan Nautica knows the easiest, comfiest and safest way to make that dream come true: the unlimited surprises at this unexplored beach where, as in every nook and cranny of Camaguey, man lives his life at full throttle, but off the fast lane.
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