vogelm755
Registered
First time in Bonaire. Stayed for 2 weeks at Den Laman and used Bonaire Dive and Adventure as the base dive operator. Also did a dive on the East Coast with Bas Tol. He is fantastic and while viz wasn’t the best (40-50’) it was probably the best dive of the trip. Highly recommend Bas for any East Coast diving. He is a wealth of information and knows the reefs very well. Thanks to the folks at ScubaBoard (Richard in particular) for directing us to Bas and all the other information from othes that helped ‘plan’ out the dive trip.
While we did not hit all the dive sights we had planned as we had to adjust for various reasons, we did get a great mixture of diving Bonaire during the 2 weeks while there. We hit North (not the Park North as we didn’t have enough time), South, Klein Bonaire and East. I managed to get in 42 dives and my dive buddy managed 22 dives despite being not being able to dive for 6 days due to a nasty cold. Got to experience the Bonaire medical system and purchasing of prescription and over-the-counter (e.g. Advil for colds) medication. Both had to be purchased at a pharmacy and both were behind the counter – so something like a decongestant wasn’t readily available on the store shelf.
In general viz wasn’t the greatest during our stay – perhaps most days it was 50’ish feet while on some days it was over 80’. Apparently there was more rain that average for November and this caused a higher level of particulates in the water. Some say Matthew may still have a lingering effect. Viz was generally much better at Klein Bonaire and the more Northern sites. Water temperatures were generally around 86 with some spots being 84. Hit a few significant thermoclines (Cliff, Weber’s Joy) near the end of the vacation.
General observation
- the flexibility of shore diving in Bonaire is great. Can go practically at any time. There is a lot to see. Can’t beat the value versus cost of a boat dive. Found some sites to be quite physically challenging to enter and exit. It gets exasperated when there is a surge. This prevented us for experiencing several sites or doing them via boat. For example, while Bachelor’s Beach sounded simple/easy it didn’t appear that way when we hit the site – climbing down the ladder, with gear on, on to a rock ledge and then having to maneuver on the rock ledge down onto the beach. Perhaps there was another way down that we didn’t discover. Got bounced around at Andrea 2 and caused some nice war wounds on my legs – I have souvenirs to take home . Aquarius and White Slave were sites we skipped due to the combination of ironstone, etc and surge.
- many sites had lots of schools of fish; made the reefs look very active; there was a bait ball hanging around for ~ 5 days between Something Special and Bari. It was a 360 degree wall of fish. It was impressive.
- based on experience in Coz, Caymans there appeared to be less lobsters or crabs; the exception was on Cai when we saw about 12 or so lobster in one area
- lots of parrot fish; not so many large groupers (only saw a few tiger groupers at Klein Bonaire); tons of Lettuce Sea slugs – almost every dive saw multiple; never so many peacock flounders as well as trumpet fish
- great and diverse variety of marine life; more so than any other Caribbean destination I have dived. Note I have not been to Roatan/Utilla. While I take note of fish in my log book there were many, many other fish that I saw but just did not write down – it was hard to remember everything but as I go through the Paul Humann book to identify fish, I take note of the many fish I saw but did note in the log book – squirrel, hinds, various trigger fish, goatfish, various filefish, durgon, tilefish, hawkfish, gobies, cardinal fish, various damsel fish, etc
- I would recommend, and definitely return to, Bonaire. Definitely a diver’s paradise. I do however need to hit a couple of more places in the Caribbean and get to Indonesia and surrounding area again.
