No, The Bay of Pigs in Cuba is not where you will find the Swimming Pigs of the Caribbean, you can read about that trip we did a few years ago here: The Exumas, Bahamas.

The Bay of Pigs is famed for the failed CIA invasion in 1961. On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro (1926-) drove his guerilla army into Havana and overthrew General Fulgencio Batista (1901-1973), the nation’s American-backed president. For the next two years, officials at the U.S. State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted to push Castro from power. Finally, in April 1961, the CIA launched what its leaders believed would be the definitive strike: a full-scale invasion of Cuba by 1,400 American-trained Cubans who had fled their homes when Castro took over. However, the invasion did not go well: The invaders were badly outnumbered by Castro’s troops, and they surrendered after less than 24 hours of fighting.

Here we stopped for a swim in the famous swimming hole.

Many visit the museum here dedicated to the invasion but it was a sunday and was closed by the time we arrived just after 5pm.

Many Cubans welcomed Fidel Castro’s 1959 overthrow of the dictatorial President Fulgencio Batista, yet the new order on the island just about 100 miles from the United States made American officials nervous. Batista had been a corrupt and repressive dictator, but he was considered to be pro-American and was an ally to U.S. companies. At that time, American corporations and wealthy individuals owned almost half of Cuba’s sugar plantations and the majority of its cattle ranches, mines and utilities. Batista did little to restrict their operations. He was also reliably anticommunist. Castro, by contrast, disapproved of the approach that Americans took to their business and interests in Cuba. It was time, he believed, for Cubans to assume more control of their nation. “Cuba Sí, Yanquis No” became one of his most popular slogans.

Many are curious as to how the Bay of Pigs got its name. It may have gotten its name from the bay either being a place where pigs (loscochinos) were offloaded by the Spanish, or from a bad translation describing the queen triggerfish inhabits the coral reefs in Bahía de Cochinos.