Trip Report: Sosua, Dominican Republic – January 2017

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Ironborn

Contributor
Messages
390
Reaction score
409
Location
Miami, Florida
# of dives
500 - 999
Introduction

I dove in Sosua, on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic (DR), in January 2017. My earlier trip to Curaçao persuaded me that I needed more training and experience in order to get the most out of such a top-notch diving destination. I did my AOW certification in Sosua and focused on improving my diving for future trips to other destinations with better diving. I realized that the quality of the diving in Sosua is modest in comparison to that of many other places, but that factor was less important to my decision, given my goals for the trip and my separate interest in Sosua's topside attractions.

Another reason for my choice of Sosua was that it was where I discovered diving by chance on my first trip there in May/June 2016. I did my Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) with Dive Center Merlin, which I passed en route to the beach (their shop is near its entrance). I had long been curious about diving but hesitated because of my poor vision, as I need a strong prescription mask. As luck would have it, Merlin had a prescription mask strong enough for me. My DSD impressed me enough that I earned my OW certification on a later trip to Cartagena, Colombia. My recollection of my DSD made me want to come back to see more of the area with more training and experience.

Dive Center Merlin

I decided to dive with Merlin again, given my positive DSD experience with them and their status as the highest-rated Sosua dive operation on Trip Advisor. I booked my AOW course and eight more dives with them one month in advance. There is a reasonable gear rental charge of $10-15 per day, depending on your package. The gear was in good condition, except for a malfunctioning depth gauge that they fixed. I would recommend Merlin if you want to dive there, and I would dive with Merlin again.

Merlin's staff consists primarily of Germans, as Sosua has a German population and caters to many German tourists. Most of the other divers were German. Merlin staffers spoke excellent English. The German orientation showed in their style of operation, which was more regimented than my prior experience. I normally prefer a looser approach, but this detail-oriented style was precisely what I needed in order to improve my diving. Merlin has you set up and dismantle your gear; by the end of the trip, I had enough practice that I could almost do it in my sleep.

Merlin does two one-tank trips each day. They had me show up for the first trip at 9AM and the second trip at 1PM. You carry your gear down through an area of more vendor stalls to the shore and put your gear on a small fishing boat that lands on the beach. Getting in and out of the boat on the beach could be tricky when the water is rough. Some other divers and I entered the water with backwards rolls, while others geared up in the water. Getting back into the boat on its ladder was difficult sometimes. The groups were small, with no more than five or six divers and usually fewer than that.

AOW

My AOW instruction was very precise and thorough. For example, my instructor asked to see my log book before we began. That was the first time that anyone had asked to see my log book, and it was not just a formality; he used the details of my previous experience to tailor the course to me. For example, he noticed my previous shore diving experience on Curaçao, which facilitated his planning of our AOW night dive as a shore dive. He also had me sign his log book (he was approaching 3,000 dives).

Beyond the mandatory Deep and Navigation dives, we also did Underwater Naturalism, Peak Performance Buoyancy Control, and Night dives. The night dive was the best one of the entire trip and perhaps the best dive in my entire experience thus far. The instructor briefed me at length on the use of dive lights and hand signals and made my first night dive as smooth as possible. The site was La Puntilla, which is close enough to the beach for a shore dive and about 50 feet deep. It was very rich in marine life at night; we saw juvenile string rays, large king crabs, and at least two different lobster species, including the slipper lobster, which was totally new to me. The water was full of shrimp larvae, which produced a feeding frenzy among the smaller fish, some of which nibbled at the larvae in my hair and on my skin. There was also some very slight plankton bioluminescence, which we saw when we covered our dive lights and ran our hands through the water. I understand that night dives make many people nervous, and that anxiety increases their air consumption, but for me it was so fascinating that it was more relaxing than usual, and I achieved my longest-ever bottom time (62 minutes). I enjoyed this dive so much that I am making night dives a top priority for my future trips.

