Bayahibe

Diving

The beautiful beaches and excellent diving draw travelers above and below the waves here. If you're a diver, make sure you arrange your excursion with a dive operator rather than on a party boat.

Casa Daniel. Casa Daniel is a PADI dive center, so don't be confused by the name. It has an excellent, long-term reputation for professionalism and safety, and the European dive instructors are multilingual and fun. They do it all: lessons from a resort course to advance open-water and rescue diving, certifications, wall diving, cave diving, night diving, and all the typical excursion areas. Among their dive sites are Dominicus Shallow, Tortuga, and St. George's Wreck, which is considered a major dive. They also offer full-day excursions to Saona Island on Monday and Wednesday. Area hotel pickups are free. Next to Hotel Bayahibe, Calle Principal #1, Bayahibe, 22000. 809/833-0050. www.casa-daniel.com.

Parque Nacional Del Este is a virtual underwater museum, whose seabed is strewn with wrecked Spanish galleons. It's a joint project of the Ministry of Culture and La Romana/Bayahibe Hotel Association. As early as the 1970s, a baseline coral reef monitoring program was established. Just 150 yards offshore you can see sunken anchors, cannons, and rifles at depths of 20 feet, which means snorkelers can view them just as easily as divers. For divers, this is a two-tank dive, and it's 30 minutes by boat from Bayahibe. Isla Saona and Isla Catalina are also technically part of this national park.

Penon is another quick island stop before returning to Bayahibe from Saona, and it can also be a half-day trip for divers. It's considered a pretty dive site, with an incredible diversity of marine life—rays, sharks, starfish, and purple and yellow coral.