Cuba advice bay of pigs or Varadero

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Germie

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Probably I will have 2 or 3 diving days in Cuba in october.
We prefer to do some cave diving and diving in the bay of pigs.
Does anyone have good divecenters that are trustable in the bay of Pigs or in Varadero?
 
I only did two days of diving in Cuba (Trip Report - A couple days of diving in Cuba near Varadero). One shore diving (Playa Coral - not bad) and another boat diving in Varadero. I wasn't impressed with the companies (rather cheap gear), but it is a rather poor country. I would have to look up the dive site from the boat. One of them I would have liked to have had my rebreather, camera, and spend 5 hours underwater taking pictures.

I would advise taking your own gear as much as feasible and be as independent as possible (minus weights, cylinders, and fills). I'd suggest bringing gas analyzers as well if you are diving mixes. I would not set your expectations high, but I don't have extensive experience there, only recent experience.
 
I will take my own gear as that is needed for the rest of the trip. We only have 2 or 3 days diving. No gases needed, just some air in cylinders and go. Preferable without guides, but that seems to be difficult.
But at least we prefer to do really long dives, haha.
What divecenter did you use?
 
I don't think diving without a guide is allowed.

I think (not sure) that I dove with Atlantis Varadero where we shore dived Playa Coral. They gave us HP117 steel cylinders which was a surprise for the tropics. For the second day of boat diving, that was with Barracuda Diving Center. They at least gave us 11 liter aluminum cylinders.

I would call around all the dive centers and see if they can accommodate you. A private guide from shore is the most realistic. A private boat for diving is possible, but likely rather expensive.
 
I was very disappointed with he dives I did in Varadero. I much prefer Sanitago De Cuba on the south side, a few miles from Guantanamo.
 
I was very disappointed with he dives I did in Varadero. I much prefer Sanitago De Cuba on the south side, a few miles from Guantanamo.
What dives sites did you see?
 
In Varadero, it was a few shore dives towards Matanzas, shallow, with little marine life.

In Santiago de Cuba, the reefs at Club Buchanero were fabulous! Club Los Corales wasn't as good, but saw some manta rays there.
 
In Varadero, it was a few shore dives towards Matanzas, shallow, with little marine life.
I only did one shore dive in that area at Playa Coral, and there was a fair bit of life. I was pleasantly surprised. The 2nd boat dive I did was much better though. That was better than Southwater Caye and Glover's Reef in Belize.
In Santiago de Cuba, the reefs at Club Buchanero were fabulous! Club Los Corales wasn't as good, but saw some manta rays there.
If I ever go back to Cuba (unlikely as I saw so much of the country), I would definitely want to explore that area. But there are so many other places to see. Next year hopefully it will be Panama.
 
Ok, you write about little marine life. Is it worser than Curacao for example?

The cmas world championships underwater photography are in october in Cayo Largo del Sur. Ok, that sounds better than the bay of pigs, but prices are also different.
 
Back from Cuba, will write a more detailed report later. We did 4 cave dives near Playa Larga, they were great. We also did 8 reef dives there and visited almost all divesites between Playa Larga and Giron. These dives were nice, but sadly not that much fish as there will be found in Bonaire or Curacao. But nice canyons, walls, etc. Lot of coral bleaching on the brain corals.
The divesites itselfs were not well maintained, there were in the past on every divesite stairs to get out of the water more easily, but all of them are gone. Really all. It is a very poor country, and you see this back in the divesites. But we had really great diving in the south. And of course, the reefs stay the same, but now with only a few divers. There is only 1 divecenter left, the one in Playa Larga has been gone. So there is only one in Giron left. The 'roads' to the divesites were full of grass and other plants, so are not used a lot nowadays.
We dove with a guide, but that was no problem. We could drain tanks till 20 bars, so had long dives and he was waiting if we took pictures. With tanks it is what they have, for us he had ali80's, but on the first day we also got short 12 liter steel tanks. If you needed to rent equipment, that was not that bad, so you don't have to worry about that.
There is no nitrox available. So they don't mind about getting over ndl (as we also don't mind). We also had to do the cave diving with recreational equipment, so that means it was sadly limited, but ok because of safety. But the caves we went in were 70m deep, so that means that it is even with a twinset or sidemount not doable on air without decogases. We have only seen a little part of the caves, but I liked them. In this region not that much stalactites, but clear as in Mexico, and with haloclines.
There are 4 small wrecks in the bay of pigs, we have visited them all. For a real wreckdiver quite boring, but if you are not that experienced, then they are nice.

Varadero was different. The Russian wreck was nice and colorfull, but the other 3 divesites we have been had no really good visability and the amount of fish was ok. But especially 'Aquarius' was a boring divesite. Long boatrides, more than 1 hour. Diving without guides was not a problem. We also dove Claraboyas 1 and Tiburones reef (without sharks of course). No walls seen here, only quite flat divesites. Tiburones has some 'swimthroughs'. Current was 0 on day 1 on the wreck and the next day it was horrible. So you must be lucky.
We had a great time in Cuba, especially the people are sooooo nice. But the bay of pigs is better for diving than Varadero.
 

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