Dominican Republic Trip Recap May 2022

Dominican Republic Trip Recap May 2022

Camera Equipment Used: Sony a6400, Ikelite Housing, 10-18mm lens and dual Sea&Sea YS-D2J strobes

The Dominican Republic (DR) shares the second largest Caribbean island with Haiti and is an easy direct flight from many U.S. hubs. There are two international airports in the DR, Punta Cana and Santo Domingo.

We chose Bayahibe on the Southeastern tip of the island as our base because it is close to some of the best diving in the DR, including Isla Catalina and Isla Saona. We stayed at the 4-star Iberostar Hacienda Dominicus, where there were 6 restaurants, 3 pools, 4 bars, and a nice cafe at the all-inclusive resort. Diving was provided by the excellent Dressel Divers located on-site at the resort.

The Iberostars grounds were built to make guests feel like they live in the middle of a lush tropical rainforest, with winding paths through jungle foliage, flamingo-accented ponds, water fountains, and peacocks roaming the grounds. Meals at the Iberostar consisted of buffets with a wide array of food including a carving station, grilling station, pasta station, small plates, entrees, and desserts. There were also separate Italian, Japanese, Mexican, and French restaurants, which guests could enjoy by making dinner reservations in advance.

The weather report predicted rain and thunderstorms all days of the week, but instead, we had sunshine every single day, with some mornings with cloud cover. Overall, we had about an hour or so of rainfall the whole week. This allowed us to enjoy the beautiful sunny beaches and turquoise waters right in front of the resort and during our island excursions.

The first dive of the trip was a checkout dive. This was the first dive since the start of the pandemic for a few people in the group. The local reefs were healthy with a plethora of large sea fans and barrel sponges, as well as tube and whip corals. Visibility was well over 60 feet on most dives and the water was a nice 82F. Most of us were comfortable in a shorty 3mm wetsuit.

We booked a package that included 3 days of diving on local reefs and 2 excursions out to the nearby islands with Dressel Divers. Night dives were also really popular and we did a number of them during the week (as long as at least 6 divers were ready and willing to go). Dressel Divers is a great dive operation with 2 other locations in the DR. Their boats are large and comfortable, and getting on and off the boat is easy from the resorts dock. The boat rides to the dive sites ranged from 5 to 15 minutes, and the boat typically came back to the resort between dives so divers could use the bathroom or grab non-alcoholic drinks and snacks during the surface interval.

Throughout the week we dived many of the DRs popular dive sites including the wreck of the Atlantic Princess, St. Georges wreck, and excursions out to Isla Catalina and Isla Saona. The excursions are a must-do, as the islands are protected and visited less frequently than the local reefs. Visibility was amazing and the island reefs were much fishier than the local reefs.

On the 5 days that we went diving, we saw nurse sharks, spotted eagle rays, stingrays, green and hawksbill turtles, seahorses, moray eels, lobsters, octopuses, snake eels, schools of snappers, grunts, and more.

It was an awesome week of diving and fun in the sun. We could not be happier with the Dressel Divers and the dives and excursions they put together for us.

Thank you to the crew of Dressel Diver, especially Milan, Chole, Carlo, Niko and Benjamin for the detailed briefings, laughs, and fun dives!

For more Caribbean dive inspiration, see our feature on Dominica’s post-Erika dive recovery and specials.