Post 20: Diving into the Dominican

Hanging with my Dive Master Carlos and the crew of Pelicano Sport dive shop.

I mentioned in a previous post that my time to reflect in Phuket left me with a new project.

Snorkeling in the Andaman Sea made me realize how much I loved my time under water and holding my breath just wasn't enough to see all that I wanted to see. I needed to get recertification in SCUBA. Thirty years ago I dreamed of pursuing professional underwater photography so I took my course work in St. Louis and open water diving in Florida and enjoyed diving in Cancun and Cozumel, Mexico a few times. But that was the extent of my SCUBA life. I loved it then and it was time to go back!

It didn't take me long to figure out where to get re-certified. With my obsession for reducing single-use plastics, I was aware of the issue of vast amounts of trash flowing out of the mouth of the Rio Ozama in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic (DR). I knew the DR is also known for its coral reefs and beautiful SCUBA dive sites. I had to see the contrast for myself. Little did I know I was setting myself up for the biggest sabbatical project of them all.

The Ocean Blue and Sand resort in Punta Cana was the perfect choice for the first half of my trip to the DR. It had a PADI dive shop on location, just steps from my room. I did a half-day training session in the pool to get reacquainted with the equipment and was in the open water the next three days for Open Water and Advanced certification. We did eight dives in total that focused on buoyancy, navigation, fish ID, wreck diving, and general safety protocol. Carlos, my dive master, was brilliant in recognizing exactly what I needed to remain buoyant and streamlined in the water. My training 20+ years ago left me a bit worried that I would never find the right techniques. I remember being cold, sucking air down at an alarming rate, and constantly flailing around to stay on course and not run into the reef. During our first dive together he had me so adjusted that we were diving in narrow canyons, through tunnels, and hovering over aquatic life with little or no effort. It was beautiful to feel and see.

Of particular interest below is an orange squirrelfish, a lethal lionfish and a school of yellowtail snapper with a parrotfish.

True to the storytelling of Mr. Rogers, I've been creating videos for my nieces and nephews to take them through the "neighborhoods" I visit during my sabbatical adventures. Here's the trailer for the "people" in my underwater neighborhood with a few lessons about SCUBA diving:

https://vimeo.com/379438425 (Trailer)

https://vimeo.com/379193065 (full length video if you really want to go underwater and learn a lesson or two about SCUBA!!!)

While underwater I was paying a lot of attention to the health of the coral reef in the area around Punta Cana. Sadly we saw a lot of coral bleaching which occurs when corals are stressed by changes in conditions such as temperature, light, or nutrients. Under these conditions they expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing them to turn completely white. Often this process is irreversible leading to the death of the coral and a state of decline of the entire reef ecosystem. Seeing the Lionfish is also an indicator of trouble on the reef in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Lionfish are an invasive species that can cause damage, direct or indirect, to coral reefs, sea grasses and mangroves, due to their high rate of reproduction and growth, its voracious feeding capacity and lack of predators. They eat herbivores and herbivores eat algae from coral reefs. Without herbivores, algal growth goes unchecked, which can be detrimental to the health of coral reefs.

While there were several indicators that life under water was not healthy around Punta Cana, the enormous "sandbags" that lined the beach in front of the resort and the numerous hotels along the coast were a clear indication that there are problems on land as well. While

two major hurricanes battered the island nation in the last two years, devastating the coral reefs and deteriorating the beaches, the problem started decades ago when developers came in to add hundreds of hotel complexes along the shores of Punta Cana. I would argue they didn't have much of a long-term plan or respect for the environment, seeing that they wiped out dunes, mangrove swamps and wetlands in order to get their projects as close to the beaches as possible. The lost ecosystems played a vital role in the protection of the coasts against erosion caused by wind and waves. And the government certainly didn't help by not enforcing the 60 meter-wide maritime-terrestrial zone for construction. Nature always prevails and you can literally now see structures collapsing into the sea. The large, ugly black sandbags, that to me look like beached whales, are a temporary fix to a very big problem for the tourist driven city.

Boating up the Rio Ozama in Santo Domingo coming soon in Part II of this post!