The Virgin Blogger...

After being in the Kingston area for more than a year, and after multiple invites from Mike, this is my first post on the Club Blog. I finally ran out of excuses, and have decided to stop procrastinating.... so here we go... and please, be gentle....

I just got back from a week of diving in Cuba, more precisely, Playa Pesquero in the Guardalavaca region. This was not my first time in this area, visiting the same resort back in 2005. I was able to get about 10 dives in during my stay there... as well as take some pretty interesting pictures of local sea life. Unfortunately because of the weather, we were unable to dive with very large groupers, which was the reason for my trip there. Cuba has been having very tumultuous weather lately, with a few hurricanes passing by the Holguin region. The resorts, local crops, and coral reefs have suffered severe damage from Hurricane Ike in November. One of our tour bus drivers paid 23 pesos for 5 lbs of sweet potatoes. $1.41 CAD for each CUC pesos. Bear in mind that the average Cuban salary is less than that per month....

Here is a pic of a lionfish, which we saw are quite the common site on most of our dives there. Giant crabs were usually found on most coral reef walls, mostly hidden in crevises.. A couple of Moray Eels, Puffer Fishes, and sea cucumbers made up the seascape as well. Our dives consisted of a deep dive at 9 A.M., max depth most mornings at about 115 ft @ 78 deg F. The next dive of the morning would be at about 80 ft after at least an hour of surface interval.

One piece of advice if you are contemplating a dive vacation to Cuba. If you can bring your own gear, DO IT. All rental gear usually available in Cuba belongs to the government. The gear seldom gets serviced, or gets serviced once there is a major failure. Tanks have no yearly viz done, and I could not see any hydrostat stamps on any of the tanks. The inside of my first stage is now coated with rusty dust particles, probably caused by the dive shop's compressor failure which happened the week prior to me arriving there. I would hate to see what the inside of their rental regulators look like.

Gotta go.. Have to finish warming up with some Cuban Rum , after my immersion today with Mike and Dianne on the Steam Museum Barge. Dive time 31 minutes, water temp 34 deg F... A bit colder than Cuba's 78 degrees last Saturday....