messiestobjects: The Scuba Diving Was Great, But I Didn't Get To Try The Water Boarding

So I lied about not using that joke again. Screw it, I needed a title.

Anyway I don't know if you knew this, but I spent ten days at Gitmo for work recently. :) This here is a painting of an American flag and a Cuban flag in friendship on Guantanamo Bay. I found this over by the Guantanamo Bay Windward Point lighthouse on Gitmo, a historical landmark. Boy times sure have changed.

Here is the lighthouse and what I presume are some of the boats which Cuban refugees made it to Gitmo in back in the day.

And here's the lighthouse barely seen from further down the coastline. There are big gangly cacti all over the place.

One of the guys who drives me back and forth from the airport whenever I leave home for a job was in the Navy in the 50s and was stationed at Gitmo for a little while. He told me they used to hop on a train into Havana when they had leave time. Damn. I would have loved to have hopped the fence and gone to Havana, but you know, we're not allowed to have any commercial business with Cuba any more. And there's this big fence, with landmines. Which makes the butt of this Cuban cigar I found on base quite mystifying.

Gitmo is not what I expected though. It's a small self-contained city, like most American bases I suppose, and could pass for any American suburb if you leave out the iguanas running around everywhere. The housing is very 50's suburb lookin', actually. They have a shopping center, a laundromat, a car rental, a hotel, a McDonald's, a Subway, a public library in which I overheard a conversation between the librarian and a little old lady librarian from the High School library about the dearth of quality books in the schools. They even have a Girl Scouts Camp!

They have a huge Gym Complex including a really nice weight room (embarrassing to go lift weights with a bunch of giant military men but I persevered), a football field and track, baseball diamond, batting cages, skate park, & bowling alley, they had an outdoor movie theater where they show first-run movies every night for free...

I watched 'Green Zone' and 'Hot Tub Time Machine' there. Both very interesting experiences. Hot Tub Time Machine was pretty dumb, but I found myself laughing and enjoying it quite a bit. It's hard to resist the enjoyment of a good fecal matter joke in a stadium full of raucous Navy guys. I'd forgotten what seeing a comedy in a crowded theater could be like. And Green Zone... well that night the theater was fairly quiet, but surprisingly there seemed to be quite a few people there who appreciated the message. I had seen it already of course, but I was very curious to see how people who lived on a base notorious for the controversial and legally shady detention of prisoners would take a film about the recent war built on lies. The more time I spend among the military, the more I get the sense that our government is at war with itself. There are factions and factions within factions. Watching that particular movie in that particular place probably has something to do with that sense, of course. But I'm not talking about partisan bickering or political sides. I tend to feel that the Republicans and the Democrats are actually on the same side, and everything else is just a show. I think it goes on on a deeper level, and that there are sides we don't even know about.

I just can't resist those big lizard shots. I loved watching them just lumber through the outdoor seating area at Starbuck's while people blithely ignored them. (Yes, they have a Starbuck's too.) I'd be all like, "Do you guys see that?! Huh? That's a big damn lizard, just walkin' here!" And they'd be all like, "Whatever." I was hoping that this guy would actually go in the ladies room so I could wait and get a shot of some poor woman running out and screaming. No such luck.

Gitmo also has wind power! There are four of these guys on top of the tallest hill on base, but apparently only one of them is working right now. I went and stood under the one that was working, and let me tell you I wasn't expecting to have an experience like that. There is nothing like having 100 foot tall metal fan blades of death whoooomp whoooomp whoooomping directly over your head.

But you know, there are a lot of places on Gitmo where you are not allowed to take pictures. Like this one.

I was told that I was welcome to take pictures anywhere on base unless I saw one of these signs. Hopefully, taking pictures of the sign won't get me in trouble. But they do a good job of helping the people who live and work there keep the darker side of Gitmo out of sight and out of mind with all these distractions. I couldn't even figure out where the prisons were until after I'd been there for like a week, although to be fair I suppose I wasn't going out of my way too much. But on my second Scuba dive, we went out to a beach where there was a prison up on the hill, and there weren't any signs posted there so...

Yes, they have scuba diving there too. I got to go on a couple of dives in Guantanamo Bay. Boo-yah.

It was pretty nice diving but we didn't see too much that was very interesting. A moray eel, a stingray. Here's a Gitmo Starfish.

I also got to figure out what ever happened to the Scooby Gang. Guess they stuck their noses into one too many mysteries and got their vehicle confiscated.

Scuba dooba doo!

Anyway, forgive my bad joke. But that's about all I have from that trip. It was pretty cool to get to go and see it firsthand. Not an opportunity most people get and believe me I'm aware of how cool my job is. Hopefully I can get back there one day to get my Advanced Scuba Diver license.