Bay of Pigs

Coordinates: 22°13′N 81°10′W / 22.217°N 81.167°W

Geographical location of the Bay of Pigs

Bahia de Cochinos 1961

The Bay of Pigs (Spanish: Bahía de Cochinos) is an inlet of the Gulf of Cazones located on the southern coast of Cuba. By 1910, it was included in Santa Clara Province, and then instead to Las Villas Province by 1961, but in 1976, it was reassigned to Matanzas Province, when the original six provinces of Cuba were re-organized into 14 new Provinces of Cuba.

Geography

This bay is approximately 30 kilometers South of Jagüey Grande, 70 kilometers west of the city of Cienfuegos, and 150 kilometers southeast from the capital city Havana. On the western side of the bay, coral reefs border the main Zapata Swamp, part of the Zapata Peninsula. On the eastern side, beaches border margins of firm ground with mangroves and extensive areas of swampland to the north and east. At the north end of the bay, the village of Buena Ventura is adjacent to Playa Larga (Long Beach). 35 kilometers southeast of that, Playa Girón (Giron Beach) at the village of Girón, named after the notorious French pirate Gilberto Giron (c.1604).^[1]

Sunset on Playa Girón

History

Playa Girón and Playa Larga were the landing sites for seaborne forces of armed Cuban exiles in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, an American CIA-sponsored attempt to overthrow the new government of Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro in April 1961.

According to Fidel Castro's former bodyguard, the late Juan Reinaldo Sánchez, Castro lived in great luxury and had a private island in the Bay of Pigs, replete with "mansions, guest houses, a heliport, dolphinarium, turtle lagoon, his luxury yacht Aquarama - a gift from Leonid Brezhnev - and deep-sea fishing speedboat".^[2]

Etymology

In Cuban Spanish, cochinos may also mean the queen triggerfish (Balistes vetula), which inhabits coral reefs in Bahía de Cochinos, not swine (Sus scrofa).^[3][4]

See also

• Geography of Cuba

References

1. Rodriguez (1999), p.115
2. "i" newspaper - 3 June 2015 page 12
3. Claro, Rodolfo; García-Arteaga, Juan P.; Gobert, Bertrand; Cantelar Ramos, Karel (13 May 2003). "Tabla 2. Pesos y tallas mínimos legales en Cuba y proporción de peces con tallas inferiores en las capturas con chinchorros y nasas de la empresa pesquera de Caibarién." (pdf). Situación actual de los recursos pesqueros del Archipiélago Sabana-Camagüey, Cuba. Invemar. Retrieved 14 April 2011.
4. "Common Names List - Balistes vetula". Fishbase.org. Retrieved 2015-04-17.

Bibliography

• Rodriguez, Juan Carlos. 1999. Bay of Pigs and the CIA. Ocean Press. Melbourne. ISBN 1-875284-98-2
• Wyden, Peter. 1979. Bay of Pigs - The Untold Story. Simon and Schuster. New York. ISBN 0-671-24006-4 ISBN 0224017543 ISBN 978-0-671-24006-6

External links