White sand beaches and clear waters, shallow and with spectacular colours and great tranquillity, as well as historic and cultural ruins from the pre-Columbian period, make of Saona Island a place to visit. It is the only inhabited space within the National Park of the East.

People have been living on Santa Catalina Island for at least 7,000 years. Archaeologists excavating on a limited scale at Little Harbor on the seaward side of the Island for the past 40 years keep coming up with earlier and earlier dates. They find evidence of increasingly complex material cultures with a strong maritime adaptation. These earlier groups of peoples exploited the rich resources of the sea--from abalone and other mollusks, to small and large fish, and marine mammals such as sea lions.