Bayahibe

Bayahibe still feels like the fishing village it was before the tourists arrived. Colourful wooden boats line the small beach, fishermen mend nets in the shade, and the pace is Caribbean-slow in the way that larger resort towns have lost. But the real treasure is offshore — Bayahibe is the launching point for Isla Saona and Parque Nacional del Este, and the waters around here are some of the clearest in the country. The village itself is small enough to walk in fifteen minutes, and the handful of restaurants along the beach serve fish that was swimming a few hours earlier.

We took a speedboat to Isla Saona and found a sandbar where the water was knee-deep, turquoise, and populated by starfish resting on the white sand bottom. The main beach on Saona was lined with palms and served by locals grilling fish and pouring rum. This is the Dominican Republic’s most-visited natural attraction, and on weekends it can feel crowded with catamaran parties. The trick is to go on a weekday, early, and to ask your boat captain to drop you at the quieter eastern end of the island. We had a stretch of beach to ourselves for an hour — white sand, coconut palms, water the colour of a swimming pool, and the profound silence of a place with no roads and no motors.

We snorkelled at Catalina Island and found coral formations, rays, and nurse sharks in water warm enough to stay in for hours. The Wall, a dive site off Catalina’s south side, drops from five metres to thirty in a vertical plunge populated by grouper, barracuda, and the occasional sea turtle. Even snorkelling the shallows, the diversity was impressive — brain coral, fan coral, schools of sergeant majors and blue tangs moving through the reef like commuters. Back in Bayahibe, we ate the freshest fish of the trip at a beachside restaurant where the catch came from the boats we could see from our table. Red snapper, grilled whole, with tostones and a squeeze of lime. The bill was twelve dollars.

When to go: December through April for dry weather and calm seas. Boat trips to Saona run year-round but seas are calmest from January through May. Summer brings warmer water and good snorkelling visibility. Avoid weekends when domestic tourists crowd Saona.