He had an easy smile, and an unlit cigarette sticking to his lip. The crew, otherwise known as Miguel, started hooking the bait and the lures. We registered with the Interior Ministry of the Cuban Government, a requirement that basically ensures that it will reap its share of our fee. I located him at his hotel, where we agreed to split the $204 fee for the standard four-hour tour in the smallest available boat, the Coral Negro (Black Coral). The booking agent had told me about a Spanish tourist named Fernando who also wanted to go out but didn't want to charter the boat alone. embargo restricting tourism on the island, and a conspicuous absence of Cuban fishing vessels plying the waters, it was hard to imagine that this side of the straits was anything but teeming with life. The Gulf Stream's current was weak, which meant the chances of bringing home a prize like the seasonal visitor from the marlin family, wahoo, were slim.Ī boatful of sport fishermen had been shut out from their quarry the day before, and the crews of the four charter boats moored at Papa's provided remarkably humble reports that nothing was biting. The day before we sailed, the agent who booked my trip told me that business was slow and I could charter a boat with everything, any day of the week. Between the third and fourth channels lies Papa's, a marina-side restaurant and club, that makes the questionable intimation that Hemingway may have once jiggled a swizzle stick here. Terraced apartment complexes for tourists, which look like Palm Beach time-shares, serve as a backdrop. The marina boasts four man-made channels, filled with domestic and foreign-flagged pleasure boats. I started my fishing junket at Marina Hemingway, 25 miles west of Havana. Homage to the author is still very much part of the experience, however. Santiago's record of sacrifice and resolve is no longer part of the price. The entire adventure, from hatching the plan, to sautéing the trophy (a reward Santiago was, alas, denied), now only requires a little patience and lots of luck. OK, so we hadn't roughed the same conditions as Santiago or experienced the same futility (84 days without a catch), but Cuba's waters have changed little in 45 years, except that this epic battle is much easier to experience. The book, which figured heavily in Hemingway's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, romanticizes the struggle of man against nature and demonstrates the endurance and courage of a simple old man. In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway straps an elderly Santiago, Ahab-like, to an 18-foot marlin and drags him around these same Florida straits for three days in a skiff. Our small expedition had been out just a few hours, but we were more than ready for one of those epic battles with an insensate rival that has been the promise of these waters north of Cuba since Ernest Hemingway fished here. It was some time past noon when the beast took the hook and the squeal of the fishing reel drafted the entire crew into action.
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