Cuba has never really been top of my list for places to visit or dive in, other than the famous “Jarines de la Riena” area where most divers I know have gone to dive at, however, I wasn’t aware of any cave diving in Cuba, until last year, when Alberto Lorenzo Luya, posted some adds on facebook, which I managed to see.
I immedatiely messaged him to arrange for this year, and a trip I was planning for a different cave diving location, was quickly postboned for another year, to get Cuba done first, as I thought the unique experience merited a higher priority.
Because of logistics in arranging and reaching the caves in Cuba, it was best to join a group, so I was sent the dates groups were taking part the expedition, and I choose January to attend. I arrived a few days earlier though, as I wanted to do some sightseeing in Cuba and also dive the reefs in the sea!
Caribbean Sea Diving
Although nowhere near what the “Jardines de la Reina” can compare to (never been but can see from friends photos), diving in the sea in Cuba was interesting, seeing similar marine life to what I’ve already seen in Mexico, Cozumel and Dominican Republic.
Transport is an issue in Cuba, due to fuel shortages, so my dives where all done off the “shore” just crossing the road from the dive centre. It’s just off the rural area of Miramar in Havana, but the reefs are quite nice. There is also a restriction on having a boat in Cuba, so again, shore dive was the only option.
I took the chance to do a check dive with my sidemount gear anyways, which is the gear I currently use for caving. The last time I used it, was back in April last year for a cave in Spain, and I had not had a chance to do a sidemount check dive at home before leaving this time!
It was hot in the sun, most days at almost 30’c, but we had to wear long trousers to avoid getting stung by Guao, a poisonous plant in Cuba. They say you have to be fit and healthy for diving, but I believe, with Cave Diving it is even more important. Cave Diving is not just the diving part, but also the carrying of heavy gear through uneven terrains, climbing up and down through caves, and in hot and hazardous environments, to reach the water! For this reason, these types of caves can only be dived in sidemount configuration.
My first cave diving trip was to Mexico, with the area very “commercialised for tourists”. Although most of the caves where found deep inside the jungles, access was very easy, reaching them in a pick-up truck via dirt roads and wooden or tiled paths and steps right up to the water’s edge! In Mexico, twinsets were ok for cave diving.
Dominican Republic was a little wilder, this is when I decided to take the sidemount course before travelling there, with access harder. However, Cuba brings accessing caves to a whole new level! These caves were in fact the most challenging to reach in all sorts of manner. Cuba is not well known for caving (yet), and I believe Alberto is one of the only, if not only person that can take you cave diving in Cuba, having the expertise to deal with all the logistics and challenges in been able to do so!
In fact, it is illegal to access any cave in Cuba. Only Cuban Speleologist’s have special access for scientific research, and Alberto has a permit to take divers with him. A similar system to Gibraltar, though here in Cuba, very little has been explored, mapped or known about their caves yet, Alberto is doing a fantastic job with scientific research in these submerged underwater caves of Cuba.
Day 1 of Cave Diving – Juanelo Pierda
Juanelo Pierda, named after the discoverer, is found around 1 hours’ drive from Havana, and is accessed on a sort of dirt road, 1 km away from the tarmacked road, in the middle of nowhere!
The cave has multiple submerged underground passages. What is special about this cave, are the special formations found inside; glass like crystal stalactites and even Helictites, which I think is extremely rare to find underwater!
The utmost caution must be used to access this area of the cave. Extremely fragile formations can be lost in seconds, if a diver accidently touches or kicks it with their fins! The roof is low and a very tight restriction (a squeeze in caver terms) must be negotiated, to fit into this area. I had done the training and practise for this various times, but it was my first time actually putting it into effect! One must remove a tank and place it in front of you, to be able to pass! In more extreme situations, and thankfully not in this cave or trip, sometimes it is necessary to remove both tanks to fit through a tight restriction!
Not only do you have to be physically fit, but also mentally! We are talking about been metres or sometimes kilometres inside a cave system, with no fast way out, in case of an emergency. Specialised training and lots of redundant equipment is taken in these dives, including a lot of spare gas, for these reasons. It has been at times, that I have been at least over 2 hours away from the exit! So now put all this into perspective, and you add 2 tight restrictions you have passed, knowing you are already in an underground environment far away from the exit, and to top it up, a huge underwater camera setup! For this reason, I believe I have truly built up my cave diving experience to a high level. But one does not simply stop learning, every cave dive is a learning point, and still, there are courses and training I will be adding to my cave diving, in the very near future!
Inside, there are also bones; remains of a pre-historic creature; Megalocnus can be seen. Again, the utmost caution must be taken not to disturb the area, as these bones are been studied as part of the scientific research project, and it is a privileged that I could see them for myself and document footage on them, to show all of you. Something that most other caves in the world would not allow and areas be sectioned off from cave divers!
Day 2 of Cave Diving – Luis Pierda
Again, a cave which is named after it’s discover. This cave is in very close proximity to the one done the previous day, but it is very well hidden, and far more difficult to reach and access!
