They form an island system similar to the Florida Keys--130 miles of key islands and flats, about the same distance as from Key Largo to Key West. But in this saltwater wilderness there is just one fishing lodge with a dozen flats skiffs fishing the entire area--the Italian operation Avalon and its floating lodge, the Tortuga.

Four years ago Captain Orlando Fl. Rodriguez Romay, the Cuban minister of fishing, signed a new law banning all commercial fishing, except for lobsters, in most of the Jardines. Later, an Italian group called Avalon Fishing and Diving Center signed an agreement acquiring exclusive use of the area in the Jardines De La Reina islands for sportfishing and diving.

Despite heavy commercial fishing pressure before the ban, the Jardines has remained an unspoiled place, primarily because they are situated from 50 to 70 miles off the Cuban coast and are not easily visited, even by the Cuban people.

The Tortuga
The Avalon Fishing and Diving Center was originally created as a dive operation, attracting divers from all over Europe to its world-class reef diving. But Pepe Omegna, one of the four Italian partners who runs the operation, saw the tremendous potential for the flats fishing an quickly developed it, outfitting his operation with the best skiffs and trained fly-fishing guides.
A floating hotel, the Tortuga is the base for Avalon's fishing and diving operations. The 110-foot, double-deck, steel houseboat is moored in a channel, protected from the wind and waves. The boat has eight air-conditioned rooms, each with its own small bathroom and shower, and up to four bunks.

Downstairs, on the first floor, an air-conditioned dining room, complete with a TV and VCR, allows guests to play back video action they shot that day, with a generator running round the clock and providing 110 volts.

The dining is a blend of American, Italian, and Cuban recipes specializing in native seafood, including mutton snapper, grouper, and lobster, with choices of two or three entrees. A highlight is Italian cheese and herb pizza served as appetizers each night on the afterdeck, along with the pina coladas, rum and tonics, and Cuba Libres (rum and coke).

Most of Avalon's clients come from Italy, other European countries, and England. But over the past two years Avalon has attracted a surprising number of American fly fishers who have heard of the fishing in these pristine waters and are willing to sneak into the forbidden land to experience perhaps the best saltwater flats fishing in the world.

Mutton (red) snapper are just one of at least seven gamefish species that frequent the flats.

In addition to the Tortuga, last year Avalon added an 80-foot luxury yacht, the Halcon, that accommodates from six to eight anglers and tows three or four flats skiffs behind. The skiffs allow anglers to cruise the islands and explore unfished outlying areas that are long runs from the Tortuga.

World-class Guides
With the tutelage of several famous American guides and anglers, the Cubans have become excellent guides and good fly fishermen. Give them a fly rod and they'll double-haul a 100-foot cast, or show you just how to work a fly to make bonefish charge and inhale it. They spot fish 100 yards ahead of the boat and direct your casts from the poling platform. They are as good as, or better than, any guides I've fished with in the Caribbean, and they work long days and fish as hard as you want. Although Spanish is their native tongue, they speak enough English to communicate with their anglers.

The original Avalon guide boats were fiberglass catamaran-hulled and just adequate for fly fishers, but last winter Pepe imported ten new flats skiffs, equipped with poling platforms and 60-horse Yamaha motors. The new skiffs run 40 miles per hour in smooth water, allow the guides to cover a greater fishing range, and run fast in chop.

With the new skiffs, the guides can run from 25 to 35 miles in one direction from the Tortuga and do it in comfort. The prevailing winds in the Jardines come from the east. We found that most of the good bonefish and permit flats are on the windward (north) side. These flats are ideal for morning fishing, with the sun and wind at your back.

Situated from 50 to 70 miles off the Cuban coast, the Jardines de la Reina has remained unspoiled with some of the best flats fly fishing in the world.

Combining Diving with Fishing
The Jardines has some of the best diving in the world. The Tortuga is equipped with new German dive compressors and Mares dive equipment. Three experienced divemasters accompany you on dives, feeding fish and even instructing how to catch sharks. The boat supplies the diving equipment, and the instructors teach novice divers. The barrier reef that runs the length of the Jardines has spectacular spur and groove coral formations along the top of the "wall." You swim through underwater canyons as tarpon schools swim by lazily.

Then you swim with the sharks along the reef as the divemaster feeds them from a bag of fish carcasses and skins: Imagine feeding sharks, big groupers, snappers, and 400-pound jewfish from your hand. At one time we had over 50 silky sharks cruising through us, so close you could reach out and touch them.

The divemaster showed me how to catch a 5-foot shark by twisting its tail, then turning it over and stroking its stomach to calm it, almost putting it to sleep. When I turned the shark upright, it would regain its equilibrium and shoot from my hands. Wild! And, like the rest of this trip to the Jardines, truly unforgettable.