The second port on the cruise turns out to be the stop I liked the least; the Dominican Republic definitely had that poor Caribbean vibe that, well, is the way it is, but, it was just overpowering here.
Got off the boat and took a cab over to Bayahibe take a boat to Saona. This is a powerboat ride about 40 minutes long that is very rough and very cramped.
Waiting to get on the boat. Locals brought the ‘locals’ out for pictures….you get to hold but donation requested.
The beach at Bayahibe
The beach at Saona. It was nice but the whole trip suffered from being too much of what we don’t like; a lot of people in a small space.
Christopher did find this guy offering to cook lobsters up on-the-spot for him. So he choose this guy; I paid trienta dollars and this guy goes off with the guy and comes back like this. Was pretty tasty!
The snorkeling attraction here was this demolished pier behind us; the pilings were covered with coral and fish. Went out with Matthew; went out with Kevin, went out with Zane because he didn’t go when his family went. So I didn’t get to sit and rest much at all here.
Was a pretty day here at Saona though…..
Didn’t accidentally delete the GoPro pictures here….even though the ones from the pilings aren’t all that great. Water was a little too silty.
But it was pleasant enough…..the water temperature on the trip was always pretty decent.
After Saona, we motor-ed over to the waters offshore the National Park. And here, where the boat sat on only two or three feet of water, there were just a ton of starfish. And the GoPro got some great pictures and video as the boys picked them up and checked them out.
You can click on the above picture for the first GoPro video showing us with the starfish…
And this picture links to the second video…
You can click this picture for the sail away video; it is interesting for two reasons. One, you get to see more vehicle traffic than normal as we get ready to leave and two, you can see the mansion on the left in this picture. Helicopter pad, par 3 golf hole…..really really nice. Must belong to a baseball player….
Tried to use the GoPro to catch a few sunsets…..not really a great option because the sun just blots out too much of the picture; the video actually gets better once the sun goes down. Really should have tried to do one of the full-moon nights. Oh well. Click above for the video.
Where the boat is at the end of the day. Heading south to Aruba
