Dominican Republic Diving
While the countryside offers villages influenced by a Spanish heritage, only a handful of visitors see them. Most go to the beach resorts or to Santo Domingo. This is a city of firsts - the first cathedral in the New World (Santa Marma la Menor), the first hospital in the New World (Hospital San Nicolas de Bari), the first European castle in the New World (Alcazar de Colsn) and the oldest surviving European stone house (Casa del Cordsn). The oldest hotel building in the New World, the Palacio Nicolas de Ovando, is on the oldest surviving street in the New World (Calle las Damas).
World-famous resort complexes at Casa de Campo, Puerto Plata and Punta Cana attract droves of European visitors, but Americans are now slowly catching on to the delights of the D.R. Visitors with limited vacation time are often hard-pressed to choose their activities: Golf, tennis, fabulous beaches and horseback riding compete with world-class windsurfing (at Cabarete) scuba diving and outstanding sport fishing for marlin, sailfish and dorado.
Some of the world's finest cigars are made here from Cuban-seed tobacco brought by Cuban expatriates after the Revolution. In addition to hand-rolled cigars, the Dominican Republic cultivates heavenly coffee beans. Larimar, the Dominican version of turquoise mined near the Haitian border, is another bargain.
Until the rest of America catches on, the Dominican Republic could be your personal hideaway.
DIVES NOT TO MISS :
Many of the Dominican Republic?s dive sites are found in the underwater park at La Caleta, which boasts brightly colored fan and Elkhorn coral. The area also attracts whale sharks, mantas and dolphins. The waters off Barahona and Cabo Rojo, near Pedernales are also two popular spots.
The Dominican Republic also has plenty of wrecks to explore including the Hickory and Limon Wrecks, in the underwater national park of Santo Domingo. The "Limon", a 115 feet tug boat, and the famous "Hickory", a 130 feet transport freighter are both lying in 60 feet. The underwater park can be reached in about 17 minutes by fast boat from Boca Chica, or about 25 minutes by slow boat from the public park on Las Americas highway.
The Zingara is a 45-meter long cargo ship with a six-foot long resident moray eel, prone to surprising the unsuspecting diver.
The historic 1563 fleet consists of the Spanish ships Santa Catalina, San Jorge and Santa Maria de Guadalupe that left South America en route back to Spain in 1563. The ships were caught in a storm, and crashed into a reef in the Montecristi area. The Santa Maria was salvaged but the remaining two ships drifted off the reef into 60-90 feet of water. Among the lost cargo were jewels, gold, and more than 300,000 silver coins.
