Bayahibe is a fishing village turned departure point: almost every boat to Saona and Catalina leaves from here. La Romana, twenty minutes west, adds Altos de Chavón, a replica sixteenth-century Mediterranean village above the Chavón river.
The water here is inside the Cotubanamá National Park, which is why the reefs are in better shape than most of the coast. From Punta Cana it is a two-hour drive, so departures are early and the day runs long.