Amy Houghton '98 Authors Cuba Scuba

April 14, 2003

April 14, 2003, Greencastle, Ind. - "Leave it to a girl from landlocked Huntington [Indiana] -- OK, she had a backyard pool -- to write the first comprehensive book on the ins and outs, ups and downs of scuba diving in Cuba," begins an article in the Indianapolis Star on a new work by a DePauw alumna. "Author Amy Houghton, 27, made her first scuba dive on the Rainbow River in Florida with her dad, William, now a retired owner of a Huntington electronics store. By age 10, she was a certified scuba diver; at 19 she carried a dive master's certificate. 'I never realized it was such a different world down there,' said the 1998 graduate of DePauw University. 'When you're 10, you just see the top of the water. When you get in, it was like, 'Wow, this is incredible!' I just got hooked on it.'"

Houghton's new book, Cuba Scuba, "maps out more than 500 dive sites in 21 major Cuban diving regions," writes the Star's David Mannweiler. "The book also discusses Cuban restaurants, the best reefs, Havana bed-and-breakfasts, hospital and hyperbaric chamber locations, dive centers and operators, legal travel to Cuba and 74 Web sites to assist divers in planning a Cuban dive. There's also an English/Spanish glossary of dive terms."

The book's cover contains a testimonial from Cuba's tourism minister, Miguel Alejandros Figueras, who hopes to offer the book for sale to tourists in his country. Mannweiler notes that Houghton "lives in South Pasadena, Florida, using her newly minted master's degree in business administration to develop a marketing plan for a private Florida resort." The author says her favorite place to scuba dive in Cuba is Los Jardines de la Reina, the Queen's Gardens, on the south coast. "It's very difficult to access," she tells the newspaper. "It takes about four hours by a live-aboard (a small boat) to get to the area, and you live on a floating hotel when you get there. The water is just so pristine. It's a completely protected area, with no fishermen. On one dive you can see 60 sharks and incredible marine life."