Cuba cave diving

[CaverCraig]

We are planning a trip there in March and I could write something if it turns out to be cool, looks like there are a bunch of caves in two regions mainly and most of them seem to have water from what I can gather.

A very long time ago I did a cave dive in Cozumel at a system by the name of Aerolito de Paraiso. I chartered the dive out with yucatech expeditions. After the dive the owner of the shop told me he was about to go on a expedition to Cuba. If somebody knows him, he may be an invaluable source of Cuban cave diving information.
As for your trip, you really should right out something about the the caves over there and if you have a camera take some nice shots for the rest of us. I hope you have a good trip and find some really nice ones!

Craig

[phillip1]

I definitely plan on writing something and I will also take my video cam with me and also hopefully film the caves we find too.

[harbordiver]

I was in Cuba a couple of years ago vacationing in Veradaro and just asked around at the couple of dive shops about caves. I knew of a couple that are even in guide books but they are now off limits. I was quickly directed to a couple of local cave divers/ open water instructors in Veradaro that make regular trips into the middle of the country diving sink holes in farmers fields to see if they go. In some cases they definately do. My brother in-law and I made a good trip with them into a couple of caves that had had less than ten dives before. While we were at one cave enterance a local boy came up to the group and told us of another cave opening on a farm that none of the divers had heard of. There clearly is a lot of exploration potential.
It is easy to find out what shops have active cave divers in Veradero as everyone will gladly direct you down the road to the "other guy" as no one is really in any competition with each other. As for equipment, in Veradero there are no double tanks and the local guys were really jealous of my backplate. They do, however, have lots of large steel tanks with H-valves. In fact that is all the one shop with nitrox uses for all dives. They just cap the h for recreational dives. If I can find the name of the place the cave divers worked at I will repost. I would love to get back to Cuba to do some more poking around but it is difficult now that I live in the US.
hope this helps,
shaun

[Phil]

Went there 3 years ago. We were cave divers but did not think there could be caves there so we did not bring any cave gear. We had a contact to dive outside a organize tour... so the guy took us at ''Pig Bay'' for some wall diving. BTW, at PIG Bay, how deep do you want to go the guide asked us, we said how deep are you willing to go? He said I will follow you, the wall become with a angle around 310'... he said.

But, if we come back to the caves, when he knew we were cave divers, he bring us just the other side of the road. He showed us 3 different cave entrances. He wanted to bring us but we were with single tanks, SL4 as light and no real... so we said no!

If you get someone to bring you, you probably wont have doubles, so if you bring a sidemount rig, would br the best. Or dive one tank + stages as if you were sidemount. The other thing in Cuba, dont ask when was the last VIP on the tank!

Phil

[ergray]

A few weeks ago I was with German, the owner of Yucatech expeditions in Cozumel and he told me about the caves in Cuba, apparently they have a very similar Geological structure a the Cenotes that we have here, but with a lot of quartz in them, reflecting the light in an amazing way, I'll try to go next year.

Contact German, he was exploring and training guides there, I'm sure that he will give you all the insights, http://www.yucatech.net/contactus.htm

A lot of americans fly through Cancun, is very cheap and there are like 3 flights a day to la Habana.

If you get to dive there don't forget to post some pics.

Hope this helps, cheers,

Ernesto.

[CaverCraig]

A few weeks ago I was with German, the owner of Yucatech expeditions in Cozumel and he told me about the caves in Cuba, apparently they have a very similar Geological structure a the Cenotes that we have here, but with a lot of quartz in them, reflecting the light in an amazing way, I'll try to go next year.

Contact German, he was exploring and training guides there, I'm sure that he will give you all the insights, http://www.yucatech.net/contactus.htm

A lot of americans fly through Cancun, is very cheap and there are like 3 flights a day to la Habana.

If you get to dive there don't forget to post some pics.

Hope this helps, cheers,

Ernesto.

That sounds kind of weird that their would be any sort of quarts in a lime stone cave. Quartz is igneous in nature while limestone is a sedimentary rock. I bet that who ever made that observation had mistaken it for Dogtooth spar a calcite crystal which is common in caves. Or the other possible canidate would be argonite a polymorph of Calcite caused by Magnesium poisening it is other wise meta stable at surface pressue temprature gradients. It sounds like the Glory hole cave but flooded.

[Taucher-Tom]

hi Phillip,

I knew it would take a while and I had to dig deep but finally found it.

A German cave diver is frequently in Cuba and explored some really nice caves there.

He wrote a little booklet and I made a file from the map he draw.

It´s attached together with the content and in the booklet there is information like maps and "facilities" with phone numbers.

Let me know if this is where you will be going and if you need more information

[Phil]

Hi again,
I just found pictures of 2 caves entrances in Cuba in the Pig bay area (just on the other side of the road, a little walk in the jungle...).

Here to enjoy (hope it will work!).





Phil

[aleksi]

I've met a mexican cave instructor (iantd, cds) who said he'd been cavediving in cuba a lot and had contacts there. You could contact him for more info. He was even willing to arrange training there.

Juan Carlos Carrillo
cmascaves@yahoo.com.mx, undergrounddiving@gmail.com
(52) 55 5554 2645


(This is then my first post, I hope it's at least a little useful)

-Aleksi

[phillip1]

Cool thanks for all the info, from looking at google & the posted map it seems that the bay of pig/playa giron has the most visible sinks we will probably start there and hopefully be able to wander around and dive the various sinks and caves without too much access problems.