I am in a group of Ventures that is planning a trip to the Caribbean for the summer of 2004.
I'm wondering what everyone thinks the best destination is.
We were thinking about Belize and Cuba.
We went to Cuba for two week last Christmas/New Year's and found the diving to be excellent, and that part of the trip to be very reasonably priced. Car rentals were another story. Although we were perfectly free to drive wherever we wanted, this proved a very expensive and rather strenuous way to travel. And beware of the big hotel chains, their mass tourism, and endless nickel and diming.
The diving near Varradero was okay, bu nothing special, with a competent operation boating us out to a couple of small wrecks with moderate growth and some coral on a mostly sand bottom and one too tame nine foot Morray (approached every diver for handouts!), under a fairly choppy sea.
Isla de la Juventud, where I dove with my wife and daughter for four days at--or rather from-- the Colony Hotel was fantastic, with acres of unspoiled, vibrantly alive coral, good fast 42 foot, twin diesel dive boats, excellent divemasters, and very reasonably priced dives. We saw a Whale shark on our very first dive and turtles, sting rays and plenty of small to medium sized fish on other dives.
The Colony, a goverment-run hotel is the only place to stay, but we were pleasantly surprised to find the Cuban staff there very caring and helpful, in pleasant contrast to the slick commercialism we'd endured earlier in Varradero's tourist barrack. It is beautifully situated, with spectacular sunsets over a palm tree dotted beach and a Mojita bar at the end of a long wlakway. Unfortunately, this shoreline stays shallow and is dotted with sea urchins, so swimming must be done with care...but then this is a place that people come--froma all over the world!--to dive, and to relax.
The food at the one restaurant is typical Cuban food, rather bland, but always plentiful, with lots of fresh food, though there are occasional pleasant surprises. The accommodation recently improved with the addition of about a dozen very comfortable and clean new beach bungalows to the rather shabby main block.
An apparently very similar, but much busier operation also exists at Maria La Gorda, where you would be spared the 45 minute boat ride out to the dive sites, and also the cheap but somewhat disconcerting flight from Havana to the Island in one of Cuba's rather ancient short-haul planes.
We also did one dive shore dive at Playa Giron, where very good wall is but a 100 to 150 metres out from shore.
There are other good dive sites along especially the south shore of Cuba. It's definitely a dive destination worth considering, because the reefs seem to have been much better protected than those in much of the Caribbean. Castro was, after all, an enthusiatic diver for many years, and protecting them is one thing that he seems to have done right.
The trick is to avoid the tourist mills and get to the dive spots.
