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THERE'S A LITTLE PATCH JUST OUTSIDE BASINGSTOKE, and perhaps a few more in the Amazon rainforest, but generally there are few places on the planet where you can't get a mobile phone signal. However, landing at Holguin International at the eastern end of Cuba was like stepping back in time. Outside the new airport, ox-drawn carts, horses and what could be loosely described as bicycles were more common than cars or buses. Mobile phone signal? You're joking!
I had two weeks ahead as a guest of Cubanacan and little clue as to how the trip would go, but I was met by three men who seemed to know.
Our driver I called Frank. His name was Urbano Abella, but I couldn't remember that and he didn't mind. He was in his 50s and had moved from the sugar industry into tourism around five years ago. He was always on time, always greeted me with a smile and never complained about my bag giving him a hernia, which it must have done.
San, our guide, came from Holguin city. Fluent in English, he was knowledgeable and introduced me to a Cuba that few of the international travellers staying in the all-inclusive resorts ever get to see. We became firm friends over the fortnight.
Erik, the dive guide, was a big man and an instructor from the Santa Lucia Dive Centre. He was an experienced diver, infamous for deeds I shall explain later, and keen to show me what Cuba had to offer. This trip would allow him to dive areas he had never visited before. He, too, soon became a good friend.
The Brisas Guardalavaca Hotel was a relatively small complex with a homely feel. It was all-inclusive, as are most hotels in Cuba, and in the evening put on a cabaret show to amuse some very drunk Canadians.
It frightened me more than reading a Stephen King novel while crossing the M1 on foot. That damned Ketchup song was being performed. Why me? Why here? I hastened to my room exhausted and fell asleep praying never to hear "A hey, ho, hey" again.
Paradise woke under cloud. It was hot, but rain threatened. The small dive centre was a short way along an impossibly beautiful golden beach that was virtually deserted, with nothing but the beach volleyball stand to spoil the view.
The well-run dive centre was a great place to get acquainted with Cuba's diving. I'm a firm believer in check-out dives. Not to see whether I can remember which way up the regulator goes, but to discover whether my equipment survived being chucked around airport backrooms.
So when the dive manager suggested a beginner's dive to start, I was pleased, though not expecting much.
Coral Garden was about a minute from the centre and 6-15m deep. As I rolled backwards into the warm waters I was surprised to the point of grunting in contentment. The coral, which I had assumed would be smashed to hell, was pristine and there was a good selection of Caribbean fish.
I've never really been a fan of the Caribbean. Fish can be few and far between and the reef uninteresting compared to the Red Sea or Indian Ocean, but this was an enjoyable jaunt. We were accompanied by a barracuda, a gaggle of yellow-tailed snapper and a huge red snapper. They homed in on the diver in the black shortie, our guide, as their best bet for food. He wasn't, because the centre doesn't constantly feed the fish.
For a check-out dive it was fantastic.
Before the Spaniards arrived, Arawak Indians farmed and hunted Cuba's fertile lands. Ten years ago a farmer building himself a new house found the largest and best-preserved Indian cemetery on the island, a few miles from the hotel. It's now a museum, with a protective house built across the skeletons, and many artefacts from the graves are on show.
It's as compelling as a horror film. Children and adults are laid out; some obviously died in some pain, others of old age. There's even a bigger fellow believed by archaeologists to be an early European visitor.
To cheer you up, the government has created a life-sized model Indian village just down the road. It's a bit twee, but interesting. Then it was back to work.
Cubanacan wanted to show me its hotels, and I can honestly say that they were first rate, especially the five-star Del Oro, with its selection of excellent bungalow-style rooms.
That night rain drummed on the window like a herd of wildebeest. The morning broke cloudy and threatening. The wind had dropped but the sea was lumpy and Cuban boats aren't designed for it. The dive-centre manager wanted to show me one of the best dives, but it lay on the other side of the bay.
Colon is usually 20 minutes' boat-ride away, but the sea state made the ride both interesting and longer-lasting. However, we tied up to the permanent mooring buoy (most sites in the area had them) and rolled in over a 14m-deep reef, keen to escape the vomit-inducing surface.
Today's guide was Kenia, whose stunning looks were certainly not a front for poor performance. She, after all, had been through a training programme of unique intensity and duration.
