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Help us to choose the best
Cuban Dive Sites
If you
are
planning
on diving and you are interest in Cuban dive sites, here
you will find some good info
about
the island.
Important
to know about Cuba
Cuba, famous for its cigars and rum, is the largest island of the Greater
Antilles and offers breathtaking beaches, fascinating history, culture,
ecological wonders and more. Cuba has one of the
best conservation
of it's ecosystem, making every cuban dive sites feel like virgin and
making
Cuban waters a paradise filled with
coral reefs, walls, different species of sponges and fish.
Capital: La Habana Language: Spanish. Currency: Cuban pesos for locals and for tourists Convertible Pesos. Population: Approx. 11,500,000 Climate: Mostly temperate with rains from December to May and hurricane warning between June and November.
Other excursions besides diving
in Cuba
There is plenty to do
in the island. In many places you will find cigars and rum factories.
Night clubs for Salsa (Cuban dance) and City tours with colonial and
revolution's history and culture. Visiting La Habana; capital of Cuba
is a most do excursion.
Where
to dive in Cuba
The island of Cuba has hundreds of kilometers of virgin beaches, little
islands and unexplored underwater terrain. It had been mentioned that
Cuba's diving jewels can be found in the central section of the
southern coast (Playa Giron to Manzanillo). This area includes the best
cuban dive sites of the island in "Isla de la Juventud" and "Jardines
de la
Reina". These sites have nothing to envy to the "Top Dive Sites" of the
world.
Marinas y Náuticas, Marlin S.A, is a company of the Ministry of Sports Tourism in Cuba which operates several fully equipped dive centers across the country and around the hotel network.
Diving information for Cuba
Cuban diving sites average normal
visibility
of 30 to 40 meters/ 100 to 133 feet, water temperatures
from 26-29ºC/78-85ºF. The warm, clear, calm diving conditions
are consistent
all year round, although hurricane season (June to November)
can blow out some days of dives.
Dive
Centers/Dive
Club information
Address information, phone number and email address.
The second
most important and largest city after "La Havana".
Santiago de Cuba offers
one of the best Cuban diving sites of the country with
many small hills separated by narrow pockets of
sand. These hillocks are covered with beautiful invertebrate fossils
forming
caves and tunnels protecting a big variety of fish, crustaceans and
mollusks.
Cuban history is not only found on the streets but also underwater
around this province, there is nothing more exiting than
the well preserved wreck: El Cristobal Colon, once the pride
of
the Spanish navy that went down at 90 kilometers/ 55miles west of
Santiago de Cuba more than 100 years ago during the war between Spain
and USA.
Battleship Cruce
Cristóbal Colón moments before it is abandoned in the mouth of river
Turquino, Santiago
de Cuba. 3 de Julio 1898.
The
town of Trinidad with stately churches and great
architecture from the Spanish colonial times was declared a National
Heritage
Site by UNESCO in 1998.
It has been said that due to overfishing there is little marine fauna
in the
area, but to our observation they will recover very soon and they still
have a
beautiful coral life around the Ancon peninsula with beautiful sponges,
fan corals,
many tunnels and some wrecks.
All
the dive sites are less than 10 minutes by boat from the
dive center that is located at the Ancon hotel.
The
most famous Beach-Holiday
place in
Cuba, with over 20 km of fine white sand, is
also an enclave featuring good diving sites from which divers can reach
the
coral reefs and observe caves, channels and a variety of artificial
reefs like sunken
planes and war shipwrecks. Loads
of fish to see: Jacks,
Barracudas, blue groper and more.
Playa
Giron is a beach on the southern coast of Cuba, east of the Bay of Pigs
(famous for the 1961 failed attack on Cuba by the CIA) Located at 71
miles / 114 km from Havana.
There are about 12 dive sites
around the Bay of Pigs. Visibility is excellent in most places,
reaching about 20-40m. The sea temperature ranges from 22 ° C / 72 ° F
in December to 29 ° C / 84 ° F in July. A wetsuit 3 mm short or full
can be used for diving throughout the year.
Bay of Pigs has a long beach all along and the main attraction is the
wall diving, which is very near the sea and divers can dive from shore.
An abundance of corals, sponges and sea fans are a refuge for reef
fish.Barracudas and groupers can also be observed.
For wreck lovers
"The Jaruco" is nearby; which was purposely sunk in 1994. You can find
dive shops in Playa Giron and in the nearby town of Playa Larga.
The
area also have some semi-round lakes called cenotes (same as Mexico),
almost exactly halfway between Playa Larga and Playa Giron. You can
dive in the Cueva de los Peces.
