Saona Island sits eighteen nautical miles southeast of Bayahibe, a 42-square-kilometer wedge of sand and mangrove at the outer edge of Cotubanamá National Park. The island remained uninhabited until 1967, when a fishing cooperative established the village of Mano Juan on its western shore.
Today fewer than three hundred residents live on Saona year-round, their low-roofed houses clustered behind a palm fringe where hawksbill turtles nest each summer.
The island's name honors Michele da Savona, the Genoese cartographer who sailed with Columbus on his second voyage in 1494 and charted this stretch of Dominican coast. Spanish colonial records mention Saona as a provisioning stop but never a settlement — its shallow approaches and lack of deep anchorage kept merchant traffic offshore. The designation as national parkland in 1975 halted development proposals, preserving the coastal forest and seagrass beds that support green turtles, manatees, and the endemic Hispaniolan slider.
Most Saona Island private tour from Bayahibe departures follow a predictable route: speedboat or catamaran east through open water, a midpoint stop at Palmilla or another starfish-dotted sandbar, then landfall at Canto de la Playa on Saona's southern coast. The natural pool — a waist-deep shelf of sand a quarter-mile offshore — forms where wind-driven currents sweep between Saona and the mainland, depositing centuries of crushed coral and shell. Water temperature holds at 27 degrees Celsius year-round.
The park's mangrove channels shelter seventy-two bird species, including the Antillean mango hummingbird and white-crowned pigeon. On Saona's windward coast, dunes rise twelve meters above the tideline, anchored by sea oats and beach morning glory that bloom purple in the wet months. The interior remains largely untouched — four thousand hectares of dry tropical forest crossed by two dirt tracks and a handful of trails used by fishermen. No overnight lodging exists outside Mano Juan, and the island's single solar grid serves the village only. After sunset, Saona returns to darkness broken only by the navigation beacons at Punta Catuano.
8 hr
