Guantanamo Bay sits on what was once called Oriente Province. Located on the southeast corner of the island country of Cuba. Oriente Province has since been divided into five distinct provinces, Las Tunas, Holguin, Granma, Santiago de Cuba, and Guantanamo. Guantanamo Bay is situated in the belt of the Caribbean trade winds; it receives sea breezes from the southeast during the afternoons, and shortly after sunset, the wind changes to a northerly direction and becomes a land breeze. The constant breezes help to keep the bay cooler than most semi-arid deserts. However, the mountains that surround the bay to the west, north, and east shelter it from cloud systems, thus producing less precipitation and maintaining the lands aridity. The Guantanamo Bay area is a semi-arid desert very similar to the climate found in San Diego, California. With predominantly dry, sunny days ranging from 80 degrees to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly one-fourth of Guantanamo’s total average annual rainfall of 24 inches, which occurs in October. The region contains parched, brown land and woody plants and succulents capable of enduring the scarcity of water. The terrain and climate of Guantanamo Bay make it a haven for iguanas and banana rats. Guantanamo Bay was named by the Taino Indians, which is a subgroup of the Arawakan Indians, which inhabited the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean Sea, consisting of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola ( Haiti and the Dominican Republic ), and Puerto Rico. In April of 1492, Christopher Columbus landed at the location known as Fisherman’s Point on his second voyage to the “New World” and named the bay Puerto Grande, or” Great Port”. In the first part of the18th century, during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, a struggle between England and Spain from 1739 to 1741. The British took control of the bay and called the bay Cumberland. In 1790