Trip Report Sosua, Dominican Republic-December 2024

[Living4Experiences]

A quick review. I was in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, for a day on a cruise ship in December 2024 and booked a two-tank dive with Aqua Adventures independently since the ship didn't offer a dive excursion. This seems to be the norm now. Since Covid, many cruise lines are not offering scuba diving as an excursion. This was my first and last time to dive in the DR. I just wanted to get in the water and I'm tired of the typical cruise excursions.

I made a good choice going with AA. They offered round-trip transportation, about a 30-40 minute drive to Sosua Beach, for $60. It was well worth it. The DR is not exactly safe to move around in outside the port area. The owner, crew, captain and shop staff were very friendly and helpful and made the diving fun, and they made an accommodation for my late arrival because of the ship's schedule.

There is no dock at Sosua beach, and a shore entry is required to get into the boat. It's the rainy season in the Dominican Republic, so the visibility on the dives wasn't great. I had very low expectations for the quality of the reef, and it was as expected...mostly dead and brown. What used to be 6-foot wide purple sea fans are now brown and there's considerable die-off of a lot of the corals. Very few fish. We were timed at 50 minutes for the dive. On a good dive site, that's just not enough time, but it got a bit boring, so 50 minutes was fine.

There is no swimmer/boat/diver safety rules here. Dive boats, catamarans, divers and swimmers all share the same small beach area, and it's a free for all. When a boat is coming in, everyone just scatters in the water. Watching the chaos was a bit unnerving, but the locals know what to do to get out of the way.

 

[scubaceleste]

Thanks for the report.

 

[Ontwreckdiver]

Thanks for the report.

Don't judge the whole island country from a one day cruise stop at one town.

I have been diving out of the village of Bayahibe on the south Caribbean Sea side of the Dominican Republic since 2016. There is reef diving, wreck diving, wall diving and even a cave dive. You will see several Southern Sting Rays on almost every dive as well as a couple different types of eels. I saw my first Seahorse in 25 years of diving there, in fact I seen 2 on one dive and one the next dive and an octopus. I have been to Cozumel once and the diving is similar.

The south side is very safe, my wife would walk into the village of Bayahibe by herself during the day while I was out diving. There is a proper marina for the boats to dock away from the public beach & swimmers.

 

[Living4Experiences]

Don't judge the whole island country from a one day cruise stop at one town.

I have been diving out of the village of Bayahibe on the south Caribbean Sea side of the Dominican Republic since 2016. There is reef diving, wreck diving, wall diving and even a cave dive. You will see several Southern Sting Rays on almost every dive as well as a couple different types of eels. I saw my first Seahorse in 25 years of diving there, in fact I seen 2 on one dive and one the next dive and an octopus. I have been to Cozumel once and the diving is similar.

The south side is very safe, my wife would walk into the village of Bayahibe by herself during the day while I was out diving. There is a proper marina for the boats to dock away from the public beach & swimmers.

As noted in the title of the trip report, this was a day trip to Sosua, not the whole island.

 

[jonhall]

Thanks for the report. My wife and I made a stop in PP 2 years ago on a short tropical cruise - it was the only place we didn't get off the ship. Having been before, we had toured the town and took the ride up to see Christ the Redeemer and knew we weren't going to do a more strenuous excursion, although there were some fun things offered.

We stayed in Playa Dorada, just a little east of town (Puerto Plata) for 2 weeks in 2017. My buddy and I did 12 dives in Sosua. My memories are the same as your 2 dive description. We pushed a small skiff into the water, climbed in, and took off. There wasn't a lot of boat traffic for us - we were always near the west end of the beach. We repeated several of the dive sites, as there aren't many, and only went to the airport wall, which was a deeper site, once. Dove the Mini Wall 3 times and went to different depths each time: 65', 101', and 67'. Saw an indigo hamlet (a blue fish with stripes) which I didn't recall seeing anywhere else I had dived and some of the largest seahorses I've seen anywhere. Being in a protected bay, Sosua does make for some calm water and easy dives. Passing over sand quite often didn't make for the best of diving though. I enjoyed the ride in the back of an open air truck each day we dove and how laid back everything was.....if one is staying in PP, diving Sosua is a nice activity (especially for the length of our stay) but not a place that a serious diver would plan for.

 

[landphil]

I dove Sosua when I was in Cabarete for a company offsite and added a couple of days to do some wing foiling and diving. Diving Sosua bay probably shouldn’t be the focus of your trip to the north shore of the DR, cause the area is really known for its surfing and wind sports. But if you’re there it’s certainly worth getting a couple of morning dives in before you spend the afternoon playing on top of the water.

And definitely don’t plan a family vacation to Sosua. It’s the sex tourism capital of the Caribbean, and incredibly sketchy after dark (but kind of a nice little beachside tourist town during the day.)