All the dive staff at Cuba's centres are Cuban. Ordinarily locals couldn't afford to train as divers, which is where the government comes in. Cubanacan Nautica (which owns all the dive centres we visited) employs Cubans with the right aptitude and keenness. Once taught, they are employed at a centre to learn the sites and, after a couple of years, start divemaster training.
After working as a guide and assistant for another few years they may reach instructor level, a privileged position for Cubans. Because of the US embargo, Cuba is one of the few places where PADI is a rarity. All diving is conducted under the CMAS-affiliated ACUC organisation based in Spain, which is similar to PADI training-wise.
As guides and instructors remain with a centre for years, they have intimate knowledge of the sites and procedures and are very experienced. It's one of the best-run systems in the world, and beats the hell out of the Red Sea, where such staff may have less knowledge of the sites than you.
Kenia led us around but kept her interference to a minimum, as she knew that all the divers were experienced. Colon is a spectacular hump reef with pristine corals, a good collection of protected groupers and a lovely chimney-type swimthrough that brings you out at about 30m down the sheer wall.
The drive from Guardalavaca to Santiago de Cuba is a long one and, traffic-wise, like Christmas Day in the UK. It's surreal in a country of 11m people to find so few cars in the 21st century.
Fidel Castro's government is essentially to blame for this, though it's not altogether his fault. When he nationalised the US-owned oil companies and everything else, the USA stopped all commerce, pushing him towards the power of the rouble.
Cuba prospered as it became part of the massive Soviet trading partnership.
Cuba's job was to supply sugar. Huge cane fields and large processing factories dotted the countryside to supply the red world with sweet gold. Oil, food and anything else Cuba needed was delivered from other partners, and life was good under the warm Caribbean sun - until Moscow shut its doors on business one day and didn't reopen them. Cuba had nothing to offer the world but sugar, and the price was low.
The government kept the loss-making sugar business afloat and economic meltdown ensued. People soon found themselves desperately poor. The '90s were a dark time for Cuba, but tourism is a big part of Castro's plans to turn the tide.
The government still owns the main businesses, but each company is in competition, creating a sort of baby economy that's set to grow. Tourist dollars in exchange for modest outgoings is the key. Cubanacan and the other tourist companies own the hotels, dive centres and travel, tour and building companies - everything in fact.
Our next hotel, however, was not owned by Cubanacan. Nestled under a limestone cliff on the edge of the Caribbean, the setting seemed idyllic, and the room was pretty good, but the air-conditioning was poor and the staff and food abysmal. We were there because Cubanacan Nautica owned the dive centre, a rustic building on the beach.
We dived just out from the hotel's pretty cove. The water was clear and warm and the coral glorious - pristine and a good size. The fish life was typically Caribbean: OK, but there wasn't a lot of it, apart from a shoal of black surgeonfish that put on a good show.
I don't want to be derogatory as I had time for only one dive in the area, but while good it didn't shake my boots. This was a shame, as the area offers stunning scenery.
Santiago de Cuba is the country's main Caribbean port, and a big cultural centre. It was on our way to the next hotel, and we stopped at an old bookshop to find, along with pictures of revolutionary heroes, three men playing guitars and singing perfectly in tune. It was a living, breathing step back to Cuba's heyday. The people may not be prosperous, but in spirit and warmth they are millionaires.
The next hotel was huge, yet comfortable and relaxing. The staff were warm and friendly and the setting lovely. The beach was good and the facilities first class.
We were here to dive one of Cuba's best-known shipwrecks, and one of its hardest dive sites to reach. We were at the nearest dive centre and were still 37 miles away.
At the end of the 19th century Cuba was desperately trying to gain its independence from Spain. It had been fighting on and off since 1868 and Spain was exhausted by the conflict by the time America came sniffing around.
The impetus for a full-blown war was the unexpected destruction in 1898 of a US warship anchored in Havana harbour. Before anyone in Cuba could say "fit up," the USA had declared war on Spain.
Later that year, a group of US warships pounced on the Christobal Colon, a formidable Spanish steel-armoured battle-cruiser some 100m long, with an 18.2m beam and displacing 6840 tons. Steam-expansion engines pushed her at 19 knots and she carried weapons ranging from 6in guns to 22mm machine-guns, and even torpedoes.
