14ymedio, Fabio Aecio Ettore, Boca de Camarioca (Matanzas province), 11 January 2025 — When Cubans think of the town of Boca de Camarioca, what invariably comes to mind is the mass exodus orchestrated in 1965 by Fidel Castro and Lyndon Johnson, the U.S. president at the time. That stampede was the most notable precursor to the 1980 Mariel Boatlift and the 1994 Rafter Crisis that followed in future decades.
“I was very young when that happened. I was living in Camarioca though I was also spending time in Matanzas. I still remember the yachts that showed up, the people making their own boats, the gossip about who was or was not leaving. . . That lasted quite awhile,” says 75-year-old Noemí, many of whose acquaintances left when she was a teenager.
“No one from my family left. My father was in the militia and my mother saw things through his eyes. We supported the Revolution. Fidel said those who left were ’social deviants.’ As time passed, we realized that those who left had their reasons and weren’t wrong to do so,” she says.
In previous decades, its proximity to the resort town of Varadero and the Matanza coast gave Boca a certain economic advantage. Now tourists rarely visit and the ocean provides few benefits. “It isn’t even a shadow of what it used to be,” says Alfredo, whose family has fished these waters for generations. Now, faced the decline of recent years and the country’s current crisis, he has had to abandon the family business in order to survive.
Alfredo left his own boat to his sons and now wears a Cuba Petróleo uniform, working as a mechanic in the company’s nearby oil fields. “There really isn’t much left to fish in this area. And if you do happen to catch something, you have to be careful because inspectors are hiding under every rock. Working for CUPET at least gives me a steady income, though these are not the best of times either. When the Canadian [drilling company] Sherritt was operating here, things were much better for us,” he says.
Though Sherritt International still has the right to explore for oil along the northern coast of Cuba, it has been suspending operations at a number of wells near Camarioca. In 2023, it halted drilling in block 8A — one of the wells it was investigating – as well as in blocks 10 and 6A.
Businessman William Pitt, whose family owned several mines and valuable oil fields before Fidel Castro appropriated them in 1960, believes Sherritt met its exploration objectives in block 10 but chose not to continue working there without a partner to share the risks. In 2017, the Cuban government granted it permission – illegally, Pitt notes — to drill in Block 6A until 2045, though the company has decided not to invest there either.
Pitt points out that the 2023 production contract that Sherritt signed with state-owned Energas to drill in the Puerto Escondido-Yumurí region expired on March 20, 2023. Later that year, the Canadian company found a partner — as yet unknown — and agreed to deliver equipment to resume exploratory drilling at the well site.
The last time the public heard anything about the Camarioca wells was in March 2024, when it was learned that Great Wall, a Chinese company, had worked with Cuban technicians to open a horizontal well — the VDW1012 — that stretched 8,000 meters from land to sea. Sate media described it as a “technological breakthrough for Cuba’s petroleum industry.”
Back when times were good, Camarioca’s entrepreneurs turned their homes into short-term rentals, welcoming the hundreds of foreigners who came to Camarioca. Now, these local businesspeople are not doing well either. Things were “going gangbusters” until 2019, recalls Maite, a local woman who rents out two rooms in her house. “[But] after the pandemic, business collapsed,” she says.
“The power outages prevent us from earning a living. Even seven or eight years ago, the rent wasn’t enough. We have just one guest staying with us this week, a Canadian friend who is one of our most loyal customers. It’s for reasons like this that people sell their homes and leave the country, especially those who were able to rent to foreigners for many years and save money. It’s easier to leave for another country than to go on living with this uncertainty,” she says.
Maite continues to do everything she can to get her business back up and running but says she does not have high hopes. “I feel ashamed when a guest’s power goes out and I can’t provide a backup generator or even a rechargeable fan,” she admits.
However, she has no choice but to keep renting out rooms to whomever happens to show up. “I can’t just go somewhere else and start over from scratch, leaving behind what I spend so much effort on building,” she says.
Maite is aware that her business and others like it are not the only ones affected by Boca de Camarioca’s economic misfortunes. She knows that temporary solutions will not fix the longterm problem. “I don’t know if the townspeople will start working for CUPET or if the government will loosen restrictions on fishing and business will improve,” she says. “Who knows? Maybe even the tourists will come back. In the meantime, we ’ll be here.”
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