Scuba Diving on the North Coast

I went scuba diving on Tuesday morning this week. The weather was humid and hot and the water was warm and calm. From the beach in Sosua, we took a small boat (panga) out to a dive buoy on our site called "Three Rocks" not more than a ten minute boat ride. Six of us in the boat: the driver Domingo, Master Instructor Jane, Divemaster Rosie, diver Heidi, and divers Tre and Tamara. The first dive of the morning was a shallow dive over sand around three large reef covered rocks. After circling these, across more sand where hundreds of brown garden eels were swaying gently in the minimal ground swell awaiting their next meal. We then traversed a feature of concrete "reef balls", dropped there to create an artificial reef in a coastal ecosystem that hangs at a precipice of environmental disaster. The swim over the reef balls wasn't over exciting, the balls at present providing more importantly a place for fish to hide from predators, mainly Dominican's spearfishing in the protected area. The reciprocal swim took us over an area know as "Reef Gardens" where i saw a stone fish swimming between small patches of reef.

Additionally, on the first dive we spotted a localized and rare stingray, three lionfish, two spotted moray eels, trunkfish, a filefish, a spotted drum fish, and I saw two Harlequin Sea Bass. There were many other more plentiful reef fish around us as well, and feeding the yellowtail from a bottle of break turned the fish into a frenzy of fins and tails all around me.

Dive two was at a site called "West Wall". Its a coral drop-off that at its edge sinks to about 30 meters. We followed it for some time at a depth of about 15 meters before swimming up and over the top of the shelf on our return. Upon surfacing from this dives we saw a pod of dolphins swimming by the dive site. After getting all the divers in the boat as quickly as possible, Domingo started the outboard and we drove after the dolphins to get another glance. Domingo cut the engine after our last sighting, and I readied myself to jump over the side with only my mask. I jumped in the water and just saw the pod of three dolphins swimming underneath me out into the Atlantic.

"Dive Cabarete" was a great outfitter to go with. Look up this family run business to get in the water and blow some bubbles.