by Robson Green
Seven hours go by and I am delirious. Jorge spots a disturbance in the water twenty yards directly in front of the boat. He fires. It’s a hit, and the rope attached to the spearhead tightens. We are in.
‘You are amazing, Jorge. Simply amazing!’
Then the rope slackens and the fish is off.
‘No! Jorge, no!’
The spearhead is retrieved and all that is on the end is a single scale of a giant pirarucu, equal in size to the palm of my hand. It would appear to belong to a 200-pound-plus fish. Morale is rock-bottom.
‘Don’t worry, Jorge. All we have to do is get the other part of the fish.’ I suggest helpfully.
We spot the creature time and time again but I keep missing and finally, near to a swoon, my deltoids shot, I collapse and lie prostrate in the bottom of the boat. A passing fisherman takes pity on me and lends me his umbrella. So there I am, fanning myself like Helena Bonham Carter with a white parasol, while Hercules is primed and ready to take out the serpent. Splosh! Jorge strikes again and it’s a hit! And this time the rope is running, the spearhead is secure and Jorge has a victorious expression. I can only stare in awe at the man’s endurance, strength and skill.
‘We did it, Jorge! We did it!’
Jorge throws me a look.
‘You did it! You did it!’
The creature shows itself in the distance to be a 100-pound pirarucu. Jorge takes the rope and starts to fight the fish, trying to bring it to the side of boat. Unsure of what to do, I find a wooden club.
‘Do you need this?’ I enquire.
It’s a veritable cardinal rather than the modest fishing priest I use to dispatch brown trout on the Coquet. He asks me to do the honours, so, raising the club, I bring it down on the fish’s head with all my might. It’s brutal but swift and efficient, and it’s how these guys survive.
As I sail back to camp I have time to reflect on what an astonishing journey along the world’s most iconic river this has been. It’s been a great privileged. To top it off, the fixer has ferried in 140 cans of Skol and an electric piano out of nowhere – this river really is the giver of life. Our classically trained sound engineer, Prada, starts banging out the tunes. I sing ‘Proud Mary’ as Arianna gyrates in front of us, trying to show us what we’ve all been missing. And thank the Lord we missed it! Her fisherman beau takes her away by boat – now that truly is a great river.
Chapter Ten
CUBA
‘The Land of the Lotus Eaters’
December 2009, World Tour, Series 3
As I lean out of the cab window taking in the sights, I am hit by the distinctive smell. It reminds me of when I was on holiday as a kid in Binibeca, Spain – the smell of baked terracotta in the warm air, only this time mixed with the savoury smoke of cigars. I inhale deeply. Havana is alive with colour: the faded colonial architecture, the fabulous 1950s cars, the women, the street musicians, and the vibrant blue ocean. I feel heady with excitement. Jamie, Peter and Craig are caught up, too. Cuba has an intoxicating flavour and I want to lap it up, bathe in it and lick the bowl.
We pull up at the iconic Hotel Nacional, where Sinatra, Marilyn, the Rat Pack, Rita Hayworth and Ant & Dec have stayed before me. We dump our kit and take a wander round Havana. Americans haven’t been able to legitimately visit this Caribbean island since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and the embargo is still in place today. As a result of these tough sanctions, Cuba is a place that has remained unhomogenised by the outside world. Florida is only sixty miles away but the cultures couldn’t be further apart. And even though the islanders have been held in an iron grip by Communist dictator Fidel Castro since he seized power in 1959, and are now ruled by Fidel’s younger brother, Raúl, their sense of identity feels so defined, their self-worth defiant.
We walk past a cigar factory and pop in for a quick look around. I want to stay longer but there’s no time to film – our schedule is so tight. Contrary to popular myth, Cuban cigars are not rolled on the thighs of virgins, but the factory girls do stretch the tobacco leaves on their laps as they sort and grade them. A professional storyteller reads to them as they work. Cuban women are like no other – beautiful, with classical features, healthy skin, no make-up and plenty of life in their eyes. I listen for a while before asking the name of the book. It’s Harry Potter. The reader tells me she also reads Dickens and Hemingway. Cuba might have a terrible human rights record but it has one of the highest literacy levels in the world and most people speak English fluently.
