Cuba Is A Scuba Divers Dream

Just 50 miles off the southern coast of Cuba is a dive site called Farallón, a location that is part of an open secret in the diving community.

Farallón is located in the archipelago of Jardines del la Reia.  It is an are of about 367 square miles that has been aggressively protected  by the Cuban Government.  As a result the dive site is considered immaculate and a must destination for divers worldwide.  However, you would have to be a lucky one to get in.  There is a restriction of about 1500 divers per year and access is granted on a first-come first-serve basis.

If you do manage to get access… You are practically guaranteed to be amazed.

Read on for a first hand account of what it is like to dive this amazing site …..

Over the course of the week’s 15 dives, I swim with barracuda, tarpon, and massive grouper. I run my hand over the tail of a limber crocodile as it glides past me like a prehistoric missile. Massive southern stingrays give a good show but, always skittish, keep their distance. And I visit with two critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles. The lush meadows on the ocean floor conceal a labyrinthine network of pits and passages that shelter the reef’s smallest inhabitants, from schools of tiny, nearly translucent fish to fearless baby moray eels, no bigger around than a pencil. That the reef is teeming with juvenile sea life is one of the most convincing signs of its overall health.

My last dive of the trip starts with a violent, 14-shark feeding frenzy, an amazing display of ferocity and carnage as a living cyclone of large Caribbean Reef sharks go after a weathered metal chum box filled with fish carcasses. Swirling above the sea floor, the sharks make quick work of fish remains, and the water is soon cloudy with guts and detritus.

We slowly ascend from 80 feet, and I look up to find we’re surrounded by thousands of tiny comb jellies, illuminated by sunlight, each about an inch long. As I push up into the heart of the jelly swarm, their transparent bodies pulse with a rainbow of colors. They hang perfectly still in the water, like a galaxy of translucent stars.

Read the full story here on bloomberg.com

See next page below for a video of this amazing dive site…