Travel

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

• Posted on July 7, 2008 at 2:33 PM

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I just returned from a one week trip to the Dominican with my wife. We got away in the last minute, partly because I couldn't figure out what to get her for our anniversary, and partly to make use of the Canada Day long weekend. What was going to be a long weekend somewhere in Canada became a week in the Caribbean. Poor us.

We stayed at a resort called Bahia Principe, in the Ambar sub-resort. It was adults only (I wonder what sort of searches this post will end up in with that phrase in it); we left our son behind with the grandparents. There were times when it would have been great to have him with us, but at his age it would have been a very different trip for us had he come. And when I walked through the other parts of the resort where children were allowed (one of which I dubbed "The Chaos Pool"), I knew we made the right choice.

The weather was fabulous. We still have no idea what the temperature was at any point in our trip. It was either hot, or night, and occasionally both. It did rain the first night---a hard downpour that I think was the fringe of a storm in the south eastern U.S.---but even that was nice. The vast majority of the time it was sunny with light clouds. Best of all was the wind---the heat would have been oppressive if it wasn't for the lovely and consistent breeze.

We are not "beach people"--lying around in the sun is not really our style, but I guess it is now: we learned pretty quickly and enjoyed it all.

We took a tour with a company called Marinarium. The highlight was the snorkeling, where we saw tons of fish, rays and coral. The main attraction was a special area they had fenced off in which nurse sharks live. I was able to swim along next to an 8-foot long shark. It was no problem until he decided to completely turn around and swim back underneath me. I left him alone after that. Actually the only really scary thing we saw was some sort of porcupine fish. I don't know if it was a poisonous type, but both my wife and I did not hang around to find out!

The resort allowed us free access to a variety of water-sports equipment, including small sailboats. Although I have sailed on bigger sailboats the strong wind and chop combined with what appeared like very little room for error (e.g. capsizing) actually made this more intimidating. I took a 15-minute lesson the first day and it turned out to be exactly what I needed. My wife and I took the boat out every morning after that and really enjoyed it.

That nice wind I mentioned earlier kept us moving pretty well in the boat. I had some difficulty tacking occasionally---I would run out of speed before I made the turn and end up straight into the wind. After some trial and error (and swimming) I learned a few things. I think the main issues were how hard I turned and (this was the hard one) the waves. Even a small 2-foot wave has a significant effect on your speed in a small boat like that. I was starting to learn to time the tacks based on the waves, but that will take a lot more practice to get good at.

We have stayed at another Bahia Principe resort, in Mexico's Mayan Riviera, so we were able to make some comparisons. I think the food and sand were much better in Punta Cana, and the free sailboat really made the trip for us. However, I think the service was better in Mexico, and there are many more interesting excursions (e.g. to Chichen Itza) that you can do there. It really depends on what you are looking for.

Overall it was a wonderful and relaxing holiday.