Santa Lucía: The Diver’s Secret

Located about roughly 2 hours from Camagüey, this is a sleepy little fisherman village with nice beaches, resorts and several great ecological features – one is the colorful sunken shipwrecks and the other – Nuevitas bay that offers a bull shark encounter! The second-largest coral reef in the world sits off the coast of Santa Lucia with interesting formations and swim throughs, but it suffers coral bleaching (like most of the Caribbean). There are over 35 dive sites featuring 19th-century shipwrecks that are great for night dives. 

• Bull Shark Feeding: One of Cuba’s most unique adventures, and by far the most adrenaline pumping is where instructors hand-feed bull sharks in the Nuevitas Bay channel. You need to plan for a few days in Santa Lucia to make sure you have the window for this encounter because it can only be run on certain days when the tide is just right. 
  
  
• Pink Flamingos: The nearby Laguna El Real is home to one of the largest colonies of pink flamingos in the Caribbean. Here you can see them feeding in the briny saltwater
  
  
• Cayo Sabinal: for total Seclusion and local immersion, you can take an off-the-grid day trip from Santa Lucía, by catamaran to Cayo Sabinal. It is a wild, uninhabited island with ruins of colonial forts and pristine beaches like Playa Bonita. You may find native Jutia and other endemic wildlife here too while you enjoy a nice picnic lunch.