The captain headed for the safety of the coast but ended up running the vessel aground. It now lies just outside the surf zone off a stony beach in the middle of nowhere. This is not a dive to be taken lightly, especially when it's windy.
Getting in through the crashing surf wasn't too bad. The sand was whipped up into a milkshake consistency, and though the top 5m of water was clear, the orange cloud in the shallows cast an odd light which added to the eerie nature of the dive.
The wreck lies on the sand slope from around 6m down to 35m, and is to shipwrecks what the Grand Canyon is to landscapes. As the only thing to stick up for some distance, it is coated in benthic marine life and shrouded in fish.
Huge sponges hang from the bow, which points out to sea, and every inch is covered in coral or other growth.
All the guns are visible, though time and rough seas have smashed the stern down a little and knocked the larger guns from their mounts.
It's possible to get into some areas, but deep penetration isn't advised because of the age of the vessel and the delicate growth. Swimming out from the bow and turning gives you one of the most spectacular views of any wreck I have seen. From here, work your way slowly up the ship into the shallows.
Ordinarily, the dive centre doesn't take customers to the wreck in rough weather, but I had only one day here. We could hear the machine-gun rattle of stones smashing against each other on the beach in the massive swell. I popped my head out to find myself looking down on the beach from a great height.
Take one fin off, swim in until you can stand and then rush for the shore was the advice. That doesn't work for us vertically challenged chaps. I was in the surf before I felt the ground.
As soon as I did, I was smashed into it by a massive wave, then sucked back before being slammed down again. A guide was pulling at my arms and I was desperately trying to fight the suction after each wave, while fully aware that another one was about to slam me down again.
When we finally made it out, Erik and I collapsed with relieved laughter.
The second dive, just out from the hotel on the drop-off, was spoilt by the weather. The viz was like that in a warm bath after a football team had been in it. It improved as we reached the drop-off, however, and I was treated to a collection of sponges that looked like the remnants of a sneezing competition.
We spent the next day in the taxi driving to the north coast. Roads are good, though where repairs are needed they are not done - much like home. With so few cars, hitch-hiking seems an odd pastime, but it's the most reliable and cheapest way of getting around. Any government-owned vehicle (most of them) has to stop for travellers. Can you imagine a council worker in the UK stopping to give a small group a lift?
Controlling all this are the "yellowmen". At each major junction you see them in their mustard uniforms. Before the '90s, they were traffic-control officers. Now they control people.
Santa Lucia, the next stop, was Erik's hometown. He worked at the Shark's Friends dive centre in the Brisas Santa Lucia Resort, a small complex on a Kodak-moment of a beach.
But the idyllic scene hid the real reason to dive here. Erik is one of the few divers in the world who handfeeds bull sharks.
Rated the world's third most dangerous shark, bulls are opportunist hunters taking most things - dead or alive. They swim up rivers and are often the first to use areas where fishermen dump their offal.
Cubans are as terrified as westerners of sharks. Tell them divers are enticing bull sharks with food and they think the divers are crazy or that you're making it up. But, in 12 years, only one dive guide has had a mishap. His hand was sliced open because he didn't move fast enough.
It's a tide-dependant shore-dive in a channel between the Atlantic and a large lagoon about 15 minutes' drive from the centre. There is a 30-40 minute window of slack water in the channel, so timing is critical.
Once in, you pass the wreck of a 100-year-old Spanish freighter to the bottom at 27m. I was the only punter so I had a feeder (Erik) and a fender-offer to myself. Ordinarily, guests are positioned safely on a sand ridge created by the current back-flowing around the wreck. My brain was in the camera housing, however, and I settled on the sand beside the feeder.
The sharks (six on the day) are not fed daily. Each one gets only a snack - the shark equivalent of a Mars Bar - yet they mill around expectantly. They are 3m long, with all the menace of a scrum-half with a machine gun. If they chose they could rip the hell out of the diver with the prod and then start on the rest of us.
They came in close, very close and then so close that I was literally bowled over, when one could go nowhere but through me. It bumped my camera, knocking me backwards, which was fun. From time to time my heart would race but I'm a firm believer in doing something once a day that scares you.
