Dominican Republic Bayahibe

[Paul Evans]

So I have 10 days there end of feb.

Booked deliberately to get close to Catalina island as possible, Pro Dive are in the hotel next door (We have history) and ScubaCaribe are at my hotel so not short of an operator.

Any comments on the diving? anything I really must see?

TIA
P

[smileydiver]

I would be interested to hear thoughts on this as have often wondered if the diving is any good there for somewhere different

[Paul Evans]

I would be interested to hear thoughts on this as have often wondered if the diving is any good there for somewhere different

I dont think this will match up to SA Smiley!!!! Looks like you had a rather splendid time

[AxeMan]

Catalina was underwhelming. The couple of wrecks weren't bad. Caves were alright but not sure if there's any cavern stuff available

https://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/puntacana2016

[Paul Evans]

Catalina was underwhelming. The couple of wrecks weren't bad. Caves were alright but not sure if there's any cavern stuff available

https://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/puntacana2016

This may have been the reason I picked the place i did

[AxeMan]

This may have been the reason I picked the place i did

You deliberately picked to be close to the underwhelming place?

[Paul Evans]

You deliberately picked to be close to the underwhelming place?

LOL...... Not quite, as an area it seemed to offer a wider range of things to see?

[Jen - Winged Blob]

We went to Bayahibe in May 2016 and stayed at the Iberostar (two hotels along from you) which has Dressel Divers on site. I didn't take the right charger for my stills camera () but have some GoPro footage of reef dives and the St George wreck - happy to wetransfer a couple of these to anyone if you PM me your address. The wreck was heaving with fish but not every reef dive had loads of stuff out and about - some dives were more about the best finds in nooks and crannies. However, there were always masses of soft corals and it was very relaxed pottering for the most part.

Log book info gives most of the reef dives as being 10-16m deep (we usually enjoyed the best part of an hour on those), St George's wreck at 30m and I reached 28m on Catalina's steeply sloping reef which dropped off way down below that. Water temperatures were 27-28 degrees.


(But definitely not as many sharks as on Smiley's Mozambique trip! )

[AxeMan]

LOL...... Not quite, as an area it seemed to offer a wider range of things to see?

Bayaibe seemed nicer than Punta Cana as it's not full of all inclusive hotels and had restaurants etc. There seemed.to be a fair number of local dive sites though I only did the wrecks

[The Real Paulus]

I Stayed in Punta Cana in 2003(ish) and took a trip to Bayahibe specifically to dive Catalina Island.
We transferred to a large powerboat with monstrous outboards at the Iberostar's private pier for the ride out. The ride itself was an experience!

I remember walls and drop-offs with nice corals. The boat was rammed with tossers. My instabuddy was one of my worst ever so I was a bit distracted. We ended up staying shallow because of him where some damage was evident to the corals.
Back on the boat there were howls of disgust as some family on another boat, doing a snorkel trip brought up some nice coral souvenirs

So although it looked good on paper my day there was a bit of a disaster! Diving was a secondary concern on that trip although I took my own kit...just in case, I imagine it's possibly to put together a more bespoke diving itinerary with a competent operator.

At Punta Cana on the Atlantic side there was limited diving. Most of the fringing reef destroyed by such activities a dynamite fishing back in the day. Can't remember who I used, they were in house at our hotel. My last day's diving got cancelled due to a Tropical Storm warning, it turned out to be calmest day of the fortnight.
Nice enough place if you like beach resorts and island treks. Away from the resorts the poverty was (is) breathtaking.