Since the days of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”, whose main character toiled with oars to catch a marlin, few Cubans have enjoyed the luxury of a motor boat to chase the bounty of fish that lie just offshore of their island home. That appears set to change.
For the first time in decades, the island’s communist-run government has granted authority to Cubans to import outboard motors of less than 10 horsepower for use on small boats and has said it will cut red tape to fast-track the process.
Limits on boat building and imports have long restricted private commercial and recreational fishermen like Hechevarría to vessels that predate Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, much the same as the island’s candy-colored vintage American cars.
But those limits, presumably aimed at reducing attempts at the dangerous crossing north to the United States by sea, also hamper fishermen´s ability to catch fish to feed the island´s 11 million inhabitants.
Larger-scale commercial fishermen around Havana told Reuters the measure was a step in the right direction but still fell short of what is needed to modernize the fleet and boost catches…