Karpata (boat)– nice dense coral structure; viz was very good this day; coral structure is fantastic – a real pleasure to stand back and just look at the scenery; octopus; eels, spotted drum, angels…and an extremely long(perhaps 18” ) bearded fireworm
Rappel (boat)– nice dense coral structure; like all our dives in the North this was an easy, calm and peaceful dive;
Tolo (Old Blue) – similar to Rappel in topology; relatively easy access; mix hard/soft corals with nice sand chutes for diversity;
Bon Bini Na Kas (boat) – lovely calm day for diving; semi-dense reef structure; nice slopes from start of reef to bottom; Hamlet sort of day; turtle; schools of wrasse – bluehead and creole
Weber’s Joy – another wonderful dive day and wonderful coral structure; several large isolated coral heads; entry was relatively easy;
Oil Slick – entered via ladder (very solid) as had a camera to deal otherwise would have taken the leap; wonderful dive; semi dense hard coral structure – kinda similar to Weber’s Joy, Andrea, etc. Huge parrotfish (5+ feet); chain moray, lots of drums – juvenile, semi and fully mature; friendly Angelfish; nice school of glassy sweepers under the overhangs where water meets land
Andrea 2 – dues to surge this made the site hard to enter and exit; once in though it was a very nice dive; plenty of nice (semi-dense) coral structure combined with soft corals; eagle ray was sighted; lettuce seaslug galore;
Cliff (x2) –nice mini wall to south of entry – perhaps a depth of 60’; yellow frog fish towards left of entry (at chain at about 44 feet);
Macaca( Habitat) – came by way of continuing from Cliff;
Reef Scientifico – came by way of continuing from Buddy’s
Buddy’s – did a photography course here; kinda similar to Bari; was more focused on practicing the tips from the course than paying attention to what was in the water/reef
Bari – 9 daytime, 3 night and 5 pre-dawn dives; house reef for us; if I had all my dives here I wouldn’t complain; easy entry; `lots to see – a beehive of fish activity; somewhat of a wall; lots of stuff in the rubble/sand – octopus, eels (moray, spotted, goldentail, sharp-tail, goldspotted, chain – and one was a very pale color – not quite white – need to understand what this may have been), Bleeny’s galore – (redlip, sailfin, saddled, spinyhead, secretary), Eagle ray, tarpons, scorpionfish, spotted drums (I was surprised at how many spotted drums we saw on most of the other dive sites), turtles, shrimp, spotted spiny lobster, yellow headed jawfish, puffers, burrfish, trunk and cowfish, juvenile razorfish …the list goes on; the bait ball seen at Something Special seemed to move up further to Bari later in the vacation – experienced at a pre-dawn dive as well as a daytime dive – kinda spooky in darkness when you just hear the massive blob of fish darting in unison to avoid the predators; had my longest dive, a pre and post sunrise dive, at 120 minutes – basically mucking about in the sand and the smaller forms of coral, rubble – using a mirror it took 30 minutes to coax a sailfin blenny out of its hiding and attack its reflection. As I spend a long time in one spot I was visited by several curious on-lookers (snappers, margate, (tugged at the string attached to my mirror and disturbed the photo shoot) angels, sharp-tail eel). I think it was the margate who tugged at the floating string attached to my mirror and disturbed the photo shoot; During a pre-dawn dive saw this tiny (<.25”) blueish-silver disks in mid-water – glistening in my light. Looks like flakes of paint but when I approached with my finger you could see it take off. Still trying to find out what these are. It is awesome to see the reef come to life from night, to dawn to full daylight. Made note of the large number of Greater Soap fish seen at various sites.
Front Porch – went to see the tug…nothing special about the tug…3 intermediate spotted drum sharing an overhang; porcupinefish picking up a roundish object and then cracking it – sounded like a giant cracking his fingers
Something Special – bait ball (herring, silverside perhaps – don’t know my silver fish very well) probably 25-30 feet long and 15 feet in depth; worked our way into middle and it was surround sound of fish; scorpionfish x4, would go back again to explore more in the shallows; when we went the currents turned extremely strong and shortened our dive
18th Palm (Boat) – most notable sighting was a green frogfish; near shore there seemed to be a fish nursery – many juvenile fish. Noted this at Cliff as well. Poor viz that day – 30ish feet.
Windsock- relatively easy entry/exit; nice dive
Salt Pier- 2 day and 1 night dive; schools of juvenile barracuda, free swim octopus on all dives, plenty of reef fish, Burrfish, turtles, Christmas tree worms – never seen so many in one spot, scorpionfish; some may call the site as ugly with so much debris but it provides a great spot for hidden treasure; saw a highhat and spotted drum sharing an overhang when we saw the bus load of divers at the start of our night dive we should have aborted as it made the dive site somewhat like Grand Central Station. Created a lot of confusion and poor viz; Night - star baskets, tiny red crab, shrimp (red snapping), buttercup, berried anemone,
Pink Beach – relatively easy entry; beach is tiny and I didn’t see any pink in the sand; garden eels in the sand at bottom of reef; nice reef structure – not as dense as Northern sites; plenty of marine activity; saw 2 green morays in overhangs about 20’ apart – one had a mega wound on/in his mouth – looked like pus from an infection(?); probably one of the deeper dives of the vacation – reached 90’. Almost all of the dives were in 40-60’ range. A diver at the dive op noted that they saw flying gurnards at the site
While we did not hit all the dive sights we had planned as we had to adjust for various reasons, we did get a great mixture of diving Bonaire during the 2 weeks while there. We hit North (not the Park North as we didn’t have enough time), South, Klein Bonaire and East. I managed to get in 42 dives and my dive buddy managed 22 dives despite being not being able to dive for 6 days due to a nasty cold. Got to experience the Bonaire medical system and purchasing of prescription and over-the-counter (e.g. Advil for colds) medication. Both had to be purchased at a pharmacy and both were behind the counter – so something like a decongestant wasn’t readily available on the store shelf.
