bonaire night diving?

[cra2]

This question is for the folks who've done night diving in Bonaire -

How do ya do it? lol.

The thread I started in Basic Scuba Questions about night diving has been flooded with wonderful suggestions and advice, but now I wanna know more specifically, about doing it on Bonaire.

Do you literally drive along the road with your lights on, see a marker, jump out and start swimming, then dive down and explore, come up, and hunt for your car in the darkness? Do you leave strobes on your car? Or are all of the spots already well-lit? Do you rent a lit surface marker to take with you? Do you have to worry about boats? Are there moorings and anchor lines already at each official "site"?
tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me...

tanks,
cra2

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

The Town pier is a guided night dive by definition of the rules. You park in a parking space in a nearby parking lot, and be sure you don't park in the harbor master's space.

If one did night diving at salt Pier, I think the same definitions and rules apply, but not sure. we didn't dive Salt Pier yet.

Otherwise, we used the deck / dock with its functional access to the water at our accomodations, no driving needed, for our other night dives. We used the same access for daytime dives done at our accomodations as well. Other sites we did not dive by night, only by day.

 

[SDAnderson]

This question is for the folks who've done night diving in Bonaire -

How do ya do it? lol.

The thread I started in Basic Scuba Questions about night diving has been flooded with wonderful suggestions and advice, but now I wanna know more specifically, about doing it on Bonaire.

Do you literally drive along the road with your lights on, see a marker, jump out and start swimming, then dive down and explore, come up, and hunt for your car in the darkness? Do you leave strobes on your car? Or are all of the spots already well-lit? Do you rent a lit surface marker to take with you? Do you have to worry about boats? Are there moorings and anchor lines already at each official "site"?
tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me...

tanks,
cra2

If this is your first night dive, be sure that you do it with an instructor or someone with a bunch of experience at it. It can be great fun, it can also be very disorienting.

Before planning a night dive at any site, I'd be sure to dive it during the day or hire a private guide. Spend some time looking over the site and familiarizing yourself with it and planning your night dive.

Some sites will be well lit at night - Town Pier, certainly, and the various resort house reefs, though not enough so that you will be able to dive them without a light. Most of the other sites are not artificially lit. You will be carrying dive lights with you, this should provide sufficient illumination to get you to and from your car at most sites. I've not heard of anyone renting strobes and wouldn't leave one in my car, either. You always have to worry about boats, though at night, in Bonaire, most of the sites are going to be traffic free. There are mooring balls at many of the sites but those aren't going to be much help for divers planning a shore entry.

Town Pier and Salt Pier both require advance permission from the Harbor Master and that you hire a local guide - plan accordingly.

 

[RickSp]

At Bonaire Dive and Adventure, right next to Sand Dollar, they offer guided night dives right off the beach on Bari Reef. Some divers go on their own, but I agree that the first night dive is easiest if guided. I have also seen the lume in the water from night divers off Buddy Dive and Captain Don's. The most popular spots for night dives all seem to be those with easy access and safe parking, not isolated spots on stretches of the beach road.

One note - the Town Pier and the Salt Dock now require permits, (part of US Homeland Security silliness). Not a big deal, I'm told, but a detail best not forgotten.

 

[pilot fish]

This question is for the folks who've done night diving in Bonaire -

How do ya do it? lol.

The thread I started in Basic Scuba Questions about night diving has been flooded with wonderful suggestions and advice, but now I wanna know more specifically, about doing it on Bonaire.

Do you literally drive along the road with your lights on, see a marker, jump out and start swimming, then dive down and explore, come up, and hunt for your car in the darkness? Do you leave strobes on your car? Or are all of the spots already well-lit? Do you rent a lit surface marker to take with you? Do you have to worry about boats? Are there moorings and anchor lines already at each official "site"?
tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me...

tanks,
cra2

Bonaire night diving can be fun but don't do it alone as a shore dive. I would not recommend the Town Pier in Boniare, unless you like discarded tires of all descriptions. You might get lucky and see an octopus among the radials but not much else is worth this 20 ft dive? To me it was a yawn. I hear it was a great dive 10, 15 years ago but since they scraped the pilings not much there. Salt Pier would be better.

 

[Far_X]

I dove both Town Pier and Salt Pier when I was in Bonaire during the last couple of weeks. I don't believe they allow you to dive Salt Pier at night, it is a daytime only dive. Town Pier is a really great dive at night. I did it twice when I was there. The second time we came across a hawkesbill turtle sleeping which was pretty neat. It is a very colourful dive. The pilings are covered in coral and there are many eels lurking in there. You can get to a depth of 40+ feet. When diving shore dives at night, always always take your bearings and then stick to your dive plan. It is best to do a day dive at the site just to be safe. Windsock by the airport is a popular night dive. The resort reefs tend to be lit up at entrance/exit points and some of them use underwater strobes. As long as you are aware of the direction you are moving in, and the depth you are at, then finding your exit point should not be a problem. Enjoy them!!

