When I was offered the opportunity last March to go to Cuba
to participate in a workshop on sea turtle conservation tourism, I agreed
before the question was fully asked by my colleague Fernando. The mysterious island
just a (very) long swim from Florida has long occupied a top spot on the bucket
list. This past October, that opportunity came to fruition as I received my
visa and boarded my flight to Havana.
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| Booksellers in Old Havana |
Most of what I had heard about Cuba was about “la Revolucion”
and “el Comandante” Fidel Castro and how the island stands out in the
hemisphere for resisting the temptations of capitalism and democracy to forge
its own socialist path. I had heard very little about the country’s natural
beauty and wildlife. In the world of sea turtle conservation, Cuba was well-known for attempting to maintain the
trade in hawksbill turtle shells, long since closed by the Convention on
International Trade of Endangered Species, to sell off a stockpile of pieces to
Japan that had been confiscated by the government.
My first experience with how things work in Cuba actually
came while still in the US. I walked up to the check-in desk early one morning
for my charter flight from Miami to Havana a bit dazed from a sleepless red-eye
from Los Angeles. Unlike the normal airport experience where one attendant does
all of the checking in, I was herded to four different people before finally
heading to the gate. One to check my ticket, one to weigh my bag, one to take
the baggage charge, and I’m still trying to figure out what the fourth person
did.
From there, it was smooth sailing. The charter flight was
half full and possibly the shortest flight I’ve ever taken, clocking in at
about 35 minutes in the air. Once in Havana, we made our way to our hotel, the
charming hotel Santa Isabel, located on the beautiful Plaza de las Armas in Old
Havana. There we met up with our group of marine biologists and
conservationists, organized by our host Fernando Bretos. Fernando is an
American marine biologist who is leading efforts to study the biological
connections between Cuba, the US, and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. His project,
Cuba Marine Research and Conservation, has shown that Cuba’s
turtles can end up in both the Florida Keys and off the coast of Mexico.
From the rooftop view of this historic hotel, you can see a
variety of old forts and historic buildings and the lively plaza full of small
booksellers and vendors of communist propaganda. Leading off from the plaza is
Calle Obispo, a pedestrian street that epitomizes Havana, with sections of
perfect cobblestone and restored buildings interspersed with dilapidated
facades and piles of rubble. Dinner was served family style at a wonderful
restaurant, accompanied like just about everything else in this country with
music.
Before sunrise the next morning, we were off to the island’s
domestic airport for a short flight to Isla de Juventud, a large island to the
south that is part of the country. For the second straight day I greeted the
sunrise getting off an airplane, this time boarding a taxi for the 40 minute
ride through pine forest and open savannah. A quick nap in the 1950’s-era
resort El Colony was enough to revive our energy before hopping onto our dive
boat to explore the coral reefs that circle the island.
Though I’ve worked with sea turtles for 15 years, this was
my first diving experience. Most of my experience has been on the beach,
waiting for the turtles to come ashore, outside of snorkeling for fun. This
time I was able to immerse myself in the water, exploring the incredible coral
reefs much more fully. Starting shallow and slowly working to deeper areas over
several dives, I saw walls of schoolmaster snappers, plenty of triggerfish
(fish), moray eels, a stingray, and plenty of lionfish.
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| Lionfish caught for lunch |
Despite their incredible natural beauty, lionfish are not
supposed to be here. Unfortunately they are becoming much more common
throughout the Caribbean, far from their native Indo-Pacific reefs. One good
thing is that these fish are delicious once the venomous spines are cut off. We
caught a couple to go along with our delicious sustainably-caught lobster for
lunch. Lobster are quite abundant on the
seagrasses and reefs of the Isle of Youth. In fact almost all of Cuba’s lobster
fishery is based here.
Day two on the island, on our third dive, I finally felt
that feeling that makes diving one of the most addictive of adventure sports.
The dive master and I settled under the boat, about 30 feet down, in the middle
of a half circle of coral with a large rock formation in the center. The
lobster carcasses attracted an extraordinary collection of fish and standing on
the sandy bottom, I felt removed from the human world for the first time in my
life.
Back on board the boat, after digesting a lunch of lobster,
lionfish, beans, and rice, we hopped back into the water with our snorkels to
explore a small cave. The coast along this stretch of the Isle of Youth is
craggy limestone rock and in one spot, you can swim through a cave about 10
feet to a small beach encircled in the rock. A short walk over the rocks to a
tiny perfect beach led us back to the water. The only downside to this perfect
day was finding pieces of a hawksbill turtle shell, discarded among the rocks,
a sign that work remains to be done to save Cuban turtles. Fernando’s project
has, among other initiatives, brought a group of Mexican fishermen here to
compare notes on developing
alternatives to fishing for turtles, based on the model of our Mexican
partner, The Grupo Tortuguero.
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| Sunset at the Isle of Youth |
We again rose before the sun the next day, this time for a
boat ride back to the main island. Our group watched the spectacular sunrise
over the Caribbean, occasionally passing mangrove islands at the remote Cayos
los Indios and Cayos de San Felipe as we crossed the Gulf of Batabano to the
town of La Coloma. This town, a major hub of Cuba’s fishing industry, will be
key to protecting the incredible reefs that we just dived. Conservation travel
can also be a major factor and SEE Turtles will be partnering with fellow Ocean
Foundation project Cuba Marine Research and Conservation to offer volunteer
trips to monitor these reefs, hopefully with a serving of lionfish for lunch.
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