In Puerto Esperanza, a coastal town of just 5,000 inhabitants in Pinar del Río, fishing has ceased to be synonymous with sustenance and has instead become a daily struggle for survival: its fishermen head out to sea at dawn without even knowing if their catch will be enough to cover the fuel for the day, according to a report by EFE published this Wednesday.
The village, located about 200 kilometers west of Havana, receives only about two hours of electricity per day, making it impossible to keep fish cold and forcing fishermen to sell it at the time of capture or lose it.
The report mentions the case of Alexis González, 45 years old, who turned to fishing after the economic crisis forced him to close his carpentry business.
Now he invests an average of 11,000 Cuban pesos —about 14 dollars at the informal exchange rate— every time he goes out to work, because a liter of diesel on the black market is around two dollars, and his boat consumes between five and eight liters per day.
"You have to go fishing every day to make a living and earn some money, but fuel is very expensive, and the costs outweigh what you catch," González stated to EFE.
"Sometimes you don't catch anything, and you return empty-handed, and there are times when you can't even cover the cost of the fuel. Other times, you arrive and cannot sell the product because of the electricity issue," he emphasizes.
Eusebio Pérez, 70 years old, has been dedicated to sport fishing at the same port for eight years. After a night catching snappers, cuberra snappers, and feather fish, he acknowledges that the trade is "hard, very difficult," although he says it allows him to provide for his family and live "normally."
The cruelest paradox of the place is that in a town whose identity revolves around the sea, fish has become an unattainable luxury for its own residents.
No fish comes down from five dollars, while the town doctor, José Machado, earns a monthly salary of 8,880 Cuban pesos, equivalent to about 11 dollars.
With that income, Machado can't even buy two fish a month. "For an ordinary worker, it's impossible to make ends meet with prices being so high," he stated to the news agency.
This gap between state salaries and real prices is the result of decades of state control over the economy and a fishing policy that prioritizes exportation over domestic supply.
Lobster and shrimp exports exceeded 95% of the plan by mid-2024, while production for popular consumption barely reached 53%.
The collapse is also statistical: the gross catch of fish products in Cuba fell from 46,386 tons in 2020 to 22,330 in 2024, a reduction of 51.9% over four years, according to the Statistical Yearbook of the National Office of Statistics and Information.
The energy crisis is worsening the situation for residents throughout the island. The national electricity deficit exceeded 1,800 MW on Tuesday, and Pinar del Río has been one of the provinces hardest hit throughout 2026. In August, a disconnection from the western electrical system left about 4.5 million people without power for nearly seven hours.
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