I don’t get car-sick and I’m not afraid of flying. A 15-hour ride on the open seas is, however, an entirely different matter.

“We have flat seas,” the Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard sailors aboard the HMJS Middlesex kept saying.

“Everytime we take visitors out, we have calm seas,” they added.

“Tell that to my stomach,” I thought, willing myself not to throw up.

I had swallowed some Dramamine which I hoped would have prevented the wave of nausea and dizziness I started to experience about 10 minutes after we’d set sail, but since I was one of those who thought “it won’t happen to me”, I didn’t observe the “half-an-hour or one hour before activity” direction on the label.

I was part of a group comprising three Jamaican journalists, four representatives from the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), two JDF personnel and the 16-member crew of the HMJS Middlesex.

The mission was to take humanitarian relief on behalf of the Jamaican Government to Cuba. We set sail from the JDF headquarters at Port Royal at 20:00 hours on Friday September 18 and didn’t make it to Santiago de Cuba until 11:00 on Saturday. That’s a total of 15 hours travelling the distance of 180 NM at a speed of 12 knots. That’s not very fast given the vessel’s 243-ton dead weight, the added weight of the relief goods and the current which was going against us. Still, it did a number on my equilibrium and I wasn’t the only one for my media colleagues and the JDF personnel who, like myself, had never been on a boat for so long, and were soon off to bed.

We were in for a surprise, however, on the journey back which, fortunately, was cut down to 11 hours. Having off-loaded the goods, the vessel was now lighter and since we had “following seas”, the captain increased our speed to 18 knots. Again, that’s not very fast by land standards, but given that the vessel was lighter, the waves bounced and rocked us even more than before. It was difficult to even walk for the swaying of the vessel. It therefore follows that we were more sick than before, so much so, that I abandoned all plans to start writing my story on my laptop while at sea. To the disappointment of the sailors, but fortunately for us, there was no vomiting but another reporter, who shall remain nameless, slept for almost the entire return trip.

Before returning to Jamaica, however, we got a ‘glimpse’ of the city, the second most important in the only Communist country in the western hemisphere. It is home to more than 434,000 people.

The approach to Santiago de Cuba is somewhat idyllic. The narrow-necked channel leading to the harbour, on one side of which loomed a tower of sorts, opened into a panorama of verdant hills abounding with green palm and bright red poinciana trees, colourful wooden structures or peeling, roofless buildings. This, plus the fishermen seated on rubber disks made for a truly idyllic environment.

It compensated for the outdated Lada motor cars, smoke-spitting old trucks, rickety make-shift carriages pulled by horses and old covered seats on the back of tricycles on the city streets. It also made up for the run-down dwellings with missing windows, beggars in the park, people peddling candy and asham on the streets, and the old man trying to sell us wilted carnations for two pesos each.

But for the out-moded transportation, the language, and perhaps the carnation-peddling man, it could easily have been Jamaica. Oh, but I’m forgetting the fact we can talk bad about the Government and that we have the Internet.