Fishing for compliments
James Leith tries to impress his guide in the Jardines de la Reina HASSAMADDA? I tell you cast 12 metres, 1 o'clock. Why you cast 10 metres 12 o'clock?
You think bone-fish eat with arse?' A torrent of furious and thankfully incomprehensible Spanish abuse follows. This is my first morning in the Jardines de la Reina (the JDR), 50 miles off the south coast of Cuba, and Pedro is my fishing guide. David Profumo, the fly fisherman's fundi, describes him as the Freddie Mercury of the flats. My sister, Prue Leith, my fishing companion and donor of this trip as my 60th birthday present, describes him in different terms. You have not witnessed a proper stand-off until you have seen a mature female star of commerce, politics and TV and a huge moustachioed macho Spanish fishing guide standing back to back in 2,500 square miles of salt flats and mangrove atolls refusing to talk to each other.
Thankfully, JDR provides a stunning backdrop to these silent tantrums. It was properly discovered a few years ago by a trio of Italians on a yacht, who turned up among these 80 miles of mangrove atolls, three hours by boat south of Jucaro, and couldn't believe their eyes. No wonder, because in front of them was a chain of 250 virgin coral islands, stretching for over 75 miles, and at times some 20 miles wide: the third longest barrier reef in the world with thousands of square miles of white sands, salt flats and deeper lagoons, all surrounded by a coral shelf with a 600ft drop-off. And no one about but a very few Cubans fishing to feed their families.
After a brief exploration, the Italians immediately turned tail and booked an appointment to see one of Castro's government ministers who, being a revolutionary socialist, was interested in the greatest good. 'How much?' he said, and a deal was done for the exclusive fishing and diving rights throughout the 2,600 square miles of the JDR. As it turned out, Avalon Fishing and Diving (www.avalons.net) would prop up Castro's collapsing economy to a substantial degree, and in return Castro would stop the subsistence fishermen netting the channels. The fishermen didn't lose out either — they became guides for visiting tourists, employed by Avalon. Hence Pedro and our volatile ten-day relationship.
Accommodation in the JDR is on one of three boats. The houseboat, La Tortuga, sleeps 14 guests and there are two motor yachts that can accommodate a further 14 between them. That's 28 people, excluding guides and other staff, which gives each client just under 1,000 square miles. What's not to like? Well, the Cuban staple of rice and beans is unlikely to appear Chez Ramsay any time soon, but with crab, lobster and line-fish hauled out of the Caribbean to order by Pedro and his mates, who cares?
Each pair of clients is collected at 8 a.m. by their guide in an outboard-powered skiff and taken off for the day with a packed lunch, cold beer and all the sunscreen you can carry. You return at six, unlikely to have seen another soul during the ten hours you've been away, though perhaps you once spotted the distant shimmer of another skiff while your companion took their turn on the bow and thrashed about in Pedro's unforgiving gaze. The great advantage, and the great disadvantage, of Pedro, it turns out, is that he cares deeply about the fishing. When my carefully learnt double-hauling skills desert me in the teeth of a salt flats head-wind and my cast falls short and spooks the thousands of bone-fish he has sniffed out, Pedro can keep up the silent treatment all day. It doesn't matter to him that he gets paid in dollars and earns more than a Havana brain surgeon. Nor, indeed, does the fact that you care less about the number of fish you catch than you do about how good a time you're having. Customer relations? Sod 'em. But even Pedro's disappointment can't dent the joy of being surrounded by ospreys, pelicans, frigate birds, spoonbills, heron and egret; while on land the iguana slide lazily around the mangroves.
And looking down, the sea is almost a joke — every colour from aquamarine to emerald and sapphire. You can see up to 80 feet straight down and watch manta rays and barracuda moving away from the skiff's bow wave. If he really gives up on your fly-fishing abilities, Pedro might let you trawl for Jack Crevalles or barracuda. I get both. Or rather, I get a Jack's head and the barracuda gets the rest of him.
Drinks and dinner follow and after that, fishing and diving tales and maybe another excursion — night-fishing for tarpon. One young South African can't resist a quick cast off the deck of the houseboat. He hooks a monstrous barracuda that lives underneath it, grown large on scraps, and is immediately mobbed by the entire crew, 'What are you doing? You can't catch him! He's family! Put him back!'
When I express an interest in diving, or at least snorkelling, one evening, the dive-master (a 30-year-old marine biologist who had trebled his income by joining Avalon) promptly offers me a dive next day. I explain that I am entirely without Padi (qualification from the Professional Association of Diving Instructors) and he says, 'So? This is Cuba. In the morning I teach you to dive and in the afternoon we go down the reef, yes?'
And he does. Oh Lord, I'm hooked. Twelve-foot reef sharks, moray eels, holding silky sharks by the tail, more fish species in view than you can count, and not a Spanish swear word to be heard.
After a six-night stay on Tortuga (definitely spend two nights either end in Havana — it's not to be missed) I left with my self-esteem intact, having caught a reasonable-sized tarpon on our last day, and determined to convince as many people as I could to go to JDR before it all changes. Nowhere as breathtaking as that can stay so deserted for long, and it looks as though plots are already being marked out on the atolls. No matter if you don't fish. Snorkel, dive, marvel at the birdlife — just go. If you do want to fish, I recommend you learn to double-haul first (info@totalflyfishing.co.uk). And then, who knows? One day you too, like David Profumo, might land a grand slam — bonefish, permit and tarpon all in one day — and be presented with a small conch shell as a token of esteem by Pedro.
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