In the meantime, my idea of a dream dive trip is to go to Santiago and dive among the wrecks of the Spanish fleet that was sunk in 1898. Has anyone done this? I'd love to read the details of your trip -- how you got there from José Martí ... how long it took ... where to stay in Santiago ... what the diving was like. Will US regulators fit Cuban steel tanks ... or have they gone to aluminum like the rest of the world?
I dived the Cristobal Colon a few years back. I was staying at Marea del Portillo but we took a car to get to the site. Roads are in very bad shape. Bridges too. The dive was nice. But sadly, a lot of tourists divers were "salvaging" the ship's artifacts (Ammos, brass stuff, etc.). I didn't get there from José Marti but from Manzanillo. I brought my old Dacor gear so yes, US regs do fit. But the tanks are in Litres and if you rent a reg, it'll mostly be bars instead of psi. Most of the places I went, they had steel tanks rigged for DINs or with the yoke adapter.
I'll be posting a little thread on the cuban dive centers I went to. I'll put a link in here.