Gone fishing... Cuban style
By Stephen Gibbs
BBC News, Havana
Fifty seven years ago, the author Ernest Hemingway inaugurated a big
game fishing competition in Cuba. Held almost annually and despite
tensions between the US and Cuba, the four-day event is still proving
popular.
Like all the best fishing stories, mine began in a bar.
One evening in Havana I was introduced to a man called Stewart, an
affable commercial manager in a London building firm.
It turned out he was part of the English team in this year's Hemingway
fishing tournament. In fact he was the only Englishman on his boat and
he was taking on recruits.
Two days later, we were a mile off the Havana coast, hoping to strike
lucky in what I was told was the oldest big game fishing competition in
the world.
The Torneo Hemingway is of those remnants of pre-revolution Cuba which
just will not die. Maybe that is not entirely unconnected to the fact
that Fidel Castro himself is a previous winner.
There is a photograph of Ernest Hemingway handing him the trophy in
1960. It was the only time the two men ever met.
Since then, the event has had its ups and downs.
By the mid-60s, when almost all the Cuban bourgeoisie - as they were
being described by then - had left the island, only a few locals were
taking part.
Then, in the late 70s, Jimmy Carter instigated a detente with Cuba, and
a huge flotilla of fishermen came over from America.
The 1980 tournament was cancelled, as that summer the waters were
filled, not with marlin but with thousands of Cuban rafters heading for
Florida.
These days, with the Bush administration threatening heavy fines on
American vessels that visit Cuba, very few take the risk. And all Cuban
citizens now need special government permission to set foot on a boat,
which does not help matters.
But the tournament goes on.
The 'great blue river'
This year there were 15 boats competing.
One was full of gregarious Frenchmen. Another with distinctly
organised-looking Czechs.
And then there were the Russians, all with RUSSIA written in large red
letters on their T shirts.
I had been told that one of the crews had sneaked an American citizen on
board. Was he disguised as a Russian, I wondered?
To be honest, we all looked a slightly motley bunch.
Think big game fishing and you might imagine huge, gleaming boats with
names like "Wet Dream", and immaculately turned out crews. But when the
Americans do not show up, it is not the same.
Most of the boats were hired in Cuba. They were simple, functional vessels.
The only opulence was the setting.
Tantalisingly close to the coast of Havana is what Hemingway called the
"great blue river".
It is where the Gulf Stream brushes past the island, and the sea floor
plunges to a depth of nearly 6,000 feet. Cruising in the warm current at
this time of year are hundreds of the Rolls-Royces of fish: the Blue Marlin.
Behind our boat we tried to tempt them with squid-like lures, in garish
colours.
Waiting game
The hours passed by.
I began to wonder what was the point. Stewart tried to explain.
I caught a glimpse of the grey fin of a massive blue marlin
"It's a hunter-gatherer thing" he said, as he sipped a beer, and eased
his large frame into a more comfortable position.
These days, the idea of tournament game fishing is in fact less
hunter-gathering than tag-and-releasing. No longer do the winners have
their photo taken next to their towering, bleeding catch.
Instead they bring the live fish alongside the boat, attach a marker to
it, and let it go.
Fish 'attack'
By midday we had caught nothing. Our conversation, and the boat, drifted
along.
Stewart was just explaining the ins and outs of London property
development when we were reminded that underneath us, something even
more cutthroat was going on.
One of our bright orange lures burst out of the water. Behind it, I
caught a glimpse of the grey fin of a massive blue marlin.
Marlin are notoriously aggressive fish. They do not bite their prey.
They attack it.
The reel behind me started spinning. Stewart grabbed it and began to
wind it in.
But the fish got away.
Fishing with Fidel
Back at the marina, the Czechs were already celebrating their win. They
had tagged four marlin.
The consolation prize was a ticket to the gala dinner that night. There,
I found myself talking to the man who was the captain of Fidel Castro's
boat in 1960.
Maybe it was the sea air, or old age, but Julio had none of the timidity
you so often find in Cubans when you raise the F-word in conversation.
"Fidel knew nothing about fishing," he said. "But I was a good teacher,
and he listened."
Julio, it turned out, had coached more than a few revolutionaries in
this exclusive sport.
Che Guevara, for one, whom he described as "a bad fisherman". In Cuba,
where Che has been elevated to something close to a god, that sounds
almost blasphemous.
I asked him which country he thought produced the best anglers in the
world. Without hesitation, he pointed north towards Florida.
Cuban fishermen seem to miss the competition and the money their
American visitors once provided. If ever the two countries settle their
differences, the first to return will be the men in boats.
