The small boat in Regla runs out of fuel and service with Havana is suspended

Havana/The poster leaves no doubt. “There is no boat,” announces the piece of cardboard placed at the entrance to the Regla pier. The ship that connects Havana with this maritime town has stopped working this Friday due to the lack of fuel that hits the Island. Without these trips that cross the Bay of Havana, residents in the eastern part of the city are more disconnected and suffer more limitations in the transfer of goods.

Gray on grey, this February’s winter sea and sky are just the scene of a deeper crisis. With urban transportation impaired, gas stations barely serving customers who pay in dollars and a package of measures that restrict the functioning of state entities, due to the energy crisis, the cutoff of the service of the boats that connect Old Havana with Regla and Casablanca could be seen coming. “Every time something happens, we pay the consequences,” said a frustrated traveler who at noon today arrived to take the boat and found the announcement of its cancellation.

Traditionally, the boat for Regla has been the most direct way to travel the distance that separates the historic center of Havana from the municipality, which continues to be a haven of spirituality and also a parenthesis in the daily hustle and bustle of the largest Cuban city. bicycles, cakes for weddings, mats or suitcases are part of the products that move from one place to another over the dark waters of the bay. Because it is, the boat has been the scene of movies and even historical events.

In 2003, the hijacking of the boat by a group of Cubans who wanted to leave the country ended in the execution of three people and in one of the largest waves of repression unleashed by the Cuban regime. The Black Spring, which put 75 opponents and independent journalists in prison, also had its origins among the waves that shake a small boat that is as popular as it is strategic. Nothing that happens in the bay stays in the bay, skeptics would say. A piece of cardboard proves them right today: there is no collapse that escapes this dirty piece of sea that separates Havana from itself.