A car takes us through overgrown vegetation, up to a part where the path becomes dense with trees, and can only be carried on by foot! We have the help of local people that live near the area, to carry some of our gear, on a 5 to 10 minute trek, in the blistering heat! These people are called “Guajiros”, meaning in llanito terms “gente del campo”.
Upon arriving at the cave, I soon realise it’s a hole in the ground! A 3 metre drop, gets you into the small entrance, but looks can be deceiving. Inside this cave, hundreds of metres of underwater cave passages are found.
Here SRT (Single Rope Technique) and caving equipment for vertical climbs does not exist. Any old rope tied around a tree just outside the entrance made do for the climb up and down, and the hoisting of heavy dive gear!
Once inside, I hear the screeching of bats in the distance, surely disturbed from their naps, from our noise and lights nearby as we kitted up by the water’s edge. I turn on my torch to have a look around, and I see a frog on the rocks, just staring at me! Here we get true vibes of proper cave diving in the remote Cuban Island.
The cave itself, although no restrictions found in this one, an extremely complex area exists, with many galleries branching off in all directions. A true labyrinth, which can easily get an un-trained cave diver lost and killed! At each “T junction” we place a marker, letting us know where we came from. We ended up going through 14! And a lot more could be seen around, which we didn’t access, this cave is massive! It’s hard to visualise the cave system in one’s head, because there are so many routes and mapping has still not been carried out, though this is something in mind for the team’s scientific research project!
At the beginning of the cave, a lot of life is found underwater! Blind cave fish and shrimp which have adapter to living in pitch black waters! I’ve seen these before in Mexico!
A small air bubble can also be found along the way. These are air pockets which are chambers found above the water level at the surface. These are how cave openings are formed, when the ceiling no longer supports the weight and collapses in itself In this case, the ceiling is solid and still standing… for now at least! Although the chambers are out of the water, we cannot breathe in them, as the gases inside them maybe be deadly to us! They maybe contain low oxygen, but usually the issue is high concentrations of carbon dioxide, which is produced by the dissolving of limestone during a cave’s formation, in a complex chemical reaction, I will not get into details of here! In other cases, chambers can also contain poisonous hydrogen sulphide!
Towards the “end” (still more to be explored) of the cave, some Human remains are found! I believe carbon dating was done on some samples which were taken out, and results came back as been around 300 years old. It is a bit of a mystery how these bones are here! 300 years ago, the cave would have already been flooded, no scuba existed, and it’s a very long way in from the entrance! Some theories suggest that the person was already dead and washed into this area by strong flows of water underground. Another theory suggests that a burial site is nearby, and the bones could have dropped from the ceiling, though the ceiling looked quite solid to us! Of particular interest, is also that the bones are huge! Scientific research suggests that they belong to an African Slave, from the type of bone density found in the remains.
Finally, as you can see from the photos of this cave, the formations are very dark, and the cave is also very dark, with no light reflecting off the walls, unlike in the other cave. This is due to the karst environment. Sediments, minerals, and other compositions in the area, make the colours of the cave, by way of filtration process, when the cave was once dry. Note the bright red sands on the ground also, similar to our red sands in Gibraltar, and an indicator of high levels of iron in the rocks/ground.
Towards the end of the line in yesterday’s cave; Juanelo Pierda, which is in very close proximity, the cave starts to turn to the colours found in Luis Pierda, and towards the end of Luis Pierda some white formations start to appear. It is possible that these two caves connect, and one day this will be the case, when the explorers have a chance to lay more line in yet to be explored chambers and passages!
Day 3 of Cave Diving – Cueva De Los Peces
On our third day of cave diving, we head out to Cueva De Los Peces, which is almost a 3 hour’s drive from Havana! Some other caves are also found in this area, so we move to accommodation closer by for the next few days.
The cave’s name comes from the fact there are many fishes (“Peces” in Spanish) found inside. Again, the cave as with others, has not yet been fully explored, but it is believed a section of the cave connects to the sea, which is just a few hundred metres away, and where the fishes are probably coming from!
The cave consists of three large “lakes” connected with each through a small “corridor”. This corridor is in fact a fissure, a fracture caused probably by tectonic activity in the past. The lakes itself are huge chambers which has collapsed into itself, with the ceiling on the ground, forming what appears to be an open lake!
The main “lake” has become a tourist attraction, a similar setup to what can be seen in Mexico, and has a depth of 60 to 70m!
We start our dive at the middle “lake”, which is accessed through a small path in the jungle. This area is not open to tourist, and we can soon see why! The water is filthy, and a strong smell of rotten eggs, soon gives away, that the waters are contaminated with the decaying of vegetation which has fallen in, forming hydrogen sulphide! It was quite interesting gearing up in this “sewage water”!
Once ready, we descend down orange waters with 0 visibility, before the water turn crystal clear… we are now inside the fissure! Average depth is around 32 metres, with an area which we must pass at 37 metres. Because of its depth, this dive is not only a cave dive, but also a technical one, as we must complete decompression stops afterwards, and we are also carrying a stage, for both extending the range of the dive and for the deco time!