In general viz wasn’t the greatest during our stay – perhaps most days it was 50’ish feet while on some days it was over 80’. Apparently there was more rain that average for November and this caused a higher level of particulates in the water. Some say Matthew may still have a lingering effect. Viz was generally much better at Klein Bonaire and the more Northern sites. Water temperatures were generally around 86 with some spots being 84. Hit a few significant thermoclines (Cliff, Weber’s Joy) near the end of the vacation.
General observation
- the flexibility of shore diving in Bonaire is great. Can go practically at any time. There is a lot to see. Can’t beat the value versus cost of a boat dive. Found some sites to be quite physically challenging to enter and exit. It gets exasperated when there is a surge. This prevented us for experiencing several sites or doing them via boat. For example, while Bachelor’s Beach sounded simple/easy it didn’t appear that way when we hit the site – climbing down the ladder, with gear on, on to a rock ledge and then having to maneuver on the rock ledge down onto the beach. Perhaps there was another way down that we didn’t discover. Got bounced around at Andrea 2 and caused some nice war wounds on my legs – I have souvenirs to take home . Aquarius and White Slave were sites we skipped due to the combination of ironstone, etc and surge.
- many sites had lots of schools of fish; made the reefs look very active; there was a bait ball hanging around for ~ 5 days between Something Special and Bari. It was a 360 degree wall of fish. It was impressive.
- based on experience in Coz, Caymans there appeared to be less lobsters or crabs; the exception was on Cai when we saw about 12 or so lobster in one area
- lots of parrot fish; not so many large groupers (only saw a few tiger groupers at Klein Bonaire); tons of Lettuce Sea slugs – almost every dive saw multiple; never so many peacock flounders as well as trumpet fish
- great and diverse variety of marine life; more so than any other Caribbean destination I have dived. Note I have not been to Roatan/Utilla. While I take note of fish in my log book there were many, many other fish that I saw but just did not write down – it was hard to remember everything but as I go through the Paul Humann book to identify fish, I take note of the many fish I saw but did note in the log book – squirrel, hinds, various trigger fish, goatfish, various filefish, durgon, tilefish, hawkfish, gobies, cardinal fish, various damsel fish, etc
- I would recommend, and definitely return to, Bonaire. Definitely a diver’s paradise. I do however need to hit a couple of more places in the Caribbean and get to Indonesia and surrounding area again.
