The diving operation at Los Jardines de la Reina (the Gardens of the Queen) was run by Italians but staffed with a great Cuban crew. The site is about 4 hours off the south coast of Cuba, by a tiny necklace of uninhabited mangrove islands, named by Christopher Columbus.

Being so far offshore the reef is in good condition but for divers the main attraction is the big stuff - sharks and huge grouper and tarpin. There were six guests diving the week I was there.

A typical dive site was El Farallon. Because the sharks are fed at some sites they congregate around the dive boat and we dropped into the water and descended through 10 - 15 sharks in 5m to 8m of water. With good visibiity and strong sunlight it made for excellent photo opportunities.

While the sharks stayed with the boat we explored coral formations and deep channels including a 30m long channel you could swim through at 26m.

Our group saw all the species that had been advertised for that time of year, silky and Carribean reef sharks, giant grouper, tarpin, barracuda, rays and a single hammerhead.