Tony James' photos

Obviously a good place for local residents, as we also found this small cricket under the overhang a little further along. It's a possibility that the Tarantula would have been waiting for this lunch-on-legs to come along.

Perhaps it is on holiday? Although known as the Giant Tarantula here, this individual only had a leg spread of around 100mm. We found it resting under an overhang from the pool covering of the path to the Restaurant at the end of the headland. I wonder how many people relaxing poolside above would feel as relaxed knowing that these were in the area?

This pool was close to the main building on the headland top. From here, there were views over both the main beach to the east and the smaller bay on the other side of it, just where the lone Palm Tree is, was another of the speciality restaurants which had to be booked well ahead as it was popular.

This view shows part of the small bay, across to the west end of the property. A minimal beach was in this area, but the surrounding countryside was mainly wild, interspersed with some farming areas.

A view showing the main building of the hotel top left, on the horizon top right is the main hotel pool towards the end of the headland, and below right is one of the restaurants at the edge of the sea in our small bay. As an all-inclusive hotel, guests could eat at any of the four restaurants around the property, although some had to be booked.

A view of the Small bay accommodation blocks from the end of the headland near the main pool looking inland. The fencing at the top of the picture is the approach to the main hotel building, and the surrounding terrain is mostly wild ground.

Finally down to the other accommodation blocks around the small bay.

The location of this hotel was quite beautiful, with the well-tended grounds spreading steeply from the main building down around the small bay. There were plenty of paved tracks for guests to walk, many of which were also used for small vehicles to deliver guests and materials to the various areas. However, there were plenty of steps there (you are warned about this in the Hotel's advertising), but the guest shuttle service made it possible to get to destinations easily if you didn't want to deal with the steps.

This Nymphalid was the first butterfly we found, and it was fluttering at a window in the main building. It was rescued and carried outside to release it, only to find that it was quite happy to remain on our hands a while for a number of other guests to have a look at. Finally, we had to encourage it to leave, and it flew off into the hotel gardens.

There are two separate areas for guests in this hotel at Samana, and the Reception is very impressive in the main hotel building situated on the headland overlooking the main bay. We had booked into a quieter part of newer buildings down in a small adjacent small bay at the west of the property, which was more to our liking, but all services were to the main building.

Travelling from the Puerto Plata Airport to our hotel, we were surprised to pass Rice Paddy fields. Apparently it is one of the highest income activities in the Dominican Republic.

The first time that we've travelled on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It is a nice aircraft but to be honest for passengers there didn't seem to be much difference from other models of planes that we have used. Apparently, there is a big saving for the companies that use them as they are much better for fuel efficiency, which seems to be the only real benefit.

Considering we flew from Cornwall to London Gatwick, we were rather surprised to find "Welcome to Yorkshire" on the side of the aircraft! Also they didn't give us much confidence that the plane was painted with bicycles.

Wingspan: 13mm. A difficult species which does not appear in any of the references which I've checked so far. My guess is that it is likely to be a Geometrid in the Sterrhinae sub-family, but there are no clues yet. A single dead specimen was found in the hollow of one of the UV lamps used on the light trap.

Crambidae, Spilomelinae - Wingspan: 30mm. A single dead specimen was found in the hollow of one of the UV lamps of the light trap.

Crambidae, Pyraustinae - Wingspan: 24mm. A single dead specimen was found in the hollow of one of the UV lamps used on the light trap.