Merlin greatly improved my diving overall. I was an air hog when I started my Curaçao trip but had reduced my air consumption to reasonable levels by the end of that trip. I consolidated those gains in Sosua and further reduced my air consumption to the point that some of my dives ended because of no-decompression limits rather than air consumption. I thus decided to pursue nitrox certification as my next development goal and have since completed it via e-learning. I also improved my buoyancy control and ended my previous dependence on weight-integrated BCDs for proper trim. Merlin did not have weight-integrated BCDs, so I had to carry all of my weight on a belt, which had previously been difficult for me when I started diving. I was nonetheless able to maintain the proper trim that I had refined while using weight-integrated BCDs in the Rosario Islands and Curaçao. I am now as comfortable carrying all of my weight on a belt as I had been carrying it all in a BCD.

Dive Sites, Conditions, and Marine Life

The reefs were not as healthy as they were last year. They had suffered from heavy rains and flooding last fall, which brought more sediment and fresh water. Weather conditions and visibility were poor at the beginning of my trip, but they improved gradually throughout the week. By my last day, visibility was excellent; we could see marine life and other divers at the bottom from our boat.

Aside from La Puntilla, most of the dive sites are to the north or to the west. For much of the week, we went to the northern sites due to weather conditions and visibility. We only started going to western sites toward the end of the week, as conditions improved. I preferred the western sites. The best daytime dive of the whole trip was at the western site Airport Elephant on the last day, when we could see marine life and other divers at the bottom from our boat. That site was the richest in marine life and had impressive canyon-like topography. It had many overhangs, holes, and benthic life on the sides of its walls, including a horizontal sponge with a crab in it. Also to the west, the Five Rocks site was impressive in its topography, but overfishing has left the site poor in fish.

The best northern site was the appropriately named Deep Wall, where we saw many spotted and moray eels. Also of interest is Larima, where we saw many different species, including a lobster, an octopus, a moray eel, and a large sea cucumber. Three Rocks is a good site for beginners or for an introductory or refresher dive. It was where I did my DSD last year and my AOW Underwater Naturalism dive. It has some good coral heads, where we spotted a cleaner shrimp at its cleaning station.

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The fish population had high proportions of yellowtail snapper, sergeant major, and trumpetfish. Also abundant were flamingo tongue snails, which some Merlin divemasters culled from the soft coral on which they were feeding. They explained that there was an overpopulation of those snails due to overfishing of the triggerfish that eat them, enabling the snails to overfeed on the soft coral.

Sosua somewhat compensates for its lower levels of marine life with considerable variety in the topography, marine life, and conditions from one site to another for such a small area. Its marine life paled in comparison to that of Curaçao, although most of Curaçao's dive sites were fairly homogenous from one site to another. The local topography may appeal to those with a greater interest in that topic.

Logistics

The nearest airport is Puerto Plata (POP), which is closer to Sosua than it is to Puerto Plata. The taxi ride from POP to Sosua lasts about 20 minutes and costs $25 (a fixed rate). Direct, round-trip flights between POP and New York cost between $400 and $500. Most good hotels in Sosua cost between $60 and $120 per night. Three popular hotels in Sosua are New Garden, Casa Valeria, and Terra Linda; they are within walking distance of the beach and just behind Calle Pedro Clisante, Sosua's main drag. If you stay in neighboring Puerto Plata or Cabarete, you can commute to Sosua for diving.

New Garden has the best breakfast in town. It is free if you stay there and cheap if you are not staying there. I usually had lunch during surface intervals at one of the many small restaurants on the beach. For dinner, I would recommend Bailey's for the best food, the restaurant at Terra Linda for the most extensive menu, or Bourbon Street for its access to the nightlife on Calle Pedro Clisante.

Conclusion

I am glad that I went. I achieved my goals and found a new passion for night diving. The quality of the diving in Sosua is probably not high enough to justify other trips there for the primary purpose of diving, but it is worthwhile if you have other, topside reasons to visit the area, or maybe if marine topography is of greater interest to you than marine life. Diving conditions are probably better in the spring or summer, and the reefs need more time to recover from last fall's extreme weather.
 
Excellent report! Happy that you are growing and progressing so well. Keep those detailed reports coming. They are awesome.
 
Thank you for the awesome detail. I am flying into Puerto Plata Saturday and am trying to book some diving with Dressel now. Interesting their website doesn't make it easy.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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