Report on diving and snorkeling in Guardalavaca

I just came back from a week(Mar8-15,2004) of vacation from
Guardalavaca,Cuba.Due to an unusual wind storm, I was only able to do
3 dives in the 7 days. I was diving with Eagle Ray dive center, one of
the government own dive centers located at the west end of the beach.
When the wind warning hit the red flag, no boat is allow to go out.
The dive center was using a small runabout(20ft) with a regular ladder
for getting in and out. During a rough sea, it was a difficult thing
to do. I had to throw my dive gear over the boat before jumping off
the boat to get to the beach at the end of the dive and I ended up
losing my compus somewhere along the way.
People are friendy and one could either pay each dive at a time or pay
at the end of the vacation, they keep your c card until you paid.
There is a locker room to storage your wet suit and BCD. The three
dive sites that I went have good coral formations, the wall dives were
down to 90 or 110 ft and the shallow one were around 40 feet. The
fishes are colorful and in many varieties but not in quanities. Did
not see many large school of fishes as I did in Turks and Caicos
althought the coral formation is similar.
I stayed at Club Amigo. Love the people, the staff, and hatred the
food, the management, and a TV without remote control. I would
recomand the Sol Rio de Mare or something like that that located at
the other beach (Player Emeralda) that located 5km from our beach,
they have a dive shop right by the hotel.
Snorkeling is good but need to swim for above 300yard to get to the
reef. It is a very shallow beach and not reccomand walking out too far
as they are lot of sea urchins in the water. The best part of the reef
is right in front of the little beach located in front of the old
section of Club Amigo. Please be gentil with the coral as they are
getting less every day. One could kill a coral just by touching it, so
please don't.
Ectalk