Saona Island sits fifteen nautical miles southeast of the Dominican mainland, encircled by 110 square kilometers of protected reef and mangrove within Cotubanamá National Park. The island's western shoreline stretches three kilometers of unbroken white sand, backed by coconut groves that survived Hurricane Georges in 1998 and continue to frame one of the Caribbean's most photographed beaches. Christopher Columbus anchored off the northern coast in 1494 during his second voyage, naming the surrounding waters the Mar de las Maravillas. By the early twentieth century, the island served as a coconut plantation; independence came in 1975 when the Dominican government designated the entire southeastern coastline a nature reserve. Today fewer than three hundred residents occupy the single fishing village of Mano Juan on the island's southeast tip, while the western beaches welcome daily visitors who arrive by catamaran from La Romana and Bayahibe. The natural pool—Piscina Natural—lies a kilometer offshore along the return route, where sandbars rise a meter below the surface and create a three-hectare turquoise lagoon visible from the boat deck. Water depth averages seventy centimeters, shallow enough to walk across while starfish rest on the sandy bottom. Elkhorn coral formations begin twenty meters beyond the sandbar edge, where the seafloor drops to eight meters and sergeant majors school near brain coral colonies. Tour operators maintain a midday rotation through the pool, limiting anchoring time to thirty minutes per vessel under park authority guidelines. The island itself prohibits permanent commercial structures beyond the village; excursion providers bring portable shade and catering equipment each morning, dismantling them by late afternoon to preserve the beach's undeveloped character. This rhythm has held since 1990, when the first organized Saona Island excursion from La Romana departed with twelve passengers aboard a wooden yola, predating the modern catamaran fleet by a decade.