Jamie has decided he wants to celebrate the Cuban clichés. Across the road is parked a blue open-top Cadillac in immaculate condition. The Cubans not only take great care of their vehicles, polishing and buffing like the average classic-car geek in Britain, they also engineer the parts themselves. I jump in the back of the Cadillac Eldorado and Jamie hands me a mojito. I’m liking this new non-sadistic style of directing. I sip my drink. Only a Cuban mojito tastes this fresh. My taste buds give the minty rum syrup a full-on snog while Jamie cuts a cigar and lights it. He hands over my Montecristo No.2 and I am taken for an elegant tour of the town. I feel like Sinatra.
Malecón Promenade
Before sunset we film a fishing sequence on the Malecón Promenade in Havana. Fidel Castro, worried his citizens would attempt to flee his regime, strictly controlled access to all boats. As a result of this, all fishing boats are owned by the state and use is only for the privileged few. This is bad news for Cubans, but good news for fish stocks, and better news for me. One of the only ways for people to catch fish is off the promenade. Hundreds of men and women line the sea wall, day and night, using rods and hand lines to catch bait fish, snapper and sardines, which they eat or sell to the government-owned restaurants, some of which are house-based. Basically you can go to people’s houses and they will cook for you but the money earned has to go to the state, otherwise they will go to prison. This is enforced by the secret police, who, dressed in plain clothes, are indiscernible from regular citizens. We have been followed from the moment we arrived and I know that two men in a black Ford are watching us right now. It’s a strange feeling.
There is a knack to fishing off the promenade but if you don’t know what you’re doing, like me, it’s like casting a line into a washing machine! A wave smacks the sea wall and we all get drenched. Ah, that’s why everyone’s wearing anoraks, I think to myself. I had thought maybe it was going to rain. The trick is to put your line out in water, jump behind the wall and then jump back up. The waves bring the fish in. Lots of people are catching fish, except me, so I ask some guys across the way what bait they are using. Shrimp. We buy their whole supply. But it’s not the bait that’s getting fish, it’s the spot they are fishing in. There are lots of sardines and small jacks and we’re in the wrong place. But there’s no room. I cast again in the same barren spot and vainly hope something might swim by. A wave slaps me in the face.
The sun is beginning to go down and the light starts to change. Out of the corner of my eye I see a pelican stealing one of the fishermen’s bait. I chuckle. Then I realise the pelican is actually on the end of his line. It must be an accident, I think – it’s not. This dude is purposely catching pelicans for a local restaurant to roast. Alessandra, our AP, gets deeply upset. The man yanks the pelican in, grabs it, closes its wings and binds its beak and feet. Alessandra is now beyond distressed.
I tackle him: ‘That’s not a fish!’
He looks at me as if to say ‘So what? Mind your own business’, and I begin to get upset myself. But then I start thinking What’s the difference between catching a fish or a bird? Am I being hypocritical? I look at the pelican – his distress somehow seems more poignant, more dramatic. To ease Alessandra’s inflamed sensibilities I offer to buy the pelican from the guy. He’s over the moon. He’ll just go and catch another one but I’m pleased with myself, thinking I’ve done a good turn. Alessandra hugs me and dries her eyes. And then the pelican attacks me. I untie the bird’s beak first and it goes berserk. Now, I want to
carefully explain my rationale here; I know what you’re thinking ‘Why didn’t you unbind the feet and then the beak?’ Well, I didn’t want to untie the feet first in case it escaped with a taped beak destined for a slow death by starvation. I couldn’t think of anything worse, so now I have to deal with this furious-feathered-fucker viciously pecking me on the arm. I’m bleeding. Bleeding! I hurriedly untie the pelican’s feet, deciding that all pelicans are inherently racist. I yell at him in my head.
‘I’m the good guy who rescued you from the bad guy, you idiot! But you think we all look the same, don’t you? You racist.’
He looks at me with his blue eyes as if to say, ‘Yeah, like you can really tell us pelicans apart, you asshole? I bet you probably thought I was a fucking heron or a swan first of all, didn’t you?’
‘No, how dare you? Never in my life have I met such a rude . . . pelican! I want you to know I only saved you because she,’ I point at Alessandra who is now crying again, ‘she wanted me to. I should have let you roast.’
