The Galveston County Daily News

Tom Linton, a longtime member of the Friends of Galveston Island State Park, has been writing a series of columns on the parks of Galveston County. These week, he takes a break to write about a tourist spot in Cuba.

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The first time I read “The Old Man and the Sea” was not too long after it was first published. At the time, I was not too sure as to the whereabouts of Cuba, and “The Gulf Stream” had little, if any, significance to me.

However, Santiago was made real to me by Spencer Tracy as he played the character in the movie version of the story.

So I am now reading “The Old Man and the Sea” for a second time in a five-hour plane flight to the place where it was supposed to have taken place (well, at least to the place where the house is located in which the story was written), Cuba!

In the intervening 50 years since the first reading, I have learned considerably more about the Gulf Stream and marlin fish. In a very short time, I will be learning, firsthand, more about Cuba, including the house that Ernest “Papa” Hemingway occupied as he wrote the story.

Finca Vigía, meaning “Lookout Farm,” is where Hemingway lived for 10 years in Cuba. It is the place he lived as he wrote “The Old Man and the Sea.” It is now the Ernesto Hemingway Museum — although the Cuban people did and still do love him, he could never get them to capitulate and use his self-selected nickname “Papa.” He was always Ernesto to them.

So, I went to Cuba to attend a marine science conference that had a special session on hurricane effects — what better place to learn than there? If you look at a historical map of hurricane tracks that enter the Gulf, they usually have, like your air travel, an intermediate stopover in Havana.

But on the plane, as I read my book, a person in the window seat asked if I planned to visit Hemingway’s house? He added, almost an afterthought, that Santiago’s house and the restaurant, La Terraza, near the beach, where he landed the fish is still in operation. Santiago was a real person? Yes.

I could find no one who cared to accompany me on the search — search because no one at the reception desk at my hotel could tell me “exactly” where it was. So the bell captain could arrange with a taxi and a driver who knew exactly where these were located.

I tried to get someone, especially someone who could speak Spanish, to accompany me on the trip — I had no takers.

At 9 the next morning, I set out, alone, with my driver and guide, to see what I could see — and a hope to return to tell of it.

I saw Hemingway’s house, monuments to him and pictures of him with Fidel — but more importantly, I found it!

In the restaurant Rizzaro, there were pictures of the real Santiago — straw hat and all.

The house he occupied at the time when he had caught the big fish no longer exists; only a picture does.

You will be happy to learn, as I was, that he moved up to a modest but much nicer cottage near the docks at Cojímar.

It turned out to be a grand trip. Especially, I survived (as Santiago did) to tell about it.

Tom Linton is a member of the Friends of Galveston Island State Park.