-hh
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parrotman once bubbled...
One of the posters above commented on the fact that all the dive sites on Bonaire are basically the same. I'm not sure which sites he dove, but I could not disagree more. The dive sites vary considerably from one end of the island to the other.
I don't think I said it on this thread, but I do agree with the general sentiment that Bonaire sites are IMO very repetitious: for the most part, they're all a sloping coral encrusted incline that eventually bottoms out on a sandy plain (100fsw down south and 200fsw up north). If you enjoy spending your entire week swimming along a 45 degree slanted surface, yep, Bonaire is for you.
Well, its not really that bad. There are some inner/outer reef formations down south (Angel City), some overhangs (Karpata...its hard to call them caves or swim-throughs) and the occasional 20ft true vertical relief (near Captain Don's), and some shallow water staghorns (mostly over on Kline), but compared to what it could be, that's really minor variations in topology.