Created 5-Sep-15
Modified 5-Sep-15
Across the street from the layover hotel near the airport in Santo Domingo, DR, is a coral reef that now sits a couple of feet above sea level. The coral formation contains small caverns beneath the outcropping that extends out over the water. There are a couple of openings in the ceilings of these caverns...blowholes...and these pictures show where they get their name. When the surge from a swell rolls in under the ledge, the air trapped in the upper portion of the cavern is pressurized and vented through the hole...followed by a liberal dose of seawater.
Getting these photos is a bit tricky and a good bit of luck. You need the sun behind you, which means afternoon, but you also need a good swell with a wind from the west. The wind part is the challenge; prevailing winds in the Caribbean are usually from the east, and if you attempt these pictures with an east wind, you're going to get very, very wet. I had two good photo sessions at these blowholes, over a two year period.
Steven D. Green