The 25 minutes went fast, as did the fish and my film. It was an incredible experience but it was a shame that the sharks dominated the dive, as the wreck is also a fine piece. A hundred years sat in a current-washed channel has coated it in all manner of sponges and coral and I wished I had had some film left to record it.
Cayo Coco was our new destination and I wasn't impressed. The resort was big and impersonal. The room was fantastic, but it wasn't me.
The first dive was a bit of a disaster, too. My camera didn't work and the reef was comparatively poor. The dive centre was well-run and the staff friendly, but I wasn't that rocked by the dive. However, the other guests, many of them Brits, were complimentary, so I gave it another go.
The second dive was better, though still inferior to others I had done. There were two small and newish wrecks of old fishing boats, and the reef and fish life were nice, but that's as far as I can go.
The next day saw us heading south to the Caribbean again. We stopped in Cuba's prettiest town, Trinidad, with its ancient buildings, 1950s US motors and people on horseback. With the friendliness, tropical sunshine and lack of tourist buses, it's a glorious combination.
Some 25 miles out in the Caribbean, there is said to be a reef system brimming with fish, sharks and turtles. From the Hotel Faro de Luna, a little way from Trinidad, we left for it on the dive centre's hardboat, only to turn back after 20 minutes.
The weather was too rough, so we dived under the lighthouse from which the hotel gets its name.
The reef was spectacular, but spearfishermen from two local towns had caught all the big fish. I saw pristine coral along with two large porcupinefish and a collection of small snapper, wrasse and blue chromis; too few fish for my liking. Still, at the end of the dive a small shoal of mackerel did swim past.
Back on the boat, we watched the wind whip the water's surface and head straight for us. The waves were building as we found the lee headland and plopped in over a 6m sandy bottom and a reef wall. The swimming-pool-like shallows were perfect and the reef wall decent. If I was looking to learn, I would be impressed.
There isn't much to do in Faro de Luna. There's a good public beach, but with the wind blowing the sand into every crack, I retired to my room to watch TV.
American TV isn't that great and the Cubans, like the Brits, love their soap operas. At the height of the exodus of Cubans to Florida in the '90s, escapees would apparently build rafts in secret, then wait until everyone was settled in front of a TV watching the Cuban equivalent of Pauline Fowler complaining to Mark about the price of apples, before heading to the beach and Florida. It makes you see Eastenders in a whole new light.
The watery wildebeest were back in the night, but the morning was bright and the sea a mirror. The dive was on a purposely sunk wreck. I could see the coral 6m down, but it was an illusion. Like fog in a valley, the sand whipped up by the storm of the previous day hung from 6m to the bottom, reducing the viz from 20m at the surface to about 10m at the bottom.
The wreck, small but perfectly formed, was an old fishing boat, but 12 years had given sponges and other encrusting life time to colonise.
After lunch we headed for Varadero, a spit of land 50 miles east of Havana that had been turned into a more chilled and friendlier version of Miami Beach. This is said to be the best beach in Cuba, and was the most commercialised part so far.
The dive centre, Nautica's main training facility, puts hundreds of tourists through ACUC courses, but I had heard that the diving wasn't great for experienced divers. I could dive here, or in the Bay of Pigs, known as Playa Heron, but that was a three-and-a-half-hour drive away and I didn't fancy any extra driving.
The problem was that Erik needed to be cleared by the Coastguard. It was an indication that Cubans aren't really free or trusted. Florida lies just over the horizon and we could have kept going had the mood taken the crew to escape.
But the boat stopped 12 miles out, over a large section of an oil tanker that blew itself in half just over two years ago, when workers were welding inside the tanks. Two people were killed and the vessel went down.
The wreck is a massive stern section that rises 15m from the seafloor. There were several shoals of fish around the top, but no other life. The telegraphs are still on it, as are chains, railings and all the other junk British divers seem to love storing in garages, but for marine life it's not quite ready yet.
The second site was much better. The French frigate had been chased into shallow water by a German vessel and grounded itself. Rough seas have pounded the boat almost flat onto the 8m bottom, creating a collection of artificial hiding places for several large shoals of French snapper, numerous groupers and several large green moray eels.
