Cuba-Cayo Coco Dive Report

[diverrobs]

I just got back from Cayo Coco/Cayo Guillermo in Cuba yesterday. Here is my report.

Hotel: Melia Cayo Guillermo

Dive Shop: Green Moray Dive Center

Dive Staff: Generally good, servicing the mostly beginners doing the intro to scuba course. Made sure people were buddied up. I did not do any training so can't comment on the ACUC (Cuba's Diving Organization) courses. Thier english was not great. I would not recommend doing OW or AOW water here due to the language barrier and worries about the recognition of ACUC courses.

Rental Gear: (Did not use it) Scubapro stuff.

Boat: Large, suitable for up to 20 divers. Twin screw diesel engines. Fast. Good platform.

Dive Sites: Lots withing about 5 miles of the dive center (1/2 hour ride). Ranging from 15' to 100' deep.

Diving: Deep Dive at 9:30AM (90') Shallow Dive (40' to 60') at noon.

Dives: I did 6 dives in total. 4 at about 90' and 3 at 45' to 60'. Reefs are in very good shape. Lots of large Trigger fish, Groupers, Baracuda, Butterfly Fish, Sting Rays, Nurse Sharks, Eagle Rays, Grunts etc etc.

Highlights: The dive master and I were the only 2 down on one of the deep dives. We found a Nurse Shark with his head in a hole. Crazy dive master decided to grab the shark by the pectoral fins. Shark took off full speed right at me. Came within 6 inches and was really surprised the dorsal fin did not hit me. I felt the blast of water from it's tail on my face.

Two nurse sharks crusing the reef at high speed. One had to be 12' long

Two eagle rays cruising the reef together. One did a back flip.

One large southern sting ray. Stayed on bottom for 5 minutes and let us get withing about 6'.

One Lion Fish (really cool)

Two sea turtles sleeping on the bottom. Was able to get withing 3' of both.

Very larger gouper (bigger than me) had to weight at least a couple hundred pounds.

Lots of very curious baracuda.


Final Comments:
Much much better than the dives I did in Jamaica. Reef was in really really good shape with tons of big fish on it. In general the fish were at least twice as large as those I have seen before. It seemed like a really good dive site, the deep dives were better than the shallow ones. There are a bunch of pictures in my gallery (my machine won't let me included them in this post).

 

[annasea]

Great report! Sorry to read about the molested nurse shark but glad you got to see so many cool fish!

Questions for you...

Was this an all-inclusive package booked through a place like itravel2000.com? Was the dive shop attached to the hotel and if so, were the dives included or did you pay separately for them?

 

[diverrobs]

Yea I did not expect him to grab it.

The Dive shop is on the Melia Cayo Guillermo gounds and serves all the hotels on Cayo Guillermo: Iberostar Daquiri, Sol Guillermo and Coijimar. The dives are not included in the All inclusive price (all the hotels are all inclusive). The dives started at $40.00 for 1 dive but if you bougth 10 dives it was $30.00 per dive. I paid $210.00 for 6 dives (actually 210 covertable cuban pesos). They do not take visa and you must pay in CUC). I booked with holidaymarkettravel.com who are located in Toronto. The packager/airline was AirTransat. Hotel grounds were nice, staff were good but the food and drinks were generally of low quality but this is what I expected going to cuba. I have to say the diving was great compared to Jamaica.

 

[DiverDebbie]

It's great to hear such a good report on Cuba We're still considering it as an option, just not sure about the North Coast conditions in winter.
Where in Jamaica did you dive? Makes quite a difference. We thought Negril was actually quite good, but around MoBay it's pretty overfished, and as is typical, anywhere close to cruise ships is never so good.
Just wondering what area on Jamaica you're comparing Cayo Coco to?

 

[diverrobs]

We were near MoBay. It was way overfished. Saw tons of fish traps in Jamaica.

 

[annasea]

Yea I did not expect him to grab it.

The Dive shop is on the Melia Cayo Guillermo gounds and serves all the hotels on Cayo Guillermo: Iberostar Daquiri, Sol Guillermo and Coijimar. The dives are not included in the All inclusive price (all the hotels are all inclusive). The dives started at $40.00 for 1 dive but if you bougth 10 dives it was $30.00 per dive. I paid $210.00 for 6 dives (actually 210 covertable cuban pesos). They do not take visa and you must pay in CUC). I booked with holidaymarkettravel.com who are located in Toronto. The packager/airline was AirTransat. Hotel grounds were nice, staff were good but the food and drinks were generally of low quality but this is what I expected going to cuba. I have to say the diving was great compared to Jamaica.

Thx for the reply. Lucky you living in Toronto... it's a nightmare getting there from Vancouver.

 

[diverrick]

I also was not impressed with diing in Jamaica, Thanks for the info on Cuba though. We are alwat=ys considering Cuba, but it's such a hassle to go from the US.. We should lift the ban. It is so out dated...

 

[DiverDebbie]

We were near MoBay. It was way overfished. Saw tons of fish traps in Jamaica.

I have to agree. When we were there the locals were fishing off the public beach next door. We were snokeling off the beach (little reef right there) and a local came along snorkeling with his spear, and the few fish around took off. We did see a few traps diving too.

But Jamaica is a big island, and not even nearly as big as Cuba, so you can't compare whole islands. For example, I like Varadero for a cheap beach vacation, but the diving is so bad it's not even worth bringing your gear. So it all depends where you go on each island.

 

[DiverDebbie]

Thx for the reply. Lucky you living in Toronto... it's a nightmare getting there from Vancouver.

Annasea, I hear you. Cayo Coco is through Toronto, and Cayo Largo (which I hear has decent diving) is only through Montreal. We can fly direct to Varadero, Cayo Santa Maria or Holquin, but that's about it.
But the charters do some direct flights to Montego Bay (in high season). Jamaica also has some amazing beaches, friendly people and a great culture, with Negril having ok diving. That's why we go.
I think of Cuba and Jamaica both as more of "all-round" beach/dive/cheap destinations rather than true hard core dive destinations.
For that I still want to get to Bonaire... but talk about nightmare (and expensive) flights from here!!!

 

[annasea]

Annasea, I hear you. Cayo Coco is through Toronto, and Cayo Largo (which I hear has decent diving) is only through Montreal. We can fly direct to Varadero, Cayo Santa Maria or Holquin, but that's about it. <snip>

Really? On what airline? I booked an all-inclusive last year to Varadero (not an AI kinda gal by any means but I was desperate ) and had to endure a 6-7 hour layover in Toronto. Had it been during the day it would have been tolerable, but we landed in Toronto around midnight.