However, through the unique nature of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, INA has received permission to survey the Cuban waters encompassed by the base. The harbor of Guantanamo Bay has been under the control of the United States since the Spanish-American War in 1898. As a U.S. possession, it is possible for American citizens to operate there with the permission of the U.S. military. The Commanding Officer at Guantanamo has been contacted, and a permit has been received through his Public Works Officer. A team consisting of INA President Jerome Hall, graduate students Mark Feulner and William Charlton, and former Navy SEAL Jonathan Gustavson will conduct a survey of the bay in August 2000.
Preliminary research shows that the bay has a great deal of potential.
It is located approximately seventy miles east of Santiago de Cuba, which was an important harbor during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The history of the bay portrays it alternately as a refuge for ships plying the Windward Passage, and as a lair for pirates who preyed on Spanish shipping in the region. There are also encouraging verbal reports from former Navy personnel that were stationed at the base. They describe the locations of several wrecks within the bay, one of which carried a cargo that included clay pipes and appears to date to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. There are two primary objectives of the survey for the 2000 season.