Walt Stearns explores Cuba’s fabled Jardines de la Reina – the Gardens of the Queen – and is enthralled by the legions of sharks waiting to greet him beneath the surface
Glancing over the side of the boat as we suited up for the dive at a site known as Montana Rusa, I could see we had company. They were easy to discern by their bronze colouration, which had a silky radiance. Sure enough, as soon as we entered the water, the silky shark welcoming committee was there to meet us.
At this and several other dive sites in Cuba’s Jardines de la Reina (Gardens of the Queen) marine park, silky sharks (Carcharhinus falciformis) seemed to favour areas where the reef skirts the edge of the continental shelf. Below us, a mini wall beginning at a depth of 16m took a steep drop down to a depth of 27m before turning into a gentle slope to around 38m-42m. Between this mini wall and the abyss, a series of 13 to 16-metretall coral formations seemed to be the favourite haunt of our pelagic friends. But the terrain below was also home to variety of large reef predators.
One predator that you won’t escape here is the Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi). During an entire week of diving in the Gardens, I recall only one dive that I didn’t see at least one of these sharks. More often, reef sharks seemed to make a concerted effort to photo-bomb the shot every time I set out to shoot a wide-angle scenic. Don’t get me wrong, I found it to be a good thing.
A tall, majestic stand of pillar coral looks nice in the lens, but it needs something extra. Cue the reef sharks and wait for it! Now the shot looks more interesting. But sharks were not all that was there. Also on the list are horse-eyed jacks, tarpon, large cubera and dog snapper. The most attention-getting was the resident population of Nassau, black and yellowfin grouper. While Nassau’s can still be readily seen in places like Little Cayman and the Brac, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, other species of large grouper native to the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean have become a rare commodity.
But here in the Gardens of the Queen, it’s a different story. No matter what reef site we visited, the abundance of big grouper patrolling the reefs was truly impressive. Adding to the pleasure of seeing a robust grouper population, the likes I have not witnessed in close to 35 years, was the lack of fear they had for divers. Several stayed with us from start to finish of nearly every dive. In addition to the Garden’s robust population of Nassau, black and yellowfin grouper, there is a high probability of meeting the largest member of the grouper family – the Goliath grouper. Goliaths (Epinephelus itajara) can grow to weights in excess of 180kg. During both my first visit in 2019 and my more-recent return trip, we were rewarded with the company of a few highly social puppies in the 36kg-54kg range that made a habit of being completely underfoot. Think about it! Where else can you go in the Caribbean to see that?
Cuba’s Gardens of the Queen
For years, this huge island south of the Florida Keys was a forbidden fruit for Americans to visit due to sanctions imposed by our State Department. It was in the late 1990s that I began hearing reports and rumours from a few who made the journey inside the island nation.
But as things tend to change, parts of the sugarcane curtain came down opening the door and providing opportunities for intrepid divers who felt Cuba was ripe for exploration. Today, the simplest way is by means of a Cultural People-to-People Visa. One of the most-desirable destinations accessible under this plan is the Jardines de la Reina – the Gardens of the Queen.
Named by Christopher Columbus to honour the Queen of Spain, Isabella I of Castile, the Gardens of the Queen is part of Cuba’s second-largest archipelago, running parallel to the main island’s southern coast for 150km in a north-west to south-east direction. Separated some 96km from the mainland by the Gulf of Ana Maria, the Garden’s collection of small islands and mangrove forests spans an area of approximately 2,170km2 in size.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, the archipelago was known as the personal playground of Fidel Castro, who held a strong interest in scuba diving. While that helped in keeping commercial fishing interests at bay, a more-concrete form of protection came into play in 1996 with the establishment of a large swath of the archipelago as a marine reserve. In 2010, Jardines de la Reina was reestablished as a national park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Jardines de la Reina) making it one of Cuba’s largest protected and most-pristine marine environments. More than 60 percent of the park is comprised of seagrass beds, which serve as vital nursery areas for young fish and lobster.
Today, under the regulatory eye of the Cuban Sciences and Environment Ministry, the park is opened to a single liveaboard dive operation – Avalon Outdoor. The purpose of this access is twofold. First, limiting access to about 2,000 annual visitors mitigates pressure on the marine ecosystem. The other reason is that it takes considerable funds to enforce protection. The problem here is that the Cuban Government does not have the finances to do it alone, which is where Avalon comes in.
Avalon Outdoor
Avalon Outdoor’s presence in Cuba began sometime around 1992 with a 33-metre double-deck houseboat named the Tortuga, which stayed permanently inside the park along with a refurbished 21-metre 1970s-era yacht configured for diving.
“Cut to the present, both the houseboat and vintage yacht are gone, replaced by a sizable fleet of modern dive yachts”
Cut to the present, both the houseboat and vintage yacht are gone, replaced by a sizable fleet of modern dive yachts. Looking over the list, there is the 33-metre Jardines Avalon I (JA1) introduced in 2010, the 36-metre Jardines Avalon II (JA2), as well as the 39-metre Jardines Avalon F1 and F2 in 2014. And it doesn’t end there. There is also the 48-metre Jardines Avalon III (JA3) brought online in 2019, followed by the 54-metre Jardines Avalon IV (JA4) going online the following year.
