Trip Report Bonaire March 2024–Dead reefs

[Catito]

Sad to say…the reefs of Bonaire are dead. Currently in Bonaire—last here 5 years ago. The change is dramatic, in a bad and sad way. We dove Klein Bonaire, Salt Pier, and a house reef. All in terrible condition. Dead reef everywhere. If I had know this in Nov 2023 when I prepared my trip, I would have canceled. I think the Caribbean is doomed due to SCTLD and climate change. Only two green dive sites at the Southern tip. All others are orange and red. Cozumel and the East end of Cayman are better than Bonaire.

Trying Karpata, 1,000 Steps, and more boat dives off of Klein Bonaire tomorrow. I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but not counting on it.

My recommendation: cancel if you have plans to dive Bonaire (and can still cancel). Sad situation. Don’t believe it if you hear that the reefs are nice. Ask for photos.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

My recommendation: cancel if you have plans to dive Bonaire (and can still cancel). Sad situation. Don’t believe it if you hear that the reefs are nice. Ask for photos.

Sorry to hear this......but since we are hearing from you that the reefs are NOT nice.... Do you have photo's?

PS...... You said I should ask!

 

[drrich2]

Did you try the far southern sites? Historically I really liked Sweet Dreams for the lush gorgonian growth in the shallower part of the reef. We may have to start focusing on things SCTLD doesn't hit, sad as that is.

Richard.

 

[Catito]

Sorry to hear this......but since we are hearing from you that the reefs are NOT nice.... Do you have photo's?

PS...... You said I should ask!

Hi. I did not take a single photo because it was so depressing. I will take some today and post.

I will say, the Salt Pier had life (and I left my camera in the house because of the two earlier dives), despite the wasteland. Two green turtles, big spotted drums, golden eel, scorpion fish, and schools of grunts. In Florida, on the dead reefs, we see tons of bicolored damselfish. Here, on the dead reefs, we see tons of Goldface Tobys. Odd.

 

[Catito]

Did you try the far southern sites? Historically I really liked Sweet Dreams for the lush gorgonian growth in the shallower part of the reef. We may have to start focusing on things SCTLD doesn't hit, sad as that is.

Richard.

On the map, the Southern sites are also marked red and orange. The only two green sites, Wilemstoren Lighthouse and White Hole are way South and can only be attempted if the conditions are perfect because of big waves and strong currents. Sweet Dreams is marked orange—not going to drive there (at this point) because I suspect it will look the same. I will ask around.

 

[tursiops]

Sad to say…the reefs of Bonaire are dead. Currently in Bonaire—last here 5 years ago. The change is dramatic, in a bad and sad way. We dove Klein Bonaire, Salt Pier, and a house reef. All in terrible condition. Dead reef everywhere. If I had know this in Nov 2023 when I prepared my trip, I would have canceled. I think the Caribbean is doomed due to SCTLD and climate change. Only two green dive sites at the Southern tip. All others are orange and red. Cozumel and the East end of Cayman are better than Bonaire.

Trying Karpata, 1,000 Steps, and more boat dives off of Klein Bonaire tomorrow. I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but not counting on it.

My recommendation: cancel if you have plans to dive Bonaire (and can still cancel). Sad situation. Don’t believe it if you hear that the reefs are nice. Ask for photos.

The sky is not falling. Your post is hyperbole bordering on BS.

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

I guess a whole lot of us will find out in June.

Maybe I'll just take up cold water diving.

 

[drrich2]

Sweet Dreams is marked orange—not going to drive there (at this point) because I suspect it will look the same.

Depends on what you're looking for. I suggested it because of the lush gorgonian growth in the shallows. As you say, it may well be that SCTLD has hit it as other sites, and I'm guessing some hard corals will have damage.

Has the warm water-related bleaching affected gorgonians? There tends to be a focus on hard corals in discussions.

 

[tursiops]

I think the point the OP is missing is that SCTLD does not affect all corals, not even all hard corals, and that many of the ones affected are not prevalent in Bonaire, and that Bonaire has many hard corals that are not affected by SCTLD. Bleaching is traditionally something that the hard corals can mostly recover from. It appears he has conflated bleaching with SCTLD, and misunderstood that the STINAPA maps with color coding do NOT apply to bleaching, only to SCTLD. Calling the Bonaire reefs "dead" is either a lie or a gross misunderstanding.

 

[Outbound]

Sad to say…the reefs of Bonaire are dead. Currently in Bonaire—last here 5 years ago. The change is dramatic, in a bad and sad way. We dove Klein Bonaire, Salt Pier, and a house reef. All in terrible condition. Dead reef everywhere. If I had know this in Nov 2023 when I prepared my trip, I would have canceled. I think the Caribbean is doomed due to SCTLD and climate change. Only two green dive sites at the Southern tip. All others are orange and red. Cozumel and the East end of Cayman are better than Bonaire.

Trying Karpata, 1,000 Steps, and more boat dives off of Klein Bonaire tomorrow. I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but not counting on it.

My recommendation: cancel if you have plans to dive Bonaire (and can still cancel). Sad situation. Don’t believe it if you hear that the reefs are nice. Ask for photos.

Bonaire's reefs are stressed for sure, but they are not completely dead. Far from it. For what it's worth, I dove Bonaire last October and Cozumel in November and found Cozumel's reefs to be in far worse shape than I saw in Bonaire. And I wouldn't tell people to cancel their trips to either location. Salt Pier is mostly about the sponges and schools of various reef fish. In terms of the reef, it's always going to look pretty beat up compared to healthy sections because it's an industrial site. Where are you staying and what is the house reef? Many of the house reefs are also in areas that see a lot of traffic and get beat up (18 Palms is a prime example).

Why don't you finish your dive trip while keeping as open of a mind as possible before you start telling people to cancel their trips?