Karpata (boat)– nice dense coral structure; viz was very good this day; coral structure is fantastic – a real pleasure to stand back and just look at the scenery; octopus; eels, spotted drum, angels…and an extremely long(perhaps 18” ) bearded fireworm
Rappel (boat)– nice dense coral structure; like all our dives in the North this was an easy, calm and peaceful dive;
Tolo (Old Blue) – similar to Rappel in topology; relatively easy access; mix hard/soft corals with nice sand chutes for diversity;
Bon Bini Na Kas (boat) – lovely calm day for diving; semi-dense reef structure; nice slopes from start of reef to bottom; Hamlet sort of day; turtle; schools of wrasse – bluehead and creole
Weber’s Joy – another wonderful dive day and wonderful coral structure; several large isolated coral heads; entry was relatively easy;
Oil Slick – entered via ladder (very solid) as had a camera to deal otherwise would have taken the leap; wonderful dive; semi dense hard coral structure – kinda similar to Weber’s Joy, Andrea, etc. Huge parrotfish (5+ feet); chain moray, lots of drums – juvenile, semi and fully mature; friendly Angelfish; nice school of glassy sweepers under the overhangs where water meets land
Andrea 2 – dues to surge this made the site hard to enter and exit; once in though it was a very nice dive; plenty of nice (semi-dense) coral structure combined with soft corals; eagle ray was sighted; lettuce seaslug galore;
Cliff (x2) –nice mini wall to south of entry – perhaps a depth of 60’; yellow frog fish towards left of entry (at chain at about 44 feet);
Macaca( Habitat) – came by way of continuing from Cliff;
Reef Scientifico – came by way of continuing from Buddy’s
Buddy’s – did a photography course here; kinda similar to Bari; was more focused on practicing the tips from the course than paying attention to what was in the water/reef
Bari – 9 daytime, 3 night and 5 pre-dawn dives; house reef for us; if I had all my dives here I wouldn’t complain; easy entry; `lots to see – a beehive of fish activity; somewhat of a wall; lots of stuff in the rubble/sand – octopus, eels (moray, spotted, goldentail, sharp-tail, goldspotted, chain – and one was a very pale color – not quite white – need to understand what this may have been), Bleeny’s galore – (redlip, sailfin, saddled, spinyhead, secretary), Eagle ray, tarpons, scorpionfish, spotted drums (I was surprised at how many spotted drums we saw on most of the other dive sites), turtles, shrimp, spotted spiny lobster, yellow headed jawfish, puffers, burrfish, trunk and cowfish, juvenile razorfish …the list goes on; the bait ball seen at Something Special seemed to move up further to Bari later in the vacation – experienced at a pre-dawn dive as well as a daytime dive – kinda spooky in darkness when you just hear the massive blob of fish darting in unison to avoid the predators; had my longest dive, a pre and post sunrise dive, at 120 minutes – basically mucking about in the sand and the smaller forms of coral, rubble – using a mirror it took 30 minutes to coax a sailfin blenny out of its hiding and attack its reflection. As I spend a long time in one spot I was visited by several curious on-lookers (snappers, margate, (tugged at the string attached to my mirror and disturbed the photo shoot) angels, sharp-tail eel). I think it was the margate who tugged at the floating string attached to my mirror and disturbed the photo shoot; During a pre-dawn dive saw this tiny (<.25”) blueish-silver disks in mid-water – glistening in my light. Looks like flakes of paint but when I approached with my finger you could see it take off. Still trying to find out what these are. It is awesome to see the reef come to life from night, to dawn to full daylight. Made note of the large number of Greater Soap fish seen at various sites.
Front Porch – went to see the tug…nothing special about the tug…3 intermediate spotted drum sharing an overhang; porcupinefish picking up a roundish object and then cracking it – sounded like a giant cracking his fingers
Something Special – bait ball (herring, silverside perhaps – don’t know my silver fish very well) probably 25-30 feet long and 15 feet in depth; worked our way into middle and it was surround sound of fish; scorpionfish x4, would go back again to explore more in the shallows; when we went the currents turned extremely strong and shortened our dive
18th Palm (Boat) – most notable sighting was a green frogfish; near shore there seemed to be a fish nursery – many juvenile fish. Noted this at Cliff as well. Poor viz that day – 30ish feet.
Windsock- relatively easy entry/exit; nice dive
Salt Pier- 2 day and 1 night dive; schools of juvenile barracuda, free swim octopus on all dives, plenty of reef fish, Burrfish, turtles, Christmas tree worms – never seen so many in one spot, scorpionfish; some may call the site as ugly with so much debris but it provides a great spot for hidden treasure; saw a highhat and spotted drum sharing an overhang when we saw the bus load of divers at the start of our night dive we should have aborted as it made the dive site somewhat like Grand Central Station. Created a lot of confusion and poor viz; Night - star baskets, tiny red crab, shrimp (red snapping), buttercup, berried anemone,
Pink Beach – relatively easy entry; beach is tiny and I didn’t see any pink in the sand; garden eels in the sand at bottom of reef; nice reef structure – not as dense as Northern sites; plenty of marine activity; saw 2 green morays in overhangs about 20’ apart – one had a mega wound on/in his mouth – looked like pus from an infection(?); probably one of the deeper dives of the vacation – reached 90’. Almost all of the dives were in 40-60’ range. A diver at the dive op noted that they saw flying gurnards at the site
