shopguy
Contributor
TLDR; here is the start of the 5 part video series if you just want to jump in and watch the full dive:
First, let me start by saying our guided dive with Bas Tol was so much nicer, and I highly recommend that if you want the optimal experience. For me, I often also like to try things on my own, even though I know I will not see all the hard to find special stuff, so I did. Sharing this as a contrast to this other report, which really made me question if I wanted to try this dive even on the best of days: Shore Diving Cai in Bonaire August 2012
My wife and I dove Lac Cai yesterday, October 29, 2022, without a guide. This normally isn't recommended as the conditions can be rough and tricky, even dangerous, on the east coast of Bonaire. In this case, we were here during a special weather pattern where the wind was blowing out of the west (wind reversal they call it), making the west coast rough and the east coast very nice (at least the surface, and with our luck below surface was also good).
We didn't dive the "drift" way that we did with Bas Tol, because I'm not that good at multi-point navigation, and this was only our 2nd dive here, so not much chance I'm going to navigate based on memory. Instead, we just did a straight line out and back. The easiest line to remember even, 0 and 180 degrees. Even so, in all the excitement I managed to mess that up when setting the compass and didn't follow my normal rule/pattern of "1 line = the way out, 2 lines = the way in" -- so you'll see if you watch the video, I'm following 2 lines out and 1 line in, on the compass.
There was no noticeable current this day, except an ever so light current in the "channel". This channel is the place where the water exits the bay, and the only deep part of the bay, the place that boats use to enter/exit the bay (a boat passes over us on the way out). It was weird to see the fish and coral looking like there was current. In my experience and training, when fish are all facing the same direction and not moving, and coral/etc is all laying in one direction, you should expect or already feel the current. Also at one point in the video you will see a French angelfish "hiding" behind coral that is bent over, something that you might see in strong current.
We saw lots of tarpon, so I guess we managed to hit what they call the "tarpon pit", or at least something similar to it, on the way out and back in. The best part, for me, was that as soon as we got to the top of the reef that drops in to the deep, there was an eagle ray there to greet us, as if to say "hey, you made it, here is your prize". We didn't see any turtles or morays or many other rare and cool things that Bas Tol pointed out to us on our guided dive, but we made it out and in, and found the nice part of the reef, so I'm calling that a success and better than I could have hoped for. A little before reaching the part of the reef that is really nice, where it drops to the deep, I started thinking we were not going to make it, not going the right direction, so it was a great feeling when I saw the top and the darkness beyond it. We reached that spot at 18 minutes in to the dive, or about 50 seconds in to the "part 3" video, at only 25 foot depth.
At one point in the video you will see 3 divers with DPVs zoom by us (1 min 41 secs in to "part 4" video). Totally cheaters, but to each their own.
If you have read this far, you know I'm horrible at writing stories, so without further ado, here is the full video from start to end (feel free to fast forward most of this):
I'm not great on YouTube, or at taking and editing videos, but I think the link above should start you on the first video and auto play the others -- there are 5 parts in total. Part 1 shows right as we descend with a shot of land so you know where we started, and part 5 shows a shot of where we surfaced the first time (pretty close to exit spot), then we went back under to swim closer to the final exit spot, and the camera died a minute later, so very glad I captured a shot of the surface before it died. I was going to post as one long video, but the GoPro 7 splits long videos in to multiple files, and I didn't feel like figuring out how to join them all in to one very long video.
First, let me start by saying our guided dive with Bas Tol was so much nicer, and I highly recommend that if you want the optimal experience. For me, I often also like to try things on my own, even though I know I will not see all the hard to find special stuff, so I did. Sharing this as a contrast to this other report, which really made me question if I wanted to try this dive even on the best of days: Shore Diving Cai in Bonaire August 2012
My wife and I dove Lac Cai yesterday, October 29, 2022, without a guide. This normally isn't recommended as the conditions can be rough and tricky, even dangerous, on the east coast of Bonaire. In this case, we were here during a special weather pattern where the wind was blowing out of the west (wind reversal they call it), making the west coast rough and the east coast very nice (at least the surface, and with our luck below surface was also good).
We didn't dive the "drift" way that we did with Bas Tol, because I'm not that good at multi-point navigation, and this was only our 2nd dive here, so not much chance I'm going to navigate based on memory. Instead, we just did a straight line out and back. The easiest line to remember even, 0 and 180 degrees. Even so, in all the excitement I managed to mess that up when setting the compass and didn't follow my normal rule/pattern of "1 line = the way out, 2 lines = the way in" -- so you'll see if you watch the video, I'm following 2 lines out and 1 line in, on the compass.
There was no noticeable current this day, except an ever so light current in the "channel". This channel is the place where the water exits the bay, and the only deep part of the bay, the place that boats use to enter/exit the bay (a boat passes over us on the way out). It was weird to see the fish and coral looking like there was current. In my experience and training, when fish are all facing the same direction and not moving, and coral/etc is all laying in one direction, you should expect or already feel the current. Also at one point in the video you will see a French angelfish "hiding" behind coral that is bent over, something that you might see in strong current.
We saw lots of tarpon, so I guess we managed to hit what they call the "tarpon pit", or at least something similar to it, on the way out and back in. The best part, for me, was that as soon as we got to the top of the reef that drops in to the deep, there was an eagle ray there to greet us, as if to say "hey, you made it, here is your prize". We didn't see any turtles or morays or many other rare and cool things that Bas Tol pointed out to us on our guided dive, but we made it out and in, and found the nice part of the reef, so I'm calling that a success and better than I could have hoped for. A little before reaching the part of the reef that is really nice, where it drops to the deep, I started thinking we were not going to make it, not going the right direction, so it was a great feeling when I saw the top and the darkness beyond it. We reached that spot at 18 minutes in to the dive, or about 50 seconds in to the "part 3" video, at only 25 foot depth.
At one point in the video you will see 3 divers with DPVs zoom by us (1 min 41 secs in to "part 4" video). Totally cheaters, but to each their own.
If you have read this far, you know I'm horrible at writing stories, so without further ado, here is the full video from start to end (feel free to fast forward most of this):
I'm not great on YouTube, or at taking and editing videos, but I think the link above should start you on the first video and auto play the others -- there are 5 parts in total. Part 1 shows right as we descend with a shot of land so you know where we started, and part 5 shows a shot of where we surfaced the first time (pretty close to exit spot), then we went back under to swim closer to the final exit spot, and the camera died a minute later, so very glad I captured a shot of the surface before it died. I was going to post as one long video, but the GoPro 7 splits long videos in to multiple files, and I didn't feel like figuring out how to join them all in to one very long video.
