Cuban conundrum

Boat/US Magazine, July, 2003 by Elaine Dickinson

According to those who have been adventurous enough to go there, the forbidden island of Cuba has it all: Lush vistas, sparkling tropical waters, cheap rum and beautiful women. Only 90 miles from Key West, FL, Cuba beckons but remains largely out of reach for one simple reason -- tourism travel by Americans is still illegal and has been since economic sanctions were imposed in 1963. The Communist regime of Fidel Castro is on the U.S. State Department's list of nations that Americans cannot include in their vacation travel plans, along with about 10 other countries, from North Korea to Libya.

That being said, some 135,000 Americans visit Cuba each year legally and tens of thousands visit without authorization, risking significant fines and even jail time. This seeming contradiction is due to a laundry list of federal regulations that actually allows Americans to visit Cuba legally if they can obtain a license from the U.S. Treasury Department. Essentially, it's not illegal to go to Cuba; it's just illegal to spend a cent of U.S. money there.

The federal trading with the Enemy Act says you cannot contribute in any fashion to the Cuban economy, unless you're specifically licensed to. Ironically, the island nation began accepting U.S. dollars as currency years ago.

"I would think twice about just going there without a license," said David Schaefer, a journalist and Boat U.S. member who sailed his 32-foot sloop to Cuba with a license and authored Sailing to Hemingway's Cuba. "What I'm hearing is that the Bush Administration is taking a harder line on enforcement. I wouldn't risk it by boat. There are other ways to go legally."

This spring, however, the Bush Administration tightened the rules and eliminated one of the license categories that had been used by thousands of travelers since the program was begun by President Clinton. Treasury canceled licenses for people-to-people educational trips, used -- and some say abused -- by individuals touring Cuba for purposes ranging from bird-watching to studying dance, cinema or architecture.

Specific trips or travelers that may be licensed are: cultural exchange trips that are government sponsored; working journalists; family members visiting Cuban relatives; professionals attending conferences or conducting research; athletes in a sanctioned event by an international sports organization; plus case-by-case requests for those engaged in humanitarian or religious programs, performers, or students and teachers with an accredited educational institution. Licenses are not given for individual tourists. A license for those who qualify, can take four to six weeks to process.

The other legal way to visit Cuba, which has launched many a sailor's cruise there, is by having your trip "fully hosted." That means someone from Cuba or from another country is paying all of your expenses; you are not expected to spend a dime on anything during your entire stay, nor can you be reimbursed later (Fully hosted travel cannot be on a Cuban air carrier or on any direct flight from the U.S.)

But even "fully hosted" travel has its pitfalls, however, as a recent regatta strayed into a gray area that could put American sailors at risk Promoted as a "fully hosted" sailboat race from Tampa, FL, to Marina Hemingway, a popular cruising destination on the island only nine miles from Havana, the Canadian organizers required participants to file an entry form and pay an entry fee.

Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which investigates and enforces economic sanctions, issued a notice that the regatta's Web site (Sail-Cuba.com) contained incorrect information and that boaters risked lines up to $55,000 for paying an entry fee that allegedly included Cuban entry visas, tours, dockage and a tour of Havana.

"A U.S. boater cannot claim fully-hosted status if he or she is prepaying a third country entity to cover his or her travel-related transactions in Cuba," says OFAC. "Boaters who participate in the regatta advertised on this Web page will not be considered fully hosted."

"People should be aware that some of these regattas are just a house of mirrors and Treasury knows that," Schaefer said, citing one of the most popular annual regattas, drawing 200 vessels, that was ended in 2000 by federal order. The folks at OFAC are the same team tracking money linked to Al Qaeda, so they suffer no fools, Schaefer added.

A boater also faces risk of steep fines of up to $250,000 by ignoring another federal requirement that they obtain a U.S. Coast Guard permit to depart from a security zone. The security zone, instituted in 1996, runs from near the Florida-Georgia state line along the Atlantic Coast to the Florida Keys and north into the Gulf of Mexico to Apalachee Bay (longitude 83[degrees], 50 mm.) Non-public vessels less than 50 meters are required to get permission to leave the zone.

"It's a notification to the Coast Guard that a vessel intends to depart the U.S. security zone and possibly stop in a Cuban port," said Carlos Martinez, an officer with the Maritime Intelligence Center at U.S. Coast Guard 7th District headquarters in Miami. The forms are faxed directly to him and he approves about 600 a year. Copies are also forwarded to the Treasury Department, he said.