We are certainly not bored with the normal cycle of Florida, Mexico and France but the opportunity arose to get in a couple of days diving in the Dominican Republic.

Booked on a family holiday, resigned to the prospect of perhaps a few days reef diving there, which is OK diving but not great, we leapt at the opportunity to go see some new caves.

Trying to find out about the caves in advance proved a little difficult as there were not too many photographs immediately available so Alastair stole most of the children's baggage allowance and worked out how to get his DSLR and strobes into a conventional holiday baggage allowance.

I hope seeing what he managed to capture you will agree that it was worth it!

The Dominican Republic Speleological Society put me in touch with Herbert Mohr of Aquatrack who could source manifolded twinsets for us and more importantly navigate the roads of the DR which are notoriously dangerous to drive on.　 The nearest cave was 1.5 hours by road, the furthest 3 hours - so driving was logistically difficult.

Add in to that the fact that it was Easter, when the DR national sport is drink and drive -　to the extent that they place patrols every 500 yards to help with first aid during the holiday - and you will see that cave diving was probably the safest bit of each day.

We started in Bayahibe at Chicho Cave.　　Not knowing what to　expect we arrived to find that Herbert had arranged for some guys to meet us to carry our gear to the water.

Seeing the cave sign not too far away I questioned whether this was necessary, saying we would be happy to carry our own gear. Herbert suggested that this was not a good idea - and going closer to the cave I could see why.　The drop to the water was perhaps 100 feet down over 45 degree boulders in the dark.　 Knowing where to step was important and I gladly gave my twinset over to someone who would earn a　good wage for carrying my gear. This cave was impressive, well decorated and in reasonably good condition as they are not dived as heavily as other caves.

Like every cave we dived there, it was also infuriatingly short.　 I was told 20 minutes but with no faffing and maintaining a nice relaxed cave pace I hit the end of the line in 13 minutes.　　 No matter - we had photos to do. Still in the Bayahibe area we then went to Padre Nuestro.

DR-SS tells us of this cave:

"Directly across the street from the pumping station is a small sink with a big tree trunk. this goes down to about 10 meters and directly in front a few meters past the warning sign the mainline starts. The first part of the cave is highly decorated and very wide, after swimming a while the line passes through a small restriction were depending on the rains you may or may not feel a flow.

After this the cave opens into a huge room with giant stalactites every were, if it has been raining there will be multicolored tannic water on the ceiling. The line eventually goes up into a breakdown area and the cave chokes out. Swimming back to the cavern zone, if you follow the cavern walls straight you will get to the downstream side of the cave, which was first found by Dave Pratt and Cristian Pittaro in Feb 2008, this area is radically different and is dark tannic stained rock with less decorations and very silty, here you will feel the flow as the water is siphoned out through the tunnel. This section of the cave was surveyed and line placed in May 2010 as part the project of exploring Manantial La Oculta and to identify the source of the water to it. It was surveyed by Cristian Pittaro and Dave Pratt, the downstream has a total of 225' and ends in a round and silty room with a nice column in the centre.

Very pretty cave - I led in again and crossed my fingers that the 20 minute estimate was wrong - but to no avail.　 Again we extended the dive to an hour by taking photos on the way out.

Cueva Taina cave was a 3 hour drive from our base near Santo Domingo.　 It reminded me of Narnia - a wrought iron staircase and street lamp illuminating the way.　 Most out of place in the area which was not the DR at its best.　 Car and property is safe though as the cave is behind big private gates with large dogs. DR-SS again states:There are two different sides to this cave, the right side leads through a large tunnel and a big dome, following the main line almost at the end, a jump to the left down a boulder collapse to the longest section of the cave, here the room is quite big and decorated, there is a pronounced hallocline and the walls are very white.

Further along, the mainline goes down and through a restriction at which point the cave tunnels are no longer decorated but made up of various rock and boulder collapses, this eventually leads to a large sized room toward the back of the cave and through a final restriction at -42 meters the deepest point of the cave before ending in a choke.

To the left the entrance goes straight down to the mainline, this side of the cave is very different and highly decorated with crystal white stalactites and columns everywhere. Swimming along the mainline for a while there is a jump to the left that leads to a really cool low but very wide bedding plane that is super decorated in places and looks really cool. Following the mainline straight leads to what used to be a exit but is has been filled in with rocks by the owner and is no longer an exit.

The connection to this former exit was made by Walter Frischbutter (Treasure Divers Boca Chica) and Ralf Biegel. The deep north-east side was dove to the current end by Wulf Schubert and Stefan Meszaros after pushing and opening up a major SM passage.

We did two dives here, first to the left on an dive which was the same 20 or so minutes long at an average depth of around 18 meters from memory.　 This was a very pretty cave.

We then changed out tanks and did the deep route until we hit the depth of our gas (no helium here) Alastair got a reasonable photo of the halocline.

We then decoed out in the very shallow section where Herbert tried to stay below 6 meters to prevent his computer locking out.

There are hundreds of short caves here - a lot more accessible sidemount.　 One which sounded interesting is access through a nightclub - next to the dance floor.　 Now that would be surreal would it not - to exit that at night, throw off the twinset and have a beer or two après dive

Thanks to Herbert who played an excellent guide, as well as lighting diver when we had issues with our remote strobes and focusing issues.　 Thanks to Al for another set of wonderful photographs - and for saving me from shallow reef diving.