Dominican Republic (Dive Sites) > Reviews (2)

During our vacation in Bayahibe in the southern part of the Dominican Republic, we became certified PADI Open Water Divers (OWD) @ Scubafun.

The underwater-world
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Bayahibe is known as THE place for scuba divers in the Dominican Republic, as the National Underwater Park “Parque Nacional del Este” is located just off the coast. Here you can find sea grass beds, mangrove forests, nice and conserved coral reefs, lobsters, eagle rays, manatees, turtles and even whales, sharks and dolphins. Unfortunately, we never saw any whales, dolphins or sharks, but eagle rays and manatees were our regular companions.

A big advantage of Bayahibe is that most spots are reachable within 15 to 25 minutes by speed boat, the water is nicely warm (a shorty is enough) and the visibility is extremely good.

More advanced divers can enjoy the adventure of diving to the wreck of the Saint George, the wall off of Catalina Island or the dive sites around the smaller island Catalinita, where hammerheads, big rays and black tip sharks can be seen.The base
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We were staying at the Hotel Casa Del Mar within 7 minutes walking distance from the village of Bayahibe. On the way from the hotel you pass by another base, Casa Daniel – don’t stop there, go on until you reach the little port and there you find the Scubadoo, Scubafun’s little sister, located in a blue wooden house next to the international telephone office.

There is always some staff at Scubadoo (except for the lunch break and siesta) that helps you booking your dive packages or excursions; you can even buy some souvenirs. All the staff is multilingual (German/English/French/Spanish). Much of the equipment is stored at the Scubadoo.

The HQ, Scubafun, is located on the main road of the village, next to a Colmado (convenience store).

Scubafun is an official PADI Diving Center where you can get certified according to PADI standards, even Nitrox diving is offered.The staff
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The base belongs to a German couple who are both instructors. The team is completed by two more instructors (one German and one French) and several Dive masters. The Dominican captains are all divers as well and could help in case of any emergency.

The equipment
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3 speed boats belong to the base that are used to reach the dive sites.

The gear was in very good shape, not too old nor too used. The wet suits were all 2mm shorties; most jackets were by Aqualung, all in various sizes, just like the masks, snorkels and fins. I was very happy to find a mask with prescription lenses – thus even blind me could see under water!

The tanks are available with DIN or INT-valves. The regulators and BCD by Scubapro were relatively new.

The divers have to assembly their equipment on their own, but it is all double-checked by the dive masters and instructors before taking off.

The offers
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With Scubafun, you can get any possible PADI-certificate from OWD to specialty programs like Underwater Photography, Drift Diving, etc.

Our OWD-course takes normally 3 days, we were there in low season and took our time – 6 days!

The course is 295$ incl. all rental equipment and certification fees.

Certified divers can book an excursion with 2 dives for 55 $, 3 excursions with 2 dives (=6 dives) for 156 $ or even 6 excursions with 2 dives (= 12 dives) for 264$. The full equipment can be rented for 15$ per day.

For a full list see http://www.scubafun.info/e_preis.htm

Compared to the base in our hotel, we saved 100$ each on our course.Our course
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We were absolutely beginners, never have dived in our life, just been snorkeling a little. I was a little nervous, yet scared whether I would cope with being under water and breathing from a tank….

We first enrolled for the “Discover Scuba Diving”, a 1-day-introduction to scuba diving incl. some theory, some training under water and a first dive at 12m.

My husband and I thus began the adventure together with another German couple from our hotel. Our course was led by Werner, the owner of the base – he was very friendly and patient with our numerous questions, to which he always knew an answer. We did the dive with Werner and a Dominican instructor, where they showed us interesting fishes and corals and taught us what not to touch.

All the 4 of us loved our first experience and we enrolled for the OWD-course. We only had to pay the difference and had to do 3 more dives, plus all the tasks and the theory.

We started doing the theory lesson the next day. We watched a PADI video tape chapter by chapter. After each chapter, Werner revised everything and answered further questions and then, we did the written test (multiple choice-method). Werner took so much time explaining everything to us that we did not finish all the theory within one full day. We continued the next day in the morning and canceled the dive planned for the afternoon due to my ear aching a little. No problem, Werner was flexible and we decided to do our second dive the next day.

We did the remaining 3 dives with Werner, the French instructor and a German dive master and were always very happy with the service provided. Safety was very important to the team, they did not let me dive deep until I did not succeed in blowing out ask for example. We had a briefing before each dive where we all got to form Buddy teams. Our remaining air was checked at several times during the dives and as soon as anyone had not less than 50bar left, we all went up again, respecting the deco-stops. Every dive was completed by a debriefing. Overall, our experience with Scubafun was very good and we would not hesitate to go back for some more dives or further training. The base is very friendly, the prices are lower than in the hotel and the underwater world is worth seeing – when do you go?