| The sea and marlin fishing were the first incentives | | | | Outside of fishing season, Hemingway used to sail |
| Hemingway had to travel to Cuba after his friend Joe | | | | aimlessly, spending days camping on deserted keys |
| Russell invited him to fish marlins in the waters of the | | | | and scuba diving in the coralline paradises of the |
| Gulf of Mexico, where, it is said, Hemingway captured | | | | Cuban coasts. During World War II, Hemingway, with |
| almost 20 specimens. From that moment on, marlin | | | | his wife and master Gregorio, used to patrol the |
| fishing became his life obsession. With his first yacht, | | | | coast in search of German submarines on his yacht |
| named Anita, he began his first crossings north from | | | | Pilar. Once detected, Hemingway informed the |
| Havana up to the surrounding areas of Levisa Key in | | | | American authorities in Havana or Key West about |
| Pinar del Rio. | | | | the German moves. He loved fishing so much that he |
| Already living in the Vigía Farmhouse, he used to | | | | became the promoter of a fishing contest that today |
| drive his car dressed in his Cuban guayabera, his | | | | is called the "Ernest Hemingway International Marlin |
| moccasin shoes and drinking his rum while heading | | | | Fishing Tournament", of which the headquarters are |
| north to Cojimar, a fishing town near Havana where | | | | located in the Cuban marina named after the great |
| his yacht Pilar was docked (the yacht can be seen | | | | writer, in Jaimanitas, west of Havana City. It was |
| today in the Vigía Farmhouse Museum) and where | | | | during one of these tournaments that the writer met |
| lived the master of his yacht and friend, Gregorio | | | | Fidel Castro. Sunday May 15, 1960 they sailed: |
| Fuentes. Together, they pursued the adventure of | | | | Hemingway on his yacht Pilar and Fidel on the Yacht |
| capturing the largest and most challenging fish. It is | | | | Crystal, accompanied by Che Guevara. When the day |
| said that once he hooked a fish of 750 pounds, | | | | came to an end, Fidel and Hemingway met on the |
| which broke his fishing rod after half an hour of | | | | docks in order to compare their fish; however, the |
| battling. This was the challenge he searched for | | | | conversation quickly turned to literature and the social |
| every time he sailed, and captured so well in his novel | | | | reality that the Revolution wanted to change. This |
| "The Old Man and the Sea"; a novel that earned him | | | | was the first of many encounters. |
| the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1954. | | | | |