Overview & Getting There Far from the hubbub and bustle of the big city of Havana is Playa Pesquero (near the seaside town of Guardalavaca), a still small, newly developed area of Cuba on the northeast coast, some 1200 km from Havana. The nearest international airport servicing this part of Cuba is Holguin - about a one hour bus ride from Playa Pesquero. Our flight was non-stop from Vancouver to Holguin. Due to the triangle routing of the Skyservice charter we used, we stopped at Varadero to drop off and pick up passengers enroute back to Vancouver, which made for a long journey home. This was a two week family trip, planned for Christmas 2003. Holiday packages to Cuba (air, transfers, hotel) were available from British Columbia that were very attractive – a two week holiday over peak season cost less than a one week package during the same period to Cozumel. The attractive pricing and the rumours of an unspoiled country made it a no-brainer decision to check out Cuba – even if I was not able to access much information about diving there. I was able to determine that there was a dive operator on-site for the hotel that we chose (then LTI Costa Verde - it is now a Maritim hotel), that several tanks were offered per day, and that the diving was incredibly cheap. Click on any thumbnail image below to see an enlarged picture. |
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The Resort & Beach There are currently three resorts sprawling down the beach at Playa Pesquero - the LTI Costa Verde (where we stayed), Breezes Costa Verde and the newest, Playa Pesquero Hotel. The three resorts, as well as the local residents, share what is a very pretty and water-accessible beach. All of the hotels in the region are of the all-inclusive generic variety. The nearest town is Guardalavaca, which is about 20 kilometers to the east. Between Playa Pesquero and Guardalavaca is Playa Esmerelda, a reportedly lovely beach as well, with some upscale (at least in Cuban terms) resorts peppering the landscape. LTI Costa Verde (now under new ownership as a German-owned Maritim resort) is rated as a five star hotel. We found that rating to be overly generous. It is a large, fairly new, reasonably well-maintained property with numerous amenities for guests (including a very nice pool area), but the uninspired architecture, sketchy service, tired rooms and lacklustre fare in the restaurants left something to be desired. Still, especially for our combination diving/non-diving family, it worked well and was good value, and of the three resorts on Playa Pesquero, it is the most conveniently located to the dive op. The costs for extras such as diving, excursions and massage were very reasonable. As an example, a one day excursion to Havana (including airfare) was US$180 pp. A one hour horse drawn carriage ride through the lush Cuban countryside was US$10 for a group of five people. A one hour massage at the resort was US$13. Diving costs are outlined below. Tipping in Cuba does not seem to be expected, at least not yet by everyone in contact with the tourists. And I don’t know if some of the people just weren’t clued in, or whether they just really didn’t care to go that extra distance, but service in Cuba was generally pretty marginal. My policy when traveling is to tip anyone and everyone for good service. It’s a pavlovian thing ;^) One delightful
waiter absolutely beamed when we slipped him a sawbuck after an evening
of great service in the hit and miss main restaurant. He told us after
he returned from his much talked about New Year’s day off (which
also celebrates La Revolucion ), that he had used the money to treat
his family to a whole roasted pig, with a nice bottle of rum and good
cigar for himself. He was a happy Cuban that day: family near, good
job, sitting outside the little house on the little plot of well-kept
land planted with banana trees and sugar cane and vegetables and fruit
that could either be consumed or traded in the area co-op, turning a
runty tropical pig on a spit. The one thing that stands out from our stay was the overall great quality of the entertainment. There was the ubiquitous all-inclusive resort evening show every night after dinner. Some of the performances were surprisingly good - Cuban bands, dancers and singers imported to play on stage, and some as wandering minstrels, performed beautifully. All in all, LTI Costa Verde was not a bad place to stay, just not anything very special.
