January 2020 Observations

[darook]

The lot next to Den Laman is a fine. We walk around the wall by the water and enter Bari off of their beach. Easy peasy. Would be a good night spot. Saw a purple frog fish yesterday south of that entry about halfway to Eden Beach at 54'. There are apparently two more in the area along with two sea horses. Haven't seen those yet so the hunt continues.

Winds are back but not ripping. We just did Invisibles this morning and the entry was very easy. Occasional sets of waves that broke at about a foot tall.

We are diving with Wannadive and they now have at least two or three tank locations. For sure there is one down south near some new construction.

 

[tkaelin]

Thanks. Very helpful and timely.

The Zhung Kong has been rebuilt and is actually really nice. There is no sign on it but it is inside the new facade and has tripled in size. The same two young ladies work there.

Shopped at ZK in the past and was fairly limited. We purchased beer and wine and snacks in the past. How do you think it would work for cold cuts, bread, yogurt and milk? It would be great if we could skip the bigger market.

 

[darook]

Thanks. Very helpful and timely.
Shopped at ZK in the past and was fairly limited. We purchased beer and wine and snacks in the past. How do you think it would work for cold cuts, bread, yogurt and milk? It would be great if we could skip the bigger market.

They have bread but I didn't see much in the way of cold cuts and I would guess they have yogurt and milk but I didn't look for it. Next time I need vodka I will poke around and see.

 

[darook]

3 dives today. Bought a new full 2.5mm Waterproof wet suit at Your SCUBA store as I had been freezing in my old 3mm (now 1mm) jacket. Much better! this morning we dove Windsock and saw a couple chain morays. I can't remember ever seeing one here in a couple hundred dives on the island. Then it was Bari for the usual stuff. Current was the wrong way to go frog fish hunting. This evening it was Bachelor's Beach in hope of the bait ball. No luck. I put up a few more shots at the previous link.

 

[darook]

We started the day today at Bachelor's Beach. Success on the bait ball! We spent about half an hour with it. Crazy! It seems like it is pretty consistent about being there in the morning. When it moved it went north and was around the first pier. I was expecting sardines as the only other bait ball I had seen here was sardines. This was bigeye scad. They are much larger, about 10 inches long. You can see the bait ball from shore to know if it is there. It looks like a dark cloud in the water that changes shape.

 

[Gray Diver]

this morning we dove Windsock and saw a couple chain morays. I can't remember ever seeing one here in a couple hundred dives on the island.

Good to know. This was my first (but not last) trip to Bonaire, and I seen several Chain Morays. I thought maybe they were common here.

 

[Doctorfish]

That doesn't look like a Chain Moray to me. Snowflake? Golden?

 

[darook]

That is a goldentail moray. Beautiful one too!

 

[darook]

Three dives today on our last diving day. The Rock but just the inner reef. Bari reef, strong current. One free swimming chain moray and then our last dive was at Front Porch. I found the sea horses. Very near the rope that goes down the old wreck. One was about 68' on the north side of the rope and the other was about 15' up slope a little on the south side. That one was way back up and all I saw was the tail wrapped around the coral. I didn't get good shots of either but got a nice view of the deeper one. It was just in a tough place to shoot.

 

[undrwtr1]

I’m here now until 2/15 at Den Laman - Doner station was very tasty so was Stoked Bus - raspberry steak sandwich - trust me and get it. Near Den Laman is dusty as hell because of the construction next door. We have to wipe down the patio furniture daily to eat outside and the winds don’t help.
This is our second trip here and we like Den Laman better than Buddy - even though Buddy was fine. In less than a week we have seen a frog fish (Bari); multiple eels (Cliff/invisibles); octopus and turtles (Salt Pier); bait ball (Bachelor’s Beach) - tons of fish. Glad we did 2 weeks - no rush at all.

Stepping up from a GoPro has been fun, but takes a bit more care when entering and exiting.