How was the bus ride to the boat across Cuba?

I went in February 2025 and with 20 mph winds, ended up having a great time snorkeling in town by Fisherman’s Pier. Shallow water kept the wave action down and was able to capture some fish I haven’t seen before. Had a quick drive by with a tuna, but mostly worked on my blennies and little fishes.

I don’t love 1000 Steps because of crowds and the depth make it less fun. Oil Slick was tricky–had nice diversity but the wavy/depth problem was real for me (shallow is next to limestone cliff which makes freediving more tricky when winds are high). But I have a coral tree there that I sponsored and wanted to find it!

I went to Salt Pier and got rolled by a wave coming out. Basically, some of the best corals at those sites are at significant depth. I did see a couple of turtles and barracuda. I agree with your assessment–the pilings there have an awesome diversity of sponges.

In town off the boat ramps, you can actually find a fair number of healthy small brain and maze corals. When I talked with someone with Reef Bonaire, I expressed the hope for resistant corals. They said they are noticing that SCLD seems to hit larger colonies more. I found the area in front of Chogogo Resort and Bari Reef was awful for coral, but the fish were fun–a very friendly school of palometas was visiting their artificial reef.

Which Cliff resort did you stay at and would you recommend?

Good to know about Glover’s Reef Atoll. I’ve wanted to get to Belize.

I do like Curacao, particularly–don’t laugh–Kokomo, which a couple of locals pointed me towards. Away from the beach to the left and right are some fine and abundant fish (relatively speaking) along with nice fans. I have some great pictures of scorpionfish from there. I think a couple of the hidden spots in Nicole and Galen’s Curacao book (one requires a hike, the other a 4×4) are definitely worth going to. The tourism is exploding there though, so I imagine it will invite comparisons to Aruba for those who have been there.