Settling in to Cuba

Today starts week 8 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba which has become my favorite duty station ever.

My house Windward Loop 5A

I live in Windward Loop which is a neighborhood with mostly officer housing. They are like town houses so 2 people live on each half of the house. I have a roommate now that I barely see because she has a fiance that is here in another building. She is part of the Puerto Rican National Guard so she is leaving in March.

buzzards

One of the first mornings I was here I looked out the window to see these buzzards on the basketball backboard. They are all over the island. THere is something here called a banana rat - it is much more like a possum but they are all over and hit on the road a lot. I guess it is good the buzzards are here to clean them up.

growing coral

The work weeks are like any other and the weekends are filled with mostly diving. The PA that I replaced was roommates with a master diver so I fell into their dive group. I have been told that Hurricane Sandy devistated the coral. Everything is very brown and broken but you can see where things are trying to grow back.

sea turtle

ray

purple coral

storming the beach

Looks like the northern US right now

lobster

fan coral

boat dive

Queen conch

One dive we happended across a grass bed and hit the motherload of shells. You can get one queen conch each when they are in season. THe dive master showed me how to get the critter out and there is a guy here who will clean the shell for you. Later in the week I got to experience conch soup from the shell critters.

killing lionfish

My fellow divers spend a lot of their time spear fishing so fresh seafood is on the menu most saturday nights. They kill a lot of lionfish because just like everywhere else they destroy the coral.

Ridgeline Trail

I also did a 10 mile trail run that if it were 26 miles would have been harder than Antarctica. There is not a straight and flat bit of road here in Cuba and worse yet this run was on the trails. I made it and got a shirt and that is about all I can say about it.

kayaking in Cuba

Another weekend we went on a kayaking trip with MWR. The hour long tour went through a patch of mangroves that gave a lot of people a hard time.

kayaking thru mangroves

Needless to say my tan is improving here and the sun keeps me supplied with Dopamine. Now we just need to get Curt and the girls here too. After all Emma does love fish!