(11-05-10) I had only been once in the Caribbean and I the truth is I didn’t like it very much, but having been in Jardines de la Reina has opened my eyes. It is the paradise: the place, the sharks, the people, everything.

    The trip begins in Madrid, where the group meets to go to Havana on a 10 hours flight. We were lucky and the plane was half empty, so we were very comfortable. When check in the hand bag, photographers have to be careful, because I had to leave it in the deck, and I was very worried. I took everything fragile with me. Other photographers traveling with me didn’t have any problem, so maybe it is a lottery.

    Once at the airport in Havana the best thing to do is to go by taxi (a small van) to the hotel, to carry all the equipments. It is more comfortably and cheaper, as all of them are in the same vehicle. Usually, you get the hotel in the evening. It depends on the flight, of course. It is interesting to spend the first day visiting Havana and resting, since we’ll have to travel more to get Jardines, almost as many hours as we flew. The following day, Avalon people contacted us to prepare the transfer to Jardines.

    At 4 o’clock in the morning a tour for some hotels begins. They pick up all the clients with a spacious bus, so comfort is assured for this long trip. We spent almost 6 hours to get Júcaro. This trip allows us to see some of the Cuban landscapes, if we are awake. Once at the port we take a ship that will carry us to paradise. The trip is lasts about 5 hours. We enjoy a constant rain all the voyage. Fortunately, the following day it was sunny and it remains so all the days.

    Once you arrive to Jardines de la Reina you all are divided between the floating hotel La Tortuga and the ships aboard. These ships are for divers and fishers. As you arrive in the evening, you have time for a check dive.

The Mangroves and the Tortuga

    Seeing it on the television has nothing to do with seeing it alive. It is wonderful how these plants can survive in salty water. What surprises me the most is that boat divers do not get lost in this labyrinth. The Tortuga is in the middle of them, which makes it be very calm. Sunsets in the Tortuga are spectacular, watching the mangroves.

    They are islands with life in the midst of so much water. You can find every kind of birds living there. Also crocodiles are their inhabitants. Bus the animal I have liked the most are the hutias. They are rodents as big as a cat and feeds on mangrove leaves. To attract them we bring them oranges. It is very funny to see them taking the oranges with their small legs.

    The Tortuga is a former hosting of a Canadian oil rig that searched oil in Cuba. It was bought by Avalon and converted into a hotel. Rooms are very wide in general, with two bunk beds in each one. The bathroom is wide as well, and it is very well equipped. The dining room is simple but wide. The diving area is also wide and very comfortable. In the back area once can relax. There is a large table there and a bar where the staff serves delicious mojitos.

 

    In the evening you can be lucky and receive the visit of Franco. It is a crocodile almost 4 meters long. It is very funny to see him arriving so calm and leaning on a rope that fixes the base of the Tortuga. He always arrives on the side of the dinning room, where they give him a chicken thigh. It is scary to see how he devours it.

Diving with sharks

    It is not the first time I see sharks when I dive, but I had never imagine being so close that I could touch them. It is an amazing feeling. The adrenaline rush is tremendous. It is too complicated to explain it with words, but I will try. Guides give you a set of rules for your safety. If you follow them you won’t have problems. Mainly, you never hit them. It is advisable to wear gloves because the white of our hands can attract them if we are close to food.

    Obviously, for the sharks to be so close they need a lure and it is food. Depending on the sort of shark they feed them. If they are silky sharks they feed them at the end of the dive from the boat. If they are Caribbean reef shark, which use to swim deeper, they take bags with one or two fishes inside down. These fishes use to be mackerels. They put the bag under a stone or in a crevice, depending on the dive. Only in one of the dives they weren’t able to recover the nylon, as they call the black bag.

    I think that this kind of feeding is less aggressive for both sharks and divers. They give them very little food, so the animal does not depend exclusively on man. They know that listening to engines means food, but they are not anxious.

    In one of the dives I was so close to the food that they bit my tank some times. I felt the blows, but I was so excited taking pictures and enjoying the spectacle that I didn’t realize. Fausto was careful and pulled me out until we had any problem.

    The most exciting moment of the dive is when sharks find the food and fall in ecstasy. It is advisable to be some far from them at that time, not to get an unnecessary snap. At the end of the dive, when there is none in the water but you and sharks, it is awesome. They are very quiet and approach you to pry.

The dives

    There are more things that sharks. They are easy dives from 5 to 35 meters deep, although if we wanted we could go much deeper. Anyway, live is there so there is no need to go down. Generally there are no currents, and in case there are, they are not strong. There are Caribbean dives and others in which you go out and come back to the same point. The first two in the morning are for seeing sharks and groupers, which also approach to eat.

    There are two dives in the morning and one in the afternoon. We always start from the Tortuga. We get up ant 7 am and take a coffee or an orange juice they bring to the room, and then we go to the dining room. Depending on the distance to the diving point we take or not the necessary tanks to the boat.

    The dive depends on the sort of shark. For the Caribbean ones we begin hiding the food in a hole between the 15 and 20 meters. Once the spectacle is finished you continue in the reef, where you can find all kinds of gorgonian, white corals and all sizes and colours fishes. They are not the colours you find in the Red Sea, but it has nothing to envy regarding variety. You can meet turtles and sometimes also tarpons. With luck any hammerhead shark can appear and, depending on the season, also any whale shark.

    If you go to see silky sharks you meet them form the very first moment you enter the water, but first you dive in the reef and finish when you begun, and the shows starts. They come to get the food pulled from the boat.

    Sponges will delight us with their shapes, colours and size. Good pictures of the environment are assured. Macro lovers will have also many choices: from gobies to cleaning shrimps. Lobsters are other attraction: very big and many.

The guides

    Carlos had already said to me that guides were very professional and funny. And it is completely true. Noel and Fausto make dives easy and they give you confidence before sharks, as they are always alert and if they see any odd behaviour they are the first ones to stand in front of you.

    What so different personalities. Noel is nicest and he is always attentive and calm. And Fausto is always making jokes. We spend very good evenings with mojitos and jokes, he telling stories of his military time.

    To me, this is the Paradise. It can seem exaggerated, but it is the strong feeling you have of peace and quietness, of being far from civilization. You would forget the day you are living if it weren’t because of the dives schedule. It is a whole set of feelings, both outside and inside the water. It is the treatment of people, the group I’ve come with, the sunsets, the sharks, groupers, corals… everything. I can say with no doubt that this is one of the best trips I’ve ever made. I am sure that there will be more places with more sharks, more colours or more fishes, but I am not sure that many of them have it all.

    And regarding the group… it had been long time that I laughed so much in a group. Each of us with our characteristics understood each other perfectly. Sometimes, the fact of not knowing each other offers many opportunities and pleasant surprises like having made such good friends.

    Thank you very much to Nati, Carlos, Merci, Jorge, Antonio and Miguel for having contributed so significantly to make this one of the best trips I’ve ever made.

    More information about the trip: carlos.suarez@cubandivingcenters.com 

Text and Pictures: Carmelo Andrades
Equipo Fotosub Buceo Virtual