Fast Moving Coral Disease Alert on Bonaire

[SoccerDad]

I sent RMP a request for updated info. Will share if I get a response

 

[nippurmagnum]

Isn't it great that you can pick another island!

I did. We cancelled our trip to Bonaire and we are going to the Big Island of Hawaii instead. I’ll go back to Bonaire when they drop the restrictions on where one can dive.

 

[SoccerDad]

I did. We cancelled our trip to Bonaire and we are going to the Big Island of Hawaii instead. I’ll go back to Bonaire when they drop the restrictions on where one can dive.

That is great, thanks

 

[Charred]

I just got back this weekend from a week there. They have 2 simultaneous and sort of contradicting rules in effect. They didnt really bother us but YMMV.

-They ask you to stick to one zone per day: North, South, Center or Klein per day.
-They ask you to dive orange sites last per day. They have the sites categorized Green, Orange and Closed.
-So it would be okay to dive an orange site in the evening one day and a green in the morning. But it would not be OK to avoid the oranges completely and dive a Northern green then a Southern green.
-It is fine to park boats in Orange sites and visit to Green sites.

All the sites in the middle of the town near the port are closed and that is clearly the epicenter. No shocker there since there is strong speculation the ships spread it. I did not dive any closed sites.

The only orange site I dove was Buddies Reef. The white spots were bad but incredibly hit and miss. I saw nothing in shallower water. In deeper water you could see a coral nearly gone next to another that had nothing. You can observe fish pecking at the sick corals so they would be a strong vector for transmission. In general, Bonaire was in much better shape than when I saw Cozumel in the middle of it. When it was hitting Cozumel you would see every coral impacted. I dare say it is impacting Bonaire differently.

Overall, people were either not following the restrictions or didnt know about them. I saw people diving closed reefs. I saw many people diving Oranges as their first AM dive. I never observed any rangers checking on things. The disease did not impact my trip. We just dove the northern and southern sites.

The big question to me: how will they reopen sites or drop restrictions? If other islands are a predictor, the impacted corals will be wiped out quickly. Will they keep a site closed if 95% of the corals are wiped out and 5%, potentially resistant, are still thriving? I really hope they have an exit strategy for all the closures.

 

[mbs]

Hmm, did they JUST decide to close the red sites?? I was there the week before last and the red sites were technically still open. Including the house reef I was on. I was asked to always move from green to orange to red and to not dive red at all in the afternoon. We chose not to dive red or orange from shore, and went to only one orange by boat

 

[tursiops]

I just got back this weekend from a week there. They have 2 simultaneous and sort of contradicting rules in effect. They didnt really bother us but YMMV.

-They ask you to stick to one zone per day: North, South, Center or Klein per day.
-They ask you to dive orange sites last per day. They have the sites categorized Green, Orange and Closed.
-So it would be okay to dive an orange site in the evening one day and a green in the morning. But it would not be OK to avoid the oranges completely and dive a Northern green then a Southern green.
-It is fine to park boats in Orange sites and visit to Green sites.

All the sites in the middle of the town near the port are closed and that is clearly the epicenter. No shocker there since there is strong speculation the ships spread it. I did not dive any closed sites.

The only orange site I dove was Buddies Reef. The white spots were bad but incredibly hit and miss. I saw nothing in shallower water. In deeper water you could see a coral nearly gone next to another that had nothing. You can observe fish pecking at the sick corals so they would be a strong vector for transmission. In general, Bonaire was in much better shape than when I saw Cozumel in the middle of it. When it was hitting Cozumel you would see every coral impacted. I dare say it is impacting Bonaire differently.

Overall, people were either not following the restrictions or didnt know about them. I saw people diving closed reefs. I saw many people diving Oranges as their first AM dive. I never observed any rangers checking on things. The disease did not impact my trip. We just dove the northern and southern sites.

The big question to me: how will they reopen sites or drop restrictions? If other islands are a predictor, the impacted corals will be wiped out quickly. Will they keep a site closed if 95% of the corals are wiped out and 5%, potentially resistant, are still thriving? I really hope they have an exit strategy for all the closures.

Thanks for the report.
Who was your dive operator, and how did you get the info like "green, orange, and closed"?

 

[Charred]

We stayed at Buddy Dive.

Buddy has a giant map of the dive sites at their drive thru. Each site had a round color sticker. All the rules I shared above were communicated during the resort orientation.

 

[scuba127]

When you say "Cozumel in the middle of it" what do you mean? Does the mean COZ has recovered?

 

[mbs]

I don't see anything new in the rules the past couple of weeks. Bonaire National Marine Park
Sounds like that is Buddy's take.

 

[deeper thoughts]

When you say "Cozumel in the middle of it" what do you mean? Does the mean COZ has recovered?

So far there is no recovery
They have tried an antibiotic epoxy which has worked but limited at best
We watched it progress quickly and deadly here in the keys
Some scientists believed that fish were spreading the disease also
who knows