wind blowing hair—happy to be with their people. While the British Virgin Islands were wonderful with friends and the op- portunity for our pets to mingle with other boat dogs, down island and west were the highlights this year. Our best time this year was both in Domi- nica and in Cuba; spending over three weeks in Dominica and two weeks in Cuba. We anchored out in Ruberts Bay, Portsmouth, Dominca with a clear viewof the beaches and the rain- forest covered mountains. The dogs made friends with the Portsmouths local guides, whose colorful wooden boats visited us several times a day. The guides are part of the Ports- mouth Authority Yacht Security team of Dominican’s who patrol the harbor; they are true friends and share their lovely country with us. We toured, had beach parties and music jams by cruisers. While one of the best stops of our seven months, Cuba was the true highlight. We traveled in antique cars, had people visit the boat to see
the returning to their ‘native’ country dogs of ours and toured Havana and the country sides. We entered Cuba after sailing up the Old Bahama Channel from the Virgin Islands, rounding East and North Cuba and arriving at Marina Hemming way for Customs and a marina slip outside the facilities. Our boat was tied up to the concrete dock which forms long areas of finger cays for mariners. For entry, the Cuban government has established excel- lent customs facilities and rapid pro- cessing of cruising vessels and crew as part of their tourism outreach; the marinas are being developed with an eye to ‘one stop’ facilities, with some groceries, small restaurants and other amenities. We were boarded several times, with drug sniffing dogs taken on board while our crew was processed through various customs steps, mostly off vessel. Our Cuban Custom’s drug dog was an amazing black English Cocker Spaniel which could have been an AKC dog show
entry anywhere. Other than the Eng- lish Cocker having a love affair with our own three Havanese dogs on board, the visit was easy; the dog’s military handlers were not quite as impressed. As part of the procedure the drug dog is supposed to walk through the vessel checking for con- traband and alerting. This did not go as planned—the Cocker did not want to leave our vessel, recognizing clearly there were two long-haired females to smooze with. The fact our male dog took exception and joined into a male dog contest of marking boat topside areas also caused severe red faces. Again, expect to be boarded by several teams of customs agents to include agricultural officials who will look in cold storage for banned foods such as fresh meats. It’s an in depth process, but done quickly and politely by teams of very serious, uniformed military and government. During our entry to Cuba, the Cuban Customs Veterinarian asked us if we had any vaccines we could ‘donate.’
46 • T op N otch T oys , O ctober 2019
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