Off the Charts
The mysteries of Cuban waters are coming to light more and more.
Contrary to common understanding, many detailed, up-to-date, and well-craft ed official paper charts of Cuba do exist. Unfortunately, they’re not easy to own and the good work of the Cuban hydrographic service is not yet fully available in any electronic form. In fact, many “current” electronic Cuba charts are based on shockingly old data with substantial chunks of critical cruising detail missing. But visiting boaters do have at least one good current chart choice. El Servicio Hidrográfico y Geodésico de la República de Cuba, more simply known as GeoCuba, is moving into the modern world, and the back story reveals chart issues every navigator should understand, with a Cuban twist.
On a lazy spring Cuba cruise on the Panorama II, a two-masted motorsailer with 25 cabins operated by Variety Cruises, I took along five sets of digital Cuba charts to compare on my iPad. The differences between them were both alarming and confusing. I’ve never seen charts that differed so much in quality for the same area, and I subsequently learned that even the best probably do not include all the nav data that the Cuban HO has collected, though some include information that the Cubans themselves may not have.
Fortunately, it was actually the Greek skipper on who was responsible for the
