A look back in time

After entering the Bay and approaching Fisherman's Point

View from Fisherman's Point looking out toward opening of Bay

Guantanamo Bay had its first entry into the history books when Christopher Columbus entered it on his second voyage. Columbus had made pit stops at different islands in the Caribbean looking for gold. Upon reaching Guantanamo Bay, he was convinced it was China and spent the night at what is called Fisherman’s Point on April 30, 1494. Columbus named the Bay “Puerto Grande” and after considering the area to be an unlikely prospect for treasure, he and his ships left the next day for Jamaica (where they didn’t have any better luck).

Over the next several hundred years, Guantanamo Bay was a pirate stronghold, a haven for ships bent on peaceful missions, and an area defended at different times by the British, Spanish, and Americans. Due to the area’s lack of fresh water, the land directly around the bay was generally not appealing for population development, although supposedly there was a small fishing village there at one time.

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an agreement with Cuba to lease 45 square miles of land and water for use as a coaling station. A treaty reaffirmed the lease in 1934 granting Cuba free access through the bay, and converted the lease payment to $4,085 - the same price paid for the lease today. There is also a requirement that both the U.S. and Cuba must mutually consent to terminate the lease. Rumor has it that Fidel Castro has not cashed any of the lease payment checks for years and that he files them away in a drawer.




The oldest buildings existing at Guantanamo Bay are two of these concrete gun emplacements, built in 1906 by an Army contingent to help defend the Bay. Apparently, the gun emplacements were never used -- we wish the grass would be cut on top of the roof, since it overlooks the ocean and would be a great place to sit in a lawn chair and look out over the water.

Sights of Spring in GTMO

View walking into plant nursery -- that is just a plastic flamingo in the tree!

Volunteers run the base "plant nursery" which is open every first and third Saturday. Base residents are allowed one plant (free) every month, so I've made a visit there frequently to take advantage of this opportunity.

There are probably about ten of these "plant pens" filled with baby palms, diffenbachia, candleberry, miniature pineapple, and other local species.


This month I selected a Cuban buttercup. Shown flowering in this photo, it should grow into a large shrub with lots of yellow flowers when it's transplanted. In March I was able to get a cutting of Cuban oregano which you can see in the corner of the planter in the photo -- the fragrance of Cuban oregano apparently is a deterrent to the banana rats which love to come into yards and eat vegetation so it's a popular herb to grow.



Mangos are ripening but it's a trick to get them out of the trees! We've heard stories about the Jamaican workers canvassing neighborhoods for mangos, coming at night with ladders, and stripping the trees bare of fruit. So far, this hasn't occurred in our neighborhood -- we just seem to have our share of fruit bats that swoop around at night, looking for something juicy to eat.


Some mangos just fall to the ground, but the most coveted ones are usually at the top of the tree. Vince wants to fashion a mango-grabber, but for now he's using a long stick in an effort to prod the fruit off of the branches. One was ripe enough to eat immediately, and it was wonderful! (Our neighbor, Jerry, is growing some Anaheim peppers, and he gave us several of them, along with a recipe for mango salsa which we wll be making in the next day or two.)



Vince found some plantains that had been knocked out of their tree, so we've been letting these ripen a bit. In researching more about plantains, apparently they may be eaten when green (tasting like potatoes), when yellow (tasting more like sweet potatoes), and black (when they are at their sweetest). They are truly a versatile fruit!


I decided to experiment with plantains at their yellow stage, so I sliced and sauteed them in a blend of olive oil and butter. They were delicious and did taste like an amazing combination of banana and sweet potato.


Plants and trees have been in a stage of dormancy over the winter months, even though the weather has continued to be warm. But in the last several weeks, new leaves have appeared, and flowering trees have blossomed. This bougainvillea growing among cactus is exceptionally vivid.

Spring is fleeting -- the days are slowly getting much hotter, although it can still get down to 68 degrees at night. Once the sun is up, though, the heat becomes intense and thick -- can't wait to see what it's like in June!

Fidel's Fireworks

Cuban observation post (COP)

It is all too easy to block out your surroundings over time. The constant drone of window air conditioners, the smell of exposed mud flats at low tide, and the feel of ocean humidity that seems a bit stickier than Nebraska humidity at first. Then there are the ever present Marine Observation Posts (MOPs) and Cuban military observation towers sticking up along the horizon like mutant weeds in the desert scrub. At first, they seem ominous as one considers that we are unwelcome guests here in Fidel’s back yard. Especially when it is explained that the strip of no man's land between the US and Cuban fence line (maybe a quarter mile wide and about 25 miles long) is sown with thousands of land mines.

The US employed land mines here for a while until someone in power determined that it was “bad form” and ordered them removed. The Marines tell me that all (600,000, I think I was told) were removed with six unaccounted for. A dangerous task like that is made safer when detailed maps show the exact layout of the mine fields with precise counts. The Cubans evidently did not map out their fields or keep a count.

All of this side line trivia came into abrupt focus one windy Sunday evening recently. I arrived for work in the tower just before 4 pm and began settling in for the evening and completing the equipment checklist. I looked out to the northwest where I always enjoy the view of the mountainous terrain and puffy fair weather cumulous clouds above them.

I noticed smoke near the fence line about a mile away and was able to see flames devouring the tall dry brush with the binoculars. I made a courtesy call to Fire Station Three below the tower to see if they were aware it and described the location as best I could telling them it appeared to be burning between the US and Cuban fences.

Chief Three drove out to the MOP nearest to the fire and conferred with the Marine commander on site. I watched for a while as there was not any air traffic to deal with and began to see bright flashes and sudden puffs of smoke. It did not dawn on me that I was seeing land mines explode until I heard the Fire Chief call in on the FM radio that mines were exploding in the flames.

