COJIMAR, Cuba — Ernest Hemingway’s love of the sea and eye for detail have scientists hoping that a visit to Cuba by the author’s grandsons will open access to his fishing logs, which may be a treasure trove of information about the state of deep-water species before they were diminished by overfishing.
Patrick and John Hemingway launched a five-day mission to the island Monday intent on helping to improve U.S.-Cuba ties and gaining permission for researchers to study the aging documents.
Traveling with a team of U.S. marine scientists, the two men sailed a massive white sport-fishing yacht to the seaside village that inspired their grandfather’s Pulitzer-winning “The Old Man and the Sea.”
Scientists are optimistic the trip could allow them to review Hemingway’s fishing logs, which could help them piece together details about the Florida Straits’ deep-sea fish populations over the last 75 years. Such information could improve the protect the species that sustain Cojimar.
Researchers gathered little data in the years before industrial fishing devastated populations of tuna and other highly desired species in the second half of the last century. That leaves sport fishermen’s records—typically containing details of the number of fish caught, the location of the catch and weight of the fish—as some of the only resources for marine scientists seeking a benchmark to measure population declines.
One of the earliest and most prolific sport fishermen in the Florida Straits, Hemingway lived in Cuba from 1939 to 1960 in a villa on lush, orchard-filled grounds in San Francisco de Paula on the southeast edge of Havana. From Cojimar, he often launched his boat, the Pilar, with first mate Gregorio Fuentes, who inspired the aging fisherman who battles a giant marlin in “The Old Man and the Sea.”
Scientists hope Hemingway may inadvertently have created an unparalleled scientific resource with the logs he kept as he prowled some of the world’s richest fishing grounds for marlin, sharks and tuna.
“Hemingway was there in Cuba for 20 years. If he did keep log books for that long, having 20 years—even if it is only for a single vessel—would be very valuable,” said David Die, a U.S.-based fishery scientist. “It’s exactly the type of information that we use nowadays when we assess populations of fish in the ocean.”