It’s around 300 metres to traverse from the fissure, and end up in the main lake, where the water is less contaminated and clearer, and where we will do our deco stops. Half way through the cave we see opposing arrows on the line next to each other, marking the midway point. Here we check our gases, and see we have enough gas to continue. As we enter the cavern zone of the touristy lake, we start to reach our turn pressure, but the plan was to come out here instead.
The cave itself was quite a different dive to the previous two. This was a fissure cave, so no formations and just a swim through a long corridor, and also salt water, but none the less something new to experience! In total, due to only been able to source air as tank fills, we did around 45 to 50 minutes of deco!
Day 4 of Cave Diving – El Brinco 2
Again, this one is a large “lake” near Playa Giron. A large chamber which has collapsed into itself and contains more underground passages, flooded over time.
Today we are taken on a small 4x4 Jeep from a local dive centre from Playa Larga, where we had stayed the night, pulling a small trailer with all our gear. It takes us around 1 hour to cover 50km in a very bumpy road, and then head off-road through a small track into the Jungle. The lake is not so far from the main road and a small path which has been cut with machetes, is not too far of a walk to reach the water’s edge!
Upon dropping our gear by the lake, we walk past a memorial stone, a grim reminder of the dangers in cave diving, FOR THOSE NOT TRAINED IN CAVE DIVING! It was actually a few days pago, that we got news of a cave diving death in the Cueva Del Agua in Murcia, Spain, a place where I frequently dive in. Yesterday the media reported, the diver had no cave training!
In El Brinco 2, two scuba divers went missing in 2014, 11 years ago. They were never found. That is until our experienced guide Alberto, found the two bodies last year! One was a local Cuban dive guide and the other, a Swiss tourist. I won’t get into details as it’s not nice. I believe no one in Cuba is trained to recover the bodies and Alberto and his team will be doing so in the future.
As with all the other caves in Cuba, none have been fully explored or mapped! The bodies were discovered 20 minutes away from the original “end of the line”, and even after reaching them, Alberto and team added another 200/300 metres of line, with the cave promising to continue even more! Due to the nature of the bodies found along the new route, they decided to cut the line, to discontinue the route, and this area can only can be accessed with a “jump”. A jump is when you connected from one line to another with a reel and markers. This will allow them to continue exploring and reach the bodies, but stop other divers from continuing past this point, until further notice.
Now let’s talk about the cave! It is an eerie one. The bottom is contaminated in really thick clouds of hydrogen sulphide, it is a dark cave, the waters have a tinged of green, and we have a double halocline!
The top layer is mostly fresh but not in its entirety, followed by a layer of what appear to be the colour white in the sulphur clouds, but as you descent into them (it is fine to swim through for a few seconds and won’t cause any poisonous symptoms), this layer actually turns orange! You then get the disturbance of the layers, if you have a diver swimming in front of you, causing blurred vision, which is something cave divers are trained to deal with, and won’t panic and swim through with ease (unlike untrained cave divers). Coming out of the Hydrogen Sulphide, we enter salt water! Here our buoyancy changes and we must become more negative to become neutral in this layer! Although I have dived in other caves before and swam through its layers like the one in El Brinco 2, it’s the first time I experience a DOUBLE halocline!
It’s easy to see how untrained cave divers can experience an accident in this cave!
Just when we reach the end of the line that Alberto has cut, the cave becomes crystal clear and very impressive, it’s a shame we could not continue inwards this time. Perhaps in the future.
Day 5 of Cave Diving – Chicharrones
Today we head back to Havana, and on our way, there is a cave in the remote Jungles near Bolondron. Power Outages are an issue in Cuba due to fuel shortages, so we almost had to cancel our last cave dive, due to having issues getting air fills in Playa Large, but miraculously, came back minutes before we were about to depart, and we managed to fill our tanks!
We reach the area via a dirt road, and then proceed the rest of the way trekking, whilst our gear is taken by some Guajiros with a small farm tractor, as the path is cut with machetes to a very remote and hidden location.
The dry section of the cave is huge! It’s a bit of a scramble down to the water. As I start my way down, I hear what seems to be someone’s tank leaking! The deeper in I get, I soon realise it’s actually the screeching of bats, some flying overheard. A massive colony living in this cave. I’ve never seen so many bats in one cave before. It was jaw dropping!
It’s a deep cave, with the cave been at 27 metres. For this reason we are taking a stage both for gas consumption and decompression afterwards. This makes the cave dive also a technical one!
The best parts of this cave, is the cavern area, where many beautiful speleothem formations are found, and the remains of a pre-historic creature; Megalocnus are found. We had already seen some bones belonging to this same type of creature in Juanelo Pierda, but in this cave, the remains were more intact and of a bigger scale.
The cavern area’s deepest part is around 10m, and connects to the main cave at 27m via a steep vertical underwater shaft! The cave then becomes a corridor with some side chambers at times and bright iron rich red sands along the way.
Because of the distance travelled at a deep depth in and then back out, we did a total of 45 minutes of deco stops on air.
Although this was our last planned cave dive of our Cuban Expedition, we did an extra day of cave diving the day after at Juanelo Pierda again, as everyone was fascinated by the cave, and we believe it is the best in the whole of Cuba!
Below are videos of our Cuban Expedition:
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