Fran and I were on a trip to Cuba and had taken the ferry from Havana to the small town of Regla at the bottom of Havana Bay. Regla is a commercial and industrial suburb, home to shipyards, fuel depots, and an oil refinery. Regla is known for its rich colonial history, being established in 1690, and the traditional Virgen de Regla Santería celebrations. Regla is also home to several historic churches and a monastery. The sturdy steel-hulled 200-passenger ferries that ply the route across the bay carry almost entirely local commuters who live on one side of the bay and commute to the other. Our travel to Regla was uneventful. We paid the equivalent of three cents for our ticket and enjoyed a few hours wandering the streets of Regla. We also visited a church and stopped for a cool drink.
Around 3:00 p.m., we joined the line at the ferry dock and boarded the ferry for our return trip to Havana. About halfway across Havana Bay, the ferry’s engine started making gasping noises and sputtered to a stop. The crew made several attempts to restart the engine, but although we could hear it cranking, it wouldn't start.
Eventually, the batteries were exhausted, and no further attempts to start the engine could be made. We looked around the large, open cabin on the ferry's ground level at the faces of our fellow passengers, and at first no one seemed alarmed; after a few minutes, an audible buzz of quiet conversation spread.
We first looked to the Regla dock, then to the one in Havana, to see if any sign of help was on the way, but we could detect no activity. I tried to peer into the pilot house to see if there were any radio conversations taking place, but then I realized this boat had no radio. Fran turned to the young man beside her and asked in Spanish whether he rode the ferry regularly. He said that he lived in Regla and went to school in Havana. “What do they normally do when this happens?” Fran asked. “I don’t know, this has never happened before,” the young man answered. For some reason, that struck me as alarming. When things don’t happen very often, folks aren't prepared for them when they do.
Another ten minutes passed with no news from the crew, and the boat drifted out towards the mouth of the bay and towards open sea. After another 15 minutes, a Regla-bound ferry approached us but then passed us by and docked in Regla.
A young woman explained to us that ferries carry only a limited amount of fuel to deter theft of the boats by people fleeing the country. The ferry from Havana would not have had enough fuel to rescue us, so it needed to head to the fuel dock after letting off passengers. Another ten minutes passed as the boat refueled, and only then did we see it was headed toward us. All the while, a stiff wind caused the ferry to drift out towards the sea.
The other ferry came up alongside ours, and a crew member threw a rope attached to its bow to a crew member on our ferry. The bowline was quickly made fast, and then it became apparent that they only had one rope! They had nothing to secure the sterns of the two vessels, making either passenger transfer or towing very tricky. The pilot of the rescue ferry powered his boat into ours, and the two hulls hit with a loud boom. Passengers tried to jump from our boat to the other before they drifted apart again.
This was followed by another power maneuver into our ferry and another big boom when the hulls crashed together again. Another group of passengers jumped onto the other ferry, and the boats drifted apart again. All of this activity had been taking place without any direction from the crew of either vessel. Finally, the captain of our boat came down from the pilot house and yelled that passengers weren't supposed to try to jump onto the other boat; instead, it would tow us back to Regla. The rescue vessel powered into ours one last time, making another big boom as the hulls crashed together, then towed us back at full throttle to the Regla dock, the one rope attached to the bows of the two vessels.
As we approached the Regla dock, I wondered whether we would stop in time or crash into it, but the captain of the rescue vessel took up the slack in the tow line and brought us to a stop well short of the dock. Ropes miraculously appeared in the hands of men at the Regla dock, and several lines were thrown to our boat, and our rescue was completed. The rescue vessel powered off to the fuel dock, and we heard it run out of fuel with just enough momentum to coast to the pumps!