Two days later I was able to talk with the Fire Chief on the ferry ride to work. I was stunned to hear him describe his account of watching the Cuban military open their fence and send fire crews into no man's land. The Marine commander was calling in to his command post with a count of land mine explosions. Some exploded only about 100 feet away from the Cuban firemen according to Chief Three. The other strange aspect is that the fire seemed to be spread out a long way along the fence shortly after appearing, leading the Chief to surmise that it was set on purpose. I cannot imagine why the Cuban authorities would risk the lives of firemen to save some land mines. Fortunately the brisk winds kept the fire on the Cuban side and our dedicated Jamaican firemen were able to take it easy on a Sunday evening. (Submitted by Vince)

Gems on the beach

View of Glass Beach from the top of the stairs

I just realized (thanks to an e-mail from our neighbor back home, Marche') that while I have referred to sea glass several times in this blog, I've never really explained what it is.

Two photos of the treasures washed up on top of the sand -- double-clicking on the photos will give you a closer view. You can see kelly green, light blue, white, brown, and cobalt colors of sea glass.

Sea glass is the remains of real glass - usually bottles, jars, plates, - that have been naturally tumbled over time by the sand and sea. Every day when the tide comes in, new pieces of glass wash to shore. Of the ten public beaches on GTMO, two of them, Glass Beach and Girl Scout Beach, have an abundance of sea glass strewn among the rocks and shells. I've been told that this area formerly was used years ago as a "dumping ground" for refuse. Consequently, one can find more sea glass on these beaches than on the others.

Glass Beach is not very long -- probably about 150 feet in length

The most common colors of sea glass are kelly green, brown, and white. Rare finds are pink, aqua, cobalt blue, and purple. And some extremely rare shades are red, yellow, black, and teal. (I talked to a woman last week at Girl Scout Beach who had just found a small piece of red glass -- and she has lived here for four years.)

Gee, if I'd only run up and down these steps 20 times, I'd really be in shape.

But, having said that, what is fun about beachcombing is that new glass washes up every day. Sea glass is a popular commodity here to collect -- many women make jewelry, bookmarks, suncatchers, or hair ornaments out of it, or just layer it in glass jars as a decorative touch.

GTMO gazings

Sea glass from Girl Scout Beach

Just a few photos and commentary from our first week back from the States......

I had mentioned several months ago that we rarely saw iguanas in our neighborhood -- wouldn't you know, right after that post, iguanas started ambling around the outskirts of our area. And then, just a few days ago, this big guy was right at our back fence. Vince was trying to encourage him to walk away and Iggy wouldn't budge. In the meantime, Fergus was having fits because this was the largest lizard he had seen to date. Finally, Iggy scurried away. We're not sure what had attracted him -- might have been the mangoes that had fallen to the ground.

Every few months or so, we call the Trouble Desk (I just love that name!) to make an appointment to have our air conditioners cleaned. There is confusion on our part regarding the timing of this event, since we have been told to call: every month...no, every other month....no, wait....every three months....and we are still not sure of the protocol. We do know that sometimes the Filipinos will come and just "brush" them out, and then other times, they will actually remove the air conditioners, board up the windows with cardboard, and take them back to the shop to be steam-cleaned. We are then without air conditioners for the day. This particular time we asked to have them steam-cleaned since we had not had that procedure done yet, and we were hoping this might help the air conditioners run more smoothly.




We are fortunate to have a nice dog park less than two miles from our villa, so we have been taking Fergus there when it is "cooler" outside. When we were in Nebraska last week, we bought a couple of new frisbees and decided to try them out. Apparently, the new ones have a little more lift than we are used to, since they both ended up in one of the trees. Luckily, Vince was able to get them both down.

On the way to Marine Hill, just a couple of miles farther down the road, we saw a barge that had anchored into the small inlet there. It was loaded with tons of sand, and over the next couple of days, all of the sand was placed in enormous sand bags. Not sure what these are to be used for -- guess we might eventually find out. It was just interesting to watch.

Thought I would post a photo of our front yard -- in his spare time, Vince has worked diligently at transforming the dirt and coral to a lush, green space. Here are the results so far.

This morning, Easter Sunday, we rose early and went to Windmill Beach for a sunrise service. It was breathtakingly beautiful - soft, gray-blue sky, waves rolling in on the shore, and people gathered singing hymns of celebration. I didn't take any photos since that area is fairly restricted, being right next to one of the detention camps. I was just hoping that the singing was inspiring to the enemy combatants who might have heard it.

There's no place like home!

View of Guantanamo Bay from the airplane after departure.

Amen to that! We had a whirlwind trip to Lincoln for just a few days for Sam and Angela's wedding. Since Vince does not have vacation days at this point, we were unable to be gone for more than four days, and travel time was on top of that. So, we were resigned to a blitz of events while we were home.

The first thing we noticed, besides the weather being MUCH colder than what we are now used to, was the quiet. The house (prior to all of the grandkids arriving, of course) was so silent -- no constant drone of three window air conditioners night and day and no doors slamming from the neighboring units. I couldn't sleep the first night because there was no noise!

The wedding was very nice - Vince was the best man and he did an outstanding job in all his duties. And it was wonderful to see all of Vince's family for the happy occasion.

Here is Emily assisting her dad.

On one of our evenings we were able to fire up the outdoor oven and made some fantastic pizzas and had a great time doing it. Note Vince's tan!

It was hard to leave everyone on Sunday and head back to GTMO. It's been a tough transition this week -- leaving family behind and getting back to the very warm weather. I'm just grateful that travel went well for all family members. Here's hoping that the next few months will go as quickly as the last six, and that we will be back in Lincoln before we know it.

View from back of utility boat as we were crossing the bay from the GTMO airport.