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Want to go to Cuba and go fishing in the Bay of Pigs National Park, with the blessings of the US Treasury Department? A company called Classic Sports International (*) can set you up to do that this coming April 29 to May 3, provided you are a licensed physician or dentist, or a practicing attorney. Classic Sports, you see, is a travel company that specializes in setting up what are called Continuing Medical Education and Continuing Legal Education Seminars in places that just happen to have good fishing or birdshooting nearby. Professionals who need CME and CLE credits to remain in good standing in their profession know all about these tax-deductible trips.
At any rate, the upcoming Cuba trip is a bit of a wild card in that it is probably not going to earn most professionals any CME or CLE credits, nor is it likely to be tax-deductible. Reasons are complex and have nothing to do with the quality of the planned educational experience. The attraction of the trip is the completely legal opportunity it affords certain professionals to visit Cuba and wet a line there for a day in one of the most unusual bonefishing areas in the world. See the May, 1997 issue of this newsletter for a first-hand report on fishing in the Bay of Pigs.
The five-day trip includes two nights at the famed Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana and two nights at the Hotel Playa Larga near the Bay of Pigs. Seminars on various legal and medical issues and practices in the United States and Cuba will be held on Thursday and again on Friday morning, followed by a visit to a rural clinic on Friday afternoon. Classic Sports’ John Cornett says some of the seminars are sure to be fascinating, especially those that deal with such things as the contrasting ways AIDS and other communicable diseases are handled in the two countries.
At press time, Cornett said eight of the 10 available spaces had been filled, but it was not clear that all of the eight who had applied to go were willing to fill out all the paperwork required by the US Treasury Department. It is apparently voluminous and a bit intimidating. Ultimately, though, he says anyone who meets the professional criteria for the trip should be approved. The cost of the all-inclusive five-day, four-night trip is $1,575, including round-trip airfare from Nassau in the Bahamas.