Saona Island

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Saona Island Beach

Saona Island is a tropical island located a short distance from the mainland on the south-east tip of the Dominican Republic, near the Bayahibe region. It is a government protected nature reserve and a popular destination for tourists from all over the Dominican Republic, who arrive in fleets of catamarans and small motorboats on organised excursions every day. The Island is famous for the natural beauty of its beaches, and has been used on many occasions by film-makers and advertisers looking for a stereotypical 'desert island' setting for their film or product. It is promoted amongst European visitors as the setting for the famous Bounty chocolate bar adverts.

The seas around the Island are rich in wildlife, with many species of birds and tropical marine fish, and there are large areas where natural sandbars offshore bring the depth to just a few feet. These are once again popular with the tourist trade, with small boats stopping hundreds of metres off the beach and disgorging tourists into the waist-deep shallows where they snorkel, drink and check out the fields of starfish indigenous to the region.

The island was baptized "Saona" by Christopher Columbus, who discovered it in may 1494 on his way to the Americas. The name was meant to honor the commune of Savona, where Columbus lived at the time. Columbus named Michele da Cuneo, his friend and a savonese himself, first governor of the island. Saona Island and the modern city Savona, in Italy, still have twinning relationships; the small powerplant in Saona Island is a gift of Savona.