Thank you so much. You answered everything I wondered. You have a ton of knowledge about the coast.
I get the impression that the sw coast only has a limited amount of reef and its been heavily used.
How deep does the reef go and does it drop off fast?
I did not dive in the DR - only snorkeled -
Do not know why you would get the impression that the SW coast would be "heavily used"? Certainly perhaps there are fishermen - is that what you meant? I know that the divers from the Capital were complaining that the fishermen on Isla Beata ought to be convinced that they should stop fishing in order to preserve their reef as a tourist destination - but that seemed amazingly arrogant to me - since I only saw ONE group of divers in Pedernales on my - perhaps dozen trips down there.
There is a large group of divers in the Capital although I do not know how you make contact with them. Perhaps they have a Meet-UP group or FB page or something like that? Mike McClellan - who plays the organ at the Episcopal Cathedral in Gazcue on Independencia - is a diver and regualary takes dive groups out to the little reef out by the airport - which is has pretty easy beach access, I am told
My nephew, who is a dive leader in Puerto Rico, went diving there with Golden Arrow.
The REALLY advanced diving in the DR is of the CAVES.
That is the training that Golden Arrow does -- as they also do training for nitrous diving -
Way More Advanced and Dangerous than anything that I would ever undertake.
Note that anything on the North Coast is going to be subject to many more days of "off" weather than the south coast - but it may also have better reefs and more wrecks.
I suspect that there are LOTS of wrecks and reefs and dive sites that remain to be discovered in the DR.
My dive master, Alan Baskin. was about the first to open up a dive operation and he only went over to Punta Cana around 85, I think from Haiti.
The folks at Golden Arrow will be the ones who probably know the most about all the reefs, drop offs, etc.. So check with them.
http://cavediving.com.do/website/