Paradise Island

Day trip to a beautiful little place just off the coast of Dominican Republic

We set the alarm for 5.30 am to be picked up at 6 outside the apartment, for this day trip to “Paradise Island”.

Although a long bus ride – approx 4 hours – it was lovely on arrival.

A relief to get off the bus at Punta Rucia, a small harbour, where we boarded fibreglass boats with big engines and zoomed off.

This tiny island is really just a sand bar sitting atop a coral reef in the ocean. There were a few trees a few years ago, but there are none now due to a rise in water levels and erosion of the sand.

We snorkeled amongst the surrounding coral reefs, which was a dream! So many fish of all shapes and colours 😍 and an equally differing amount of coral and undersea plant life.

This is a free Getty stock image of blue tang fish – there were so many of these on this reef! We forgot to take our Gopro to take our own pics…

To be honest, we could have stayed snorkeling for hours more!

But rum and coke, pineapple and melon were calling.

Such clear, warm water, white sand and beautiful reefs did make this seem like a small piece of paradise.

Back in the speedy boats for another bumpy ride to the mangroves

We didn’t see much wildlife – probably because the pilot took us at breakneck speed!

Finally there was chicken and salad for lunch, a quick trip to a cigar factory and then the 4 hour bus ride back to kite Beach.

As nice as it was – I think we will organise our own snorkeling trip next time as the Dominican Republic is famous for its extensive coral reefs – there are 160 kilometres of reefs surrounding the island.