 

[dvrliz1]

Cra2,

I definitely believe that a Bonaire night dive is a must do! I also agree that if you've never done a night dive on Bonaire, it is best to go with someone who has before. I'm sure you will be able to find divers that you can join up with! Basically you are right about night diving, driving up to a marker (yellow stones) driving up to water and diving. If you are going to do a night dive without a guide (e.g. town or salt pier) I HIGHLY recommend the beach across from the airport. It is a good site for night diving. The site is called Windsock. Enjoy!

Liz

 

[H2Andy]

almost any dive site in Bonaire where you can see shore lights will make a good
night dive (that way you can tell which way to shore if you get lost)

i would highly recommend Buddy's Reef, in front of Buddy's Resort. they'll let
you use their dock to gear up free of charge. that's where i did my night dives
in Bonaire. there's a big tarpon (Charlie) who hangs out at night. i also saw
a bunch of different types of eels in the shallows.

this is the dive site description:

Buddy's Reef

Located in front of Buddy Dive Resort, this shore dive has mild currents and is perfect for beginners. With depths of 30-100 feet, expect to see black chrionoids perched on coral heads in the shallows. A resident school of tarpon almost always greets night divers.

 

[SDAnderson]

One note - the Town Pier and the Salt Dock now require permits, (part of US Homeland Security silliness).

Permission from the Harbor Master and a qualified local guide are required for both of these dives but I'll quibble with your assessment that this is "silliness" or a Homeland Security measure.

Though implemented in the wake of 9/11, the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) is an international treaty negotiated as an extention to the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) treaty between nearly 150 nations under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations (UN) agency. (DOH!) Though it does mandate an increase in the measures the signatories take to secure both harbors and shipping, it is not a US rule or law, Homeland Security or otherwise.

Permission from the Kralendijk Harbor Master and a local dive guide were required to dive Town Pier for years prior to 9/11. Likewise, for years prior to 9/11, both the Town Pier and the Salt Pier would be placed off limits to divers anytime there was a ship docked at them. The only real change since 9/11 is the blanket requirement for permission and a local guide at the Salt Pier. Hard to make this a US Homeland Security thingy, I think.

Interestingly enough, Bonaire (and/or the Netherland Antilles) don't appear to be "contracting members" of SOLAS, in which case they aren't required to comply. This doesn't mean that there wouldn't be repercussions if they failed to do so - just that they have done so voluntarily and that whatever measures they have chosen to adopt were done so because it made sense to them.

We tend to think of Bonaire as a sleepy third-world backwater, and in some respects (delightfully, thankfully) it is. Bonaire has strong ties to Holland and is actually protected by the the Dutch military. Additionally, inasmuch as BOPEC is a major transfer point for Venezuelan oil shipments, Bonaire is an economic chokepoint that the Venezuelans have a deep economic interest in. I was on Bonaire on 9/11 and can tell you that the only foreign government that we saw any evidence of activity from wasn't the US or the Netherlands - it was Venezuela, which provided a uniformed and armed military presence for many days, including armed patrols that secured the airport and also maintained a visible presence at some of the resorts. We were glad to see them, but I'd suggest that if there is a coercive force compelling the Bonairean government to comply with the ISPS Code, it makes as much sense that the Venezuelans or the Dutch are behind it as anyone else.

If you're really a wonk, you'll read this from the IMO website, discussing the ISPS Code in detail.

You will now be returned to the regularly scheduled thread...

 

[diversteve]

At BelMar condos, the other Buddy dive location, they have lights u/w on the dock. Someone said to swim out and hang one of those flashing tank strobes on the buoy to the south, so you don't go past it, but it seemed like extra work to me, just look at the condo lights to get your bearings. Most of the properties in Belnem and also at the dive resorts to the North are right on the water so it shouldn't be hard to distinguish them.

Capt. Don's also has lights on/in? the water. The tarpon feed in the shallows at night to amuse the restaurant guests.

Isn't there lights on the filling station offshore at Bachelor's Beach also? And Salt Pier has lights, but of course it's an escorted dive only now. It's such an easy beach entry there, it's a shame if you can't dive it at night.

I think the biggest problem you'd have would be at some of the unlit shore sites where it's harder to get in/out past the ironshore. When we dove Vista Blue, there was a little 10' wide sandy cove, the rest was 3' of ironshore rock. So maybe cracking a lightstick on the beach would be an option, it would last a couple hrs. minimum. And if there's no other surface lights nearby, they're pretty visible.