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Scuba Forum / UK Scuba / June 2004Diving in Cuba
I,m considering a trip to Cuba later in the year, has anybody done any diving there or could recommend any good diving outfits, are PADI out there? > are PADI out >there? No - US firms are not allowed by US law to operate in Cuba -- Pete news 'at' melbourne 'dot' me 'dot' uk >> are PADI out >>there? [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > news 'at' melbourne 'dot' me 'dot' uk Used to be the case, but apparently not any more. A colleague did a couple of PADI adventure dives with a local dive school (in a hotel) and a quick google for PADI cuba turns up some results. http://www.habanasol.com/scuba/padi-havana.htm is just one of them!  SignatureALTERNATIVE SAILING TERMS - Capsize: The interior diameter of any piece of headgear, usually expressed in inches [sometimes kilometers]. http://www.Love2Sail.co.uk Very interesting. I'd be a bit careful booking anything important through this guy. Just this week, the US changed the sanctions against Cuba, making it a lot more difficult for any US person to visit there and eliminating provisions that allowed those who visited Cuba legally from bringing Cuban products back with them. Even refugees in the US found their ability to visit and send money to family cut back severely. A card issued by a US company, through a Cuba facility, with a fee paid back to the US company, would almost certainly get the attention of the U.S. government. I'd have to check the sanction in some detail to tell what the rules are for a PADI affiliate that is a separate company, chartered in a different country, but I suspect that it would depend on whether the affiliate was simply related by the PADI name versus a subsidiary of the US company. It seems to me that the risk is twofold: 1. That no card would be forthcoming at the end of training, or 2. The card that was issued wasn't issued by PADI at all. Lee > A card issued by a US company, through a Cuba facility, with a fee paid > back to the US company, would almost certainly get the attention of the [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > whether the affiliate was simply related by the PADI name versus a > subsidiary of the US company. According to PADI, "No business may be solicited within Cuba", US run gulags excepted. I suspect that European instructors are working in Cuba and then getting people to post their PIC when they get home. As they're independant instructors, PADI are probably none the wiser. It might be easier just to do an ACUC course. They operate there legally and their qualifications are just as valid. I've dived in Santa Lucia. There's a trip report on my website. The bull shark dive was the main draw, but there really wasn't anything else there, so I'd prefer somewhere like Guardalavaca in future. Jason Signaturehttp://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/ for Aussie diving reports including Coral Bay, Rottnest Island, Dunsborough and Darwin > > A card issued by a US company, through a Cuba facility, with a fee paid > > back to the US company, would almost certainly get the attention of the [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > and then getting people to post their PIC when they get home. As they're > independant instructors, PADI are probably none the wiser. You could be right. Personally, I wish the US sanctions would go away. We've never significantly changed any political system by embargo. Just the opposite, we've changed many systems by showing them the advantages of the capitalist system. Lee > You could be right. Personally, I wish the US sanctions would go away. > We've never significantly changed any political system by embargo. Just the > opposite, we've changed many systems by showing them the advantages of the > capitalist system. Well it's certainly not working, is it? The only people suffering are normal Cubans who have already got more than enough to put up with. Jason SignatureSee http://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/ for UK diving reports and the UK Underwater Visibility Database. View the database or add your own report > A card issued by a US company, through a Cuba facility, with a fee paid back > to the US company, would almost certainly get the attention of the U.S. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > affiliate was simply related by the PADI name versus a subsidiary of the US > company. Been a few years since Ive been to cuba so things may have changed. IIRC the hotels have "padi" schools which are run by different companies in various countries depending on the hotel (i.e all Riu Hotels use Scubacaribe, all Iberostar use Dressel Divers etc). As far as I remember if you completed a PADI course whilst in cuba, you would receive your PADI card showing Mexico (i.e the dive shop pushed all paperwork through their mexican dive school to get round the US problem) IIRC coca cola was also avaliable in cuba - but is all sourced through mexico. |
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