Bonaire tide question

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Thanks for the information. I'll keep it in mind. I have a question about the Cai site. Is it muck diving? Looking for small/tiny critters? If so, it's not my kind of diving.

Also, how do you communicate with Bas while on island? My cell doesn't work. I talk to home using Skype and email. Any phones are a fair distance off in Kralendijk (I stay in Belnam).
 
Is it muck diving? Looking for small/tiny critters? If so, it's not my kind of diving.

It sort of is, but mostly by habit I think. I have dove Cai with Bas a few times and make a point of letting him know that I'm not into the itsy bitsy before we go in. The first time that I said it to him, he seemed stunned. He still points out the little things because he knows precisely where they are, and it seems like the vast majority of divers like the rare and miniscule, and there is lots of it, so that's what he is used to, but there is a lot more than critters at Cai. Large school of tarpon, turtles, rays, octopus, lobsters, Big parrotfish and groupers. You could always just have him as a rough guide, and do your own thing. He will keep it safe. He likes one on one dives. Cai is a very cool site. Worth diving. Excellent at night.

I communicate with him via email when on Bonaire.
 
Last edited:
When you are talking Cai, do you mean just the channel out, or do you cross the barrier reef and out to the main wall with him?
I've seldom seen viz very good in the channel due to sand being kicked up. Great viz out on the main reef. Odd how the water is a different color than the west side.

I do like the stuff in the channel. Great nursery and some stuff you simply don't see on the west side.
 
Kharon, Bas knows where some very interesting small critters are, but this is not muck diving. The main attraction is "big" life such as eagle rays, large schools of tarpon, big cuberas, big green morays, turtles and nurse sharks. We saw all of those on just our one dive, along with some cool tiny stuff.

The route is out the channel, over the reef, and then along the main sloping reef. The vis goes from 30' in the channel (where we saw big school of tarpon, big cuberas, and a huge stingray) to the more typical beautiful blue 80+ vis on the outer reef (rays, turtles, morays, nurse shark, more tarpon). The return was along a "small wall" area and then over a shallow rocky area where the surge pushed us back in (and here there were octopi and other small stuff). All in all, 50% of the dive is on the outer reef, 20% going out the channel, and the remainder on the small wall/re-entry area. They all offer something different.

The good thing about bas is that if you tell him you only want bigger stuff, that is what he will concentrate on.

As for getting in touch with him, friend him on facebook and use messenger, or just call him from your hotel. E-mail works, too. We activated our carrier's international travel plan so we had full access to our cell phone.
 
Due to a camera flood on one trip out the channel we had to abandon going out to the main wall as we had used up too much air getting back in. So we just went into the bay. It's shallow and also has limited viz (40-50 feet). At first it looked like a bust, no coral, and just some small scubby vegetation on the bottom. But we came to a very large whirlpool of blue tangs mixed with white chubbs and a sprinkling of turtles just out there going slowly around. They were very well lit since it was quite shallow. They didn't seem to mind us at all. Never seen that in 6 trips to Bonaire. It was one of our most memorable dives ever. Just about worth the camera flood. :confused:
 
Thanks for all the information. Now I just have to hope for a calm day with no wind while I'm there. I'll have to look for a weather site for Bonaire that gives wind predictions.
 
Kharon, Lac Cai is an advanced dive but not a stressful dive when you go with Bas. Don't miss it. I never do when I'm there. BTW, he likes rum and coke.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

Back
Top Bottom