About a week into my stay in Santo Domingo, I went to Boca Chica (Little Mouth) to complete my scuba certification and do some open water dives.

The AirBnB was nice, and had a great pool where I worked on my flutter kick and breath holding to get ready for scuba. I am for scuba!

It was great. I saw many, many fish, rays, crabs, and corals. There are a shit ton of fish down there. The place I went to was called Tropical Sea Divers, and the instructor was very good. It was right next to a pretty beach.

It’s also kind of a pain in the ass. And my big muscly body uses a lot of oxygen, and I got a nose bleed twice. So I ended up not scuba diving in Puerto Plata when I (spoilers) finally made my way up there. I cut my hands pretty good on some clams on the guide rope (and later creatively closed the wounds myself!)

I don’t really have a lot of scuba-related photos (no one else was doing it), but I have some of Boca Chica. Though it is great for scuba, it is not great for anything else. It is full of aggressive people on motorcycles trying to pull you into places where they get commission, and hookers doing the same. (Get it?) Here’s a blurry image of what the main tourist street looked like at night. As you walked down it waitresses bar your way and shove menus in your face. The picture is blurry but believe me you don’t want it better.

I found a good place right near the scuba place, run by the wife of the scuba owner, called the Boat House. I went there for most meals after I found it.

I also walked away from the coast to get to non-tourist area to find some good non-expensive Dominican food.