Dominican Republic by Carl Wilson

Diving in the Dominican Republic
January 14-21, 1995
by Carl Wilson

Resort Name: Sand Castle Beach Resort
Location: Sosua, Dominican Republic
Dive Operation: Aquaticas Actividades

The Sand Castle resort is located about 7.5 Kilometers from the Peurta Plata airport, our package included the ground transfer to the resort by airconditioned bus or van.

The Resort is a large acreage type resort with several buildings on a cliff overlooking the ocean and beach. The buildings and rooms are nice/clean and recently refurbished. The Landscaping is immaculate and the shrubbery and grounds are beautiful and lush.

Check in is accomplished at the main building where in our case we were fitted with blue bracelets which indicated that we had a totally inclusive package.

Our room was a large two room suite with sitting area, kitchen, bedroom with 2 double beds, 2 verandas (balconies if on other than first floor) and large bath. The rooms have individual controls for the air-conditioning.

The meals are taken at the plaza where one can eat indoors or outside. Lunch can also be taken at the poolside grill. The totally inclusive package also includes local alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, rum, and some other locally produced spirits). The resort bars are open from 10:30 AM until 1:00 AM.

The dive operation is not an integral part of the resort, I am sure it is a business arrangement whereas Aquaticas Actividades takes care of the beach activities and diving on the resort premises.

The dive guides are German, who speak passable English. However, passable is not fluent.

Diving is from open skiffs about 20 ft long with a beam of 5 ft. powered by 25 and 45 horsepower outboard motors. The boats have no boarding ladders, one reaches your weight belt, BC and tank to the boatman and then crawl over the gunnel to enter the boat. The boat is launched directly into the surf, making for a splashing event!

The compressors appeared to be nearly new, not more than 6 months old. Tanks were filled to 2850, which is an even number on the BAR equivalent scale I think.

The dive sites had some coral, small walls, and a fair amount of sponges, barrel and tube. The shop also has a "house wreck" , a 100ft freighter that sank about 3 years ago approximately 3 miles offshore in 120 ft of water.

Dive Conditions: When we arrived the Ocean had white caps and had stirred the water up a good bit, visibility was about 55 on the wreck at 100 ft, but on shallower dives in the 35-65 ft range, visibility was around 30. It was also overcast which greatly lowered the amount of sun reaching the water. The Manager of the Hotel told us that the summer was the clearest water and best diving conditions in his experience.

One note: the buoy on the wreck has stage balls at 40 ft, 20 ft, and 10 ft for navy decompression stops. I noticed that whenever we made a deep dive (over 80ft) the diveguide make a stop at 40, 20, and 10 ft. Typical accent routine was 3 minutes at 40 ft., 3 minutes at 20 ft., and 1 minute at 10 ft.

COSTS:
Resort Package with food, drinks, transfers, and air from Pittsburgh PA: $1068.00
Dive Package:
10 Tanks $260.00
6 Tanks $162.00
1 Tank $30.00
Wreck Dive: $50.00

Conclusion:
As far as diving is concerned, I will reserve judgement until I have the chance to dive the Dominican Republic in the summer. The diving was not bad, it was as good as the BVI's when I was there in 1992.

However, the resort is definitely worth a trip back just to relax and rest.

Very close to the Sand Castle Resort is Club Paradise, a nudist resort that also offers scuba diving. I passed on this, I worry about the big fish now--I don't want to have to worry about the little fish also!