The sea which divides these two unhappy neighbours may yet bring them
closer together.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 16 June, 2007 at
1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World
Service transmission times.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6757377.stm
Published: 2007/06/16 11:10:24 GMT
By Stephen Gibbs
BBC News, Havana
Fifty seven years ago, the author Ernest Hemingway inaugurated a big
game fishing competition in Cuba. Held almost annually and despite
tensions between the US and Cuba, the four-day event is still proving
popular.
Like all the best fishing stories, mine began in a bar.
One evening in Havana I was introduced to a man called Stewart, an
affable commercial manager in a London building firm.
It turned out he was part of the English team in this year's Hemingway
fishing tournament. In fact he was the only Englishman on his boat and
he was taking on recruits.
Two days later, we were a mile off the Havana coast, hoping to strike
lucky in what I was told was the oldest big game fishing competition in
the world.
The Torneo Hemingway is of those remnants of pre-revolution Cuba which
just will not die. Maybe that is not entirely unconnected to the fact
that Fidel Castro himself is a previous winner.
There is a photograph of Ernest Hemingway handing him the trophy in
1960. It was the only time the two men ever met.
Since then, the event has had its ups and downs.
By the mid-60s, when almost all the Cuban bourgeoisie - as they were
being described by then - had left the island, only a few locals were
taking part.
Then, in the late 70s, Jimmy Carter instigated a detente with Cuba, and
a huge flotilla of fishermen came over from America.
The 1980 tournament was cancelled, as that summer the waters were
filled, not with marlin but with thousands of Cuban rafters heading for
Florida.
These days, with the Bush administration threatening heavy fines on
American vessels that visit Cuba, very few take the risk. And all Cuban
citizens now need special government permission to set foot on a boat,
which does not help matters.
But the tournament goes on.
The 'great blue river'
This year there were 15 boats competing.
One was full of gregarious Frenchmen. Another with distinctly
organised-looking Czechs.
And then there were the Russians, all with RUSSIA written in large red
letters on their T shirts.
I had been told that one of the crews had sneaked an American citizen on
board. Was he disguised as a Russian, I wondered?
To be honest, we all looked a slightly motley bunch.
Think big game fishing and you might imagine huge, gleaming boats with
names like "Wet Dream", and immaculately turned out crews. But when the
Americans do not show up, it is not the same.
Most of the boats were hired in Cuba. They were simple, functional vessels.
The only opulence was the setting.
Tantalisingly close to the coast of Havana is what Hemingway called the
"great blue river".
It is where the Gulf Stream brushes past the island, and the sea floor
plunges to a depth of nearly 6,000 feet. Cruising in the warm current at
this time of year are hundreds of the Rolls-Royces of fish: the Blue Marlin.
Behind our boat we tried to tempt them with squid-like lures, in garish
colours.
Waiting game
The hours passed by.
I began to wonder what was the point. Stewart tried to explain.
I caught a glimpse of the grey fin of a massive blue marlin
"It's a hunter-gatherer thing" he said, as he sipped a beer, and eased
his large frame into a more comfortable position.
These days, the idea of tournament game fishing is in fact less
hunter-gathering than tag-and-releasing. No longer do the winners have
their photo taken next to their towering, bleeding catch.
Instead they bring the live fish alongside the boat, attach a marker to
it, and let it go.
Fish 'attack'
By midday we had caught nothing. Our conversation, and the boat, drifted
along.
Stewart was just explaining the ins and outs of London property
development when we were reminded that underneath us, something even
more cutthroat was going on.
One of our bright orange lures burst out of the water. Behind it, I
caught a glimpse of the grey fin of a massive blue marlin.
Marlin are notoriously aggressive fish. They do not bite their prey.
They attack it.
The reel behind me started spinning. Stewart grabbed it and began to
wind it in.
But the fish got away.
Fishing with Fidel
Back at the marina, the Czechs were already celebrating their win. They
had tagged four marlin.
The consolation prize was a ticket to the gala dinner that night. There,
I found myself talking to the man who was the captain of Fidel Castro's
boat in 1960.
Maybe it was the sea air, or old age, but Julio had none of the timidity
you so often find in Cubans when you raise the F-word in conversation.
"Fidel knew nothing about fishing," he said. "But I was a good teacher,
and he listened."
Julio, it turned out, had coached more than a few revolutionaries in
this exclusive sport.
Che Guevara, for one, whom he described as "a bad fisherman". In Cuba,
where Che has been elevated to something close to a god, that sounds
almost blasphemous.
I asked him which country he thought produced the best anglers in the
world. Without hesitation, he pointed north towards Florida.
Cuban fishermen seem to miss the competition and the money their
American visitors once provided. If ever the two countries settle their
differences, the first to return will be the men in boats.
The sea which divides these two unhappy neighbours may yet bring them
closer together.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 16 June, 2007 at
1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World
Service transmission times.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6757377.stm
Published: 2007/06/16 11:10:24 GMT
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