The embargo is very much still a thing. It mainly affects banking but being a Canadian, I'm able to transfer money from Canada to my accounts here without issue.
As for buying stuff, it's a bit more complicated. Crowley Cuba Express operates out of Miami with four sailings a week to the terminal container in Mariel, about 45 minutes outside of Havana. They will forward goods from Amazon, etc for a bargain price of $2/pound. But it can be a bit slow to get the stuff I've heard. Never used it myself.
Out of Toronto, where I'm originally from, there's an air freight service which also does forwarding for Amazon, etc. More expensive at about $3/pound (all prices in USD) and faster than Crowley's sea freight service. But still a couple weeks to get it in my hands.
But I mainly have people mule stuff down for me. I have friends from Canada that come down every 3 months and they've been very generous with letting me ship stuff to their place and they bring it down. I had a friend from Texas bring my 3 cams this past week. Customs found them and I ended up paying $30 USD in duty for the three which was nothing.
@guykuo I agree the aluminum is better but the ABS can be in my hands in a couple days. The mounts are for two 5449 dual-lens turrets that my friend brought down. We can't wait to get them mounted so fast service is ideal.
Headed to Mexico in March, so I can pick up some original pieces while I'm there. May just keep the ABS units up to see how they fare in the sun and heat here. If they do okay, I'll save the aluminum ones for future installations.
Wife and I are planning on a perimeter security business which would include IP cams. So if the ABS units are of acceptable quality, it may be an option going forward.
The biggest trouble was figuring out a way to mount the rear-wired switches so that the front AND back of them would be accessible.