The Diving It is difficult to describe the diving, at least in this part of Cuba, without the words fish deprived coming first to mind. Don’t get me wrong - the terrain itself was lovely and generally very healthy where we were diving (northeast coast of Cuba, not all that far from the southernmost portion of the Nekton Cay Lobos itinerary), but it was alarmingly lacking in large animals. The snagged abandoned nets spun out against the reef tell the story: this area has been massively fished, to the point that in 15 dives I saw only one (juvenile) reef shark, no turtles, no rays, two small eels, a couple of small barracuda, a handful of small grouper and very few large and medium tropicals. There was an abundance of a variety of damselfish (and I do love those belligerent little guys) and a healthy population of very large indigo hamlets, but other than these abundances, there was an alarming lack of fish in the water. The reef itself was a gorgeous garden of a multitude of sponges, hard corals, sea fans and coral whips and I can only imagine what fish life once flourished there. Recreational diving is a fairly new concept in Cuba - a country that was only recently re-opened to western tourists. I imagine that it will be a long time before the Cuban government can be convinced that the creation of marine reserves will in every way be a good thing for the future of the country. The only dive operator for all of Playa Pesquero is Blue World Diving, which, as far as we could make out, is owned by the omniscient Gaviota tourist agency, which in turn, is owned by the Cuban government. Although we brought our own dive gear with us, many of the people diving with us were using (free) loaner gear (including 3 mm shorty wetsuits) supplied by Blue World as part of their diving package. The gear was all Mares and looked to be in very good condition. The tanks supplied were steel 72's with yoke fittings. We were able to reserve a 20 dive package before departure by directly contacting the sales manager at the LTI Costa Verde resort (the contact e-mail addy was sourced through our travel agent). The cost of the package was Cdn$380 (approximately US$290 at time of writing), which works out to an unbelievably cheap Cdn$17 per dive. Due to some stormy weather from the north, a couple days off so we could fly to Havana, and some non-disclosed no diving days on Sundays and public holidays, we only managed to bag 15 dives during a two week stay. I was quite amazed that the hotel pro-rated our dives and discounted (at my request) the dives we were not able to complete. The hotel next door to LTI Costa Verde - Breezes Costa Verde, was actually offering free scuba to certified divers staying at the resort. However, quite a few of those folks reported that there were long lineups to sign up, that they had to sign up daily for the each subsequent day, and that often they were turned away when the boat was reported to be already full. Having pre-reserved our package, we did not have to deal with any of these hassles. As should be predicted, free scuba is not necessarily premium scuba, and divers partaking of free scuba programs are not necessarily good divers. We saw more than a few people crashing on the reef (apparently massively overweighted), quite a bit of unneccessary touching, and in one case, a woman inexplicably standing on the coral, waiting for her buddy to descend. However, the Cuban divemasters were for the most part very professional, other than the occasional display of pufferfish harassment (which they ceased and desisted within our sight when we told them we did not think it was at all cool) and occasional disregard for the reef by throwing down an anchor onto the coral, even when permanent moorings were available at many of the sites. And some of that may have been because of the rough seas we encountered on a few of the morning dives outside of the bay. Blue World uses a local converted fishing boat to take their customers out to the reef. The boat is very basic, and there is no dock with which to access it. The method was to don your gear at the dive shack (the nice little blue house pictured above), waddle down to the water's edge, clamber down a thankfully short slippery wooden ladder over the ironshore and swim out to the boat. Weight belts are handed up and then divers roll out of their gear, also to be handed up to boat crew, and then board the boat themselves via a swim grid. There were no tank racks or camera bins on the boat - basically, all of the stuff was left lying on the deck in a sort of a mass gear orgy. Fortunately the dive sites were located no more than a 15 minute boat ride away from the resort, and some were located just a minute or two from shore. Two tanks were offered in the morning, with the boat returning to shore between dives to refill tanks and swap out divers and divemasters. One afternoon dive was offered daily, and one night dive was offered during our two week visit. We found out very late in our stay that the dudes at Blue World could have arranged a diving excursion to Santa Lucia (two hours by car) to do the bull shark feeding dives that are offered there. There is also apparently a sea water cave dive offered at Playa Esmerelda. Group dives were the norm at Playa Pesquero. Usually that would mean one divemaster with up to ten divers tagging along. I have never been a fan of group dives (that's an understatement). After a couple of days of playing follow the leader, and getting to know the menu of dive sites, I politely enquired if we could be allowed to buddy dive on the shallower second and third dives, as long as we kept an eye on the time and the location of the moored boat. We were fortunate that this was agreed to - but I do believe that they made an exception in our case. Somehow a backplate & wing, pony bottle and digital camera rig seem to earn some respect... ;^) As I mentioned above, the terrain was interesting and quite varied. The top of reef was between 15 and 30 feet (which made for some terrific snorkeling) and dropped off quite steeply at some sites, so that we were able to dive some fairly vertiginous walls and deep cut throughs. We managed several (guided) dives that exceeded 100 feet in depth, and in one case, we stopped at 120 feet (camera limit) and watched a divemaster lead a couple of others from our group well below 130 feet. Helloooooooo... Gas guzzlers were sent up to the boat, and folks that were good on gas were welcome to hang around under the boat, as long as we were back on the boat within an hour. Water temperatures in late December into early January were a balmy 78-80 Suunto degrees. Once the dive was done, it was return to shore the same way you came. Several large rinse tanks and a large gear storage room are available at the dive shop. The gear storage did not look all that secure to us, so we elected to take our stuff back to our room every day, which was a bit of a schlep. A rolling amphibious gear bag would be a good thing. Despite the cattleboat appearances, and the lack of large fish and pelagics, I greatly enjoyed Cuba diving. The Cuban divemasters were good-humoured and seemed very keen to ensure that we were enjoying our dives. The terrain was surprisingly varied for a small bit of coastline, and the apparent good health of the kaleidoscope of sponges and corals was consoling in the face of the lack of fish. As a destination for budget-minded recreational divers who are curious about visiting Cuba, and who are not bothered by guided dives and occasional crowding on the dive boat, all in all I'd give Playa Pesquero and Blue World an enthusiastic thumb up. |
More Information About Diving and Traveling in Cuba: Playa Pesquero: Playa
Pesquero Multimedia Slideshow Havana: Havana
Multimedia Slideshow Maria La Gorda: Maria
La Gorda Multimedia Slideshow
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