For the record, Aggressor Fleet’s two boats, the Jardines Aggressor I and II, are actually the Avalon JA1 and JA2, which are operated by Avalon Outdoor. Either way you cut it, you have a total of six vessels, making this the single largest liveaboard fleet in the Caribbean. In addition to Aggressor Fleet’s presence, All Star Liveaboards promotes their diving excursions to the Gardens of the Queen through Avalon Outdoor as well.
Avalon’s large-scale presence not only gives divers access to some of the most-exciting and varied diving in the Caribbean, it also creates a symbiotic relationship with the park. In addition to helping finance the park, Avalon’s trip programmes fund marine biologists working in the Jardines de la Reina. Biologists are hosted on each boat and provide guests with short presentations nightly about the history, marine ecology, and current ongoing conservation measures.
When visiting Cuba in 2019 and again in 2023, I had the pleasure of staying on Avalon’s two biggest boats, the JA3 and JA4. The JA3 can accommodate up to 30 guests in 15 cabins (11 standard and four balcony suites), while the JA4 accommodates a total of 40 guests split between 20 cabins (12 standard, four demi suites and four balcony suites) spread out between two deck levels. All cabins feature air-conditioning, two beds (double or twin), and ensuite bathrooms with full showers. A 12-member crew provides daily housekeeping and laundry service All electrical outlets on board provide 110/230 volts AC, 60Hz with American-style flat two-pin plugs as standard, along with USB ports. You can obtain all that info and more by visiting Avalon’s, All Star and Aggressor Adventures’ websites. Amazingly, despite each vessel’s generous guest and crew complement, you don’t really feel like you’re on a crowded boat. This is attributed to the ample space devoted to both vessel’s salons, dining room and upper sun deck areas, which are compete with outdoor bar and hot tubs providing a panoramic view. As for the dive deck down to the main deck, it is by far the largest, roomiest layout I have seen to date on any liveaboard.
The aft dive deck provides each diver with ample personal storage and rigging space along each rail, with a pair of large two-tier camera tables in the middle and tank filling console aft, plus something divers may find curious -fishing rod racks mounted to the ceiling.
Except for the Aggressor boats, the rest of the Avalon fleet operates in a dual capacity as a mothership for scuba divers and recreational fly and light tackle flyfishermen. In addition to the Gardens of the Queen’s diving, this marine park is also noted for its superb tarpon, bonefish, and permit fishing – all of which is exclusively done as catch-and-release. As for mixing between these two groups, about the only time you will generally see the anglers is in the morning for breakfast, after which a small fleet of flat skiffs arrive to whisk them away for most of the day, returning in the late afternoon in time for libations at the bar up top, followed by dinner. The diving itself is not conducted directly from the ship as it is generally done in the rest of the Caribbean. Instead, due to the vast geography of the Garden of the Queens, divers are transported to dive sites via one of their ten-metre dive tenders, which are powered by a pair of 150hp Yamaha four-stroke outboards. By making use of launches, Avalon seldom needs to reposition their boats once on station, treating the larger boats more like floating hotels than dive cruisers. Depending on the number of divers on board each given trip, Avalon will deploy two to four boats to better spread everyone out. The dive schedule begins with a morning two-tank departure, generally followed by a single-tank afternoon and/or night dive. Dive times are kept to around 55 to 65 minutes based in part on the profile site, with the deepest dives first. Maximum depths are kept to 36m, with 27m-33m deemed as the most desired.
For those opting for nitrox, 32 percent is the standard blend. In the rental department, Cressi is the primary brand. Post-dive at the floating hotel, divers have access to fresh hot water showers on the aft swim step along with a towel straight out of the dryer. Should that dive be the last one of the day, the crew will likely offer you a freshly made mojito to wash away the leftover salt taste from the dive.
“The underwater topography of the Jardines de la Reina reefs is close to what you would expect to find on the spur-and-groove coastal reefs of Belize and the Cayman Islands”
As for the diving…
The underwater topography of the Jardines de la Reina reefs is close to what you would expect to find on the spur-andgroove coastal reefs of Belize and the Cayman Islands. Where the similarities start to end is when you are venturing out towards the drop, as I first described earlier. Instead of steep, vertical walls, the bottom terrain is a gentle slope to depths of 36m-45m, punctuated by massive coral pinnacles rising abruptly from the depths to within 19m of the surface. Some formations, like Caballones and Los Indios, are comprised of huge singular formations, while others like Finca De Pepe have several towers standing in progression like a group of giant dominos with deep canyons in between. And did I mention the crocodiles? Yes, there be sea dragons here.
Cuba is home to a sub-species of the American saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) found in parts of the Bahamas, South Florida and Mexico. While identical in appearance to the American species, the Cuban variety (Crocodylus rhombifer) fortunately are not as aggressive their South Pacific counterparts. Instead, they have a tendency of being cautious around people affording snorkellers the rarest of opportunities to meet one face-to-face, plus the chance to get a few great shots to prove you did it.