The morays are fed regularly and come right into the open. The moray show is great for new divers but wasn't really my thing. The wreck doesn't need it either - the shoals of fish are enough.
After the dive we stopped at a place called Paradise Island or suchlike and it was beautiful like the Mona Lisa - a joy to look at, but an experience to be shared. All the boats out of Varadero stop there for lunch.
The food was great, but while eating I was singled out by a Cuban hooker. Dressed in a black hotpants bikini with fishnets and high heels, she caught my eye and then suddenly changed. Her chest stuck out one way, her bum the other and she walked as if her body was about to fall off her legs, cartoon-style.
She was pouting like Lesley Ash and looking about as sexy as chips and mushy peas. Some people might be turned on but I thought it a little scary.
The diving completed, I was asked to give my honest opinion on the diving I'd done at Cubanacan Nautica's headquarters in Havana. It had been much better than I expected, with lovely reefs, pristine corals and massive sponge gardens, but the lack of fish in some places needed work.
Nautica plans to create several new marine parks, which should in a few years help the fish populations recover. The wrecks, especially the older ones, are superb, and given a few years the artificial ones will join them.
Best dive was the Christobal Colon, followed closely by the bull sharks in St Lucia and the French wreck in Varadero.
The other places seemed better in terms of reef condition than many other Caribbean "hot-spots", but this had been a whirlwind tour.
But Cuba is much more than just the diving. Cubans are genuine. Where else would a policeman apologise for stopping you to check paperwork, or a farmer offer you guava and show you round his home without batting an eyelid?
Havana is a vibrant city that plays to a Latin beat while holding onto its purse-strings. The old quarter is beginning to recover from years of neglect. It's wonderful for sightseeing, looking for cigars and rum of the finest quality and experiencing the real vibe of Cuba. I loved it.
We stayed at the Old Man of the Sea Hotel in the Hemingway marina and on the last night were taken to a special barbecue and show. Real Cuban cuisine, a warm night, and lively Latin music which sounded great - except that, for some reason, the entertainment included that bloody Ketchup song.
But by then, I was just too chilled to care.
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An orange elephant's ear sponge
Sponge-covered gun barrel on the Christobal Colon wreck at Santiago de Cuba
Barracuda from Guardalavaca
Kenia on Colon reef
Hungry yellow-tailed snapper crowd the dive guide at Coral Gardens, Guardalavaca
Free-swimming giant moray eel at Valadero
Pristine seafan on a wall at Colon reef
On the bow of the Christobal Colon
Palm beach umbrella at Valadero
sunset at Faro de Luna
revolutionary hero Che Guevara looks down from a ministry building in Havana
the dive team at Shark's Friends Dive Centre, Santa Lucia
Coral in fine condition on the reef at Faro de Luna.
Top right: French snappers under the boiler on the French wreck at Valadero
A large snapper from Guardalavaca
GETTING THERE: Cubana Airways flies from Gatwick and stops at Holguin before flying on to Havana every Saturday. BA has a flight to Havana and there are a few charter flights into various airports depending on the nearest large hotel complex. Everyone requires a tourist visa from the consulate in London. It costs £15.
DIVING & ACCOMODATION : Each of the centres visited on this trip belonged to Cubanacan Nautica. Each is attached to a hotel and diving can be booked either in advance or when you get there. All centres seen appeared professionally run with good rental equipment.
WHEN TO GO: Our winter from November to March is the best time to visit Cuba, though the weather is hot all year. The rainy season can be iffy from April to July and the summers are extremely hot.
MONEY: Most tourist resorts take only US dollars, but the local currency is the peso.
HEALTH:Always have adequate medical insurance, though Cuba has a very good health system.
LANGUAGE:Spanish is the first language, but English is widely spoken in the tourist trade.
COST: Scuba en Cuba (01895 624100, www.scuba-en-cuba.com) is one of several dive tour operators that arranges holidays at Cubanacan centres. A seven-night all-inclusive stay including eight to 10 dives would cost in the region of £860-£910 in low season, or you could stay at the Hotel Fara Luna for 14 nights with 20 dives for £1140.
FURTHER INFORMATION: Cubanacan UK 020 7537 7909
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Wild flamingo at Cayo Coco
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