We just returned from a 2 week tour of Cuba including 1 week of diving out of Matanzas, Cuba. Matanzas is about a 2 hour drive southeast of La Habana and a hour before you gets to the tourist area of Varadero. We used a private dive shop Club ScubAzul (www.clubscubazul.com) and am pleased to report the Cuban reefs are healthy. The advantage of using a private dive shop is we had a private dive master for just the two of us for all of our dives. We dove primarily around Matanzas but upon request we did one dive at the Bay of Pigs and one dive in a cenote cavern. The disadvantage of diving with a private dive shop is all the dives were shore dives as the private dive operators are not allowed boats (US is only 75 miles north). We were told the government owned dive resorts in Varadero are allowed to use dive boats. We did see a dive resort unload 18-20 people out of a bus at the Bay of Pigs with 2 dive masters to do the dive we had just finished (read cattle-call dive).
Back to the actual diving. There was an abundance of all different coral including fan, tube and barrel coral. There was also copious amounts of small colorful fish. As our dive master explained any fish larger that 12 inches will only be seen on a plate for dinner. We did see occasional stingrays, eels, crab and lobsters. Currents on all of our shore dives were minimal or nonexistent. The average depth of the shore dives were 30-65 feet. The cenote cavern we dove was my first cavern dive and it was to a max depth of 97 feet. The transition from salt to fresh water produced a blurry vision level and there was a definite thermocline. We dove in 3mm shorty suits and were very comfortable with the water temperature.
We rented all our dive equipment from Club ScubAzul and were very pleased with how well everything worked. There is a casa particular-Casa CozyCorner (Cuba's version of B&B) in conjunction with the dive shop and our accommodations were very nice. My recommendation for anyone considering diving Cuba, do it soon. Raul Castro has announced he will not seek re-election in 2018 and Cuba with be without Castro leadership for the first time in 59 years.
Back to the actual diving. There was an abundance of all different coral including fan, tube and barrel coral. There was also copious amounts of small colorful fish. As our dive master explained any fish larger that 12 inches will only be seen on a plate for dinner. We did see occasional stingrays, eels, crab and lobsters. Currents on all of our shore dives were minimal or nonexistent. The average depth of the shore dives were 30-65 feet. The cenote cavern we dove was my first cavern dive and it was to a max depth of 97 feet. The transition from salt to fresh water produced a blurry vision level and there was a definite thermocline. We dove in 3mm shorty suits and were very comfortable with the water temperature.
We rented all our dive equipment from Club ScubAzul and were very pleased with how well everything worked. There is a casa particular-Casa CozyCorner (Cuba's version of B&B) in conjunction with the dive shop and our accommodations were very nice. My recommendation for anyone considering diving Cuba, do it soon. Raul Castro has announced he will not seek re-election in 2018 and Cuba with be without Castro leadership for the first time in 59 years.