He pecks me on the arm again.
‘Ow!’
I let him go and he flies off without so much as a kind look behind. I wait for him to circle above or do a fly-past like animals do in the movies but I get nada.
‘Bloody pelicans.’
‘Did you get that on camera?’ Jamie asks Craig.
‘No, it was too ridiculous,’ he says.
Jamie is disappointed. As you know, he loves a good sequence where I experience pain, especially at the hands of nature.
After more than enough excitement for one day we walk back to the hotel. The Cuban Film Festival is on and there is a bustle of activity with press and filmmakers. I try to do a bit of schmoozing with a couple of directors but I soon tire of their company and want to be back with my team. We decide to have ‘welcome to Cuba’ mojitos and an early night . . . by 1 a.m. we are all shit-faced, our speech slurring, like we’re electing a new pope. We all have a taste for the Cuban elixir.
Freshwater Tarpon
At breakfast we are all feeling like poo. Why do we do it to ourselves? We travel an hour and half by van southeast of Havana to the River Hatiguanico National Park. I am freshwater tarpon fishing with Lazuro Vinola, who, according to our fixer, is the best tarpon fisherman in Cuba, if not the world. Philippe Rodriguez, who is supposedly the best guide in Cuba, if not the world, accompanies him. No pressure on them then.
We motor up the sparkling river on a state-owned boat, driven by Lazuro, who is also the park’s head ranger. I ask the guys to give me one piece of advice for tarpon fishing.
‘Patience,’ they say in unison. ‘You will need a lot of patience. It’s very difficult to catch tarpon. You will lose many fish today. Take, take, take, off, off, off,’ adds Philippe.
‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ I say, fronting it.
I mean, that’s not to say I haven’t had my bad days, I think to myself. We all have. There was the time I lost the monster sturgeon in Canada but that was totally Randy’s fault. Or what about the dorado in the Philippines, which was gutting. The worst was probably dropping another man’s machaca in Costa Rica. That was a real low moment. Lazuro and Philippe trade glances and smile, knowing that, because of my fly-fishing background, I will automatically set the rod incorrectly and the fish will come off. They keep schtum.
Philippe slows the boat down and we come to a stop, and he cuts the engine.
‘Tarpon spook easily,’ he tells me.
As we gently drift down the middle of the river I try a few practice casts. The tarpon tend to hide in the root systems of overhanging trees and Lazuro tells me I need to cast two feet from the edge of the root. We travel downriver all day, perhaps twenty miles, and never see a single soul.
Lazuro practises his cast. Wham! A tarpon takes the lure and leaps three feet out of the water. It’s a twenty-pound fish but it comes off and he’s gutted. I commiserate with him: ‘It’s an awful feeling,’ I say.
He speaks to Jamie in the boat across the way: ‘Please don’t show that.’
‘No, of course not,’ says Jamie, with his fingers crossed behind his back.
We drift to the spot where Lazuro says I’ll catch my first tarpon. I’m using a popper – a weighted plastic lure in the shape of a sprat. I cast and I’m in range. I pop the floating line across the water a foot at a time to mimic a bait fish. Pop, rest, pop, rest. Wallop! A tarpon is on. I immediately set the rod up like a fly line. The fish comes off. Little do I know that it is impossible to set the hook in the upper part of the mouth because it’s solid bone; the trick is to set the hook in the lower part of mouth. I lose seven tarpon before the guys let me in on this secret.
‘You need to set the rod away from you, parallel to the water,’ says Lazuro.
Set down, away and down again, tip to the surface of the water. Got it. On the eighth take I forget everything I have just been told and set the rod up. Of course I lose the fish and have the biggest hissy fit ever.
‘I cannot lose EIGHT fish!’
One of them whispers in Spanish (picked up by Alessandra): ‘What a drama queen.’ It’s true – today I am channelling Ava Gardner.
Nine, ten, eleven and twelve all stay on but come off during the fight. I set the hook correctly in the mouth, but the fish leaps and it’s over. After fish number twelve Lazuro lets me in on the second crucial secret: ‘Tarpon are known as the Silver King, and when a fish leaps you must bow to the king and drop the rod to the water.’
The fish are bigger than the leader on the line in terms of weight, so when they jump the dead weight will snap the line, hence needing to angle the rod downwards.
‘Thanks for the top tip, guys,’ I say, wishing they’d bloody told me this earlier.
Tarpon number thirteen is on. I set the rod away, bow to the king when he leaps and catch my first ever tarpon! I bring him aboard with the help of Lazuro. He is a bright, clean-looking fish with scales of sterling silver. His distinctive upturned mouth reminds me of the arowana’s pedal-bin trap and, just like the Amazonian fish, the tarpon is an air-breather, extracting oxygen with the help of a modified swim bladder. These fellas are very adaptable fish and can reside in a variety of habitats, from low-oxygenated stagnant ditches or ponds as newly spawned tiddlers to freshwater rivers or brackish creeks as juveniles, to the saltwater of the ocean as adults. As long as the water’s warm they don’t care. They’re a bit like me sister Joanne when it comes to the cold – they just can’t stand it. Her house is like a sauna, I tell you.
When tarpon reach sexual maturity between the ages of seven and thirteen, they return to the ocean to join the other adults migrating. And at the end of this trip we are going after a Big Daddy tarpon that could be ten times the size of this youngster today and measure up to eight feet. I pop tarpon junior back into the river – apparently these guys aren’t for eating, as they are too bony.
Strangely we feel similarly about the hookers who chat to us in a bar later that evening. Naïvely we think they are friendly locals who want to trade a bit of banter – that’s before we meet their pimp, Scarface. We tell them firmly we’re not interested and they scarper. Some things are not meant to be caught and taken home – they should be released very quickly or never fished for in the first place!
Bonefish
The anglers who have done it say it’s the most exhilarating feeling in the world, and those anglers who haven’t done it dream of the day they will try it. I’m talking about bone-fishing. It’s the exotic aspiration of the fly-fishing fraternity and I just hope it lives up to the hype.
From our hotel we head 200 miles northeast to the island of Cayo Romano, via El Pedraplén, a thirty-mile-long causeway, which in places is treacherous. I had wondered what the planks in the back of the van were for and I soon discover they are for making ad hoc bridges where the road ceases to be. We make several of these temporary crossings where the waves from the ocean have taken great chunks out of the tarmac, like marzipan. At one point I get out of the 4x4, as the
re is a ruddy great drop to the sea below. I’m not staying on board taking bets as to whether the car is going to make it across or not. The driver negotiates across a crude wooden bridge that the locals have built. Castro might well have taught everyone to read but his roads are crap.
The island is empty, as is the sea. There’s no one around because no one is allowed a boat. I meet Eddie who, my fixer says, is the best fisherman in Cuba, if not the world. He has a handsome face with a big moustache but unfortunately he doesn’t speak a word of English. We muddle on with sign language.
Bonefish are notoriously difficult to catch because they are very skittish, reacting to every sound and vibration. One slip-up and the fish is gone. Known as the ‘grey ghost’, its silver design reflects everything around it, making it invisible, like a moving mirror. The best way to spot this pelagic phantom is by its shadow on the sea floor. I am using my own seven-weight fly rod I’ve brought with me. It’s a Hardy Zenith with a Hardy Angel fly reel given to me by Val McDermid, the writer of Wire in the Blood. I show my rod to Eddie and he shakes his head and laughs.
I say, ‘Hardy’s is the best in the world!’ but he shakes his head again. ‘Listen, I have caught some big trout with this rod.’
It’s our only conversation; from now on I have to be totally silent. This is the hardest part of fishing for me.
Eddie cuts the engine and begins to punt across the gentle lapping sea. The water is shallow and gin-clear as we head out to the salt flats, where the bonefish reside. They are powerful fish that take off at incredible speeds, which is extraordinary given that shallow saltwater contains little oxygen. These fish extract oxygen from the water in a hyper-efficient way in order to move like forks of lightning. Eddie stops punting and lets the boat float with the current. We are fishing from a platform boat, specifically designed for bone fishing, with a high umpire’s chair for spotting fish. Eddie is sitting high in the chair and I am at the front of the boat, ready to cast. I need to be accurate – two feet off its mouth will spook it, but four feet away is too far. It’s a windy day so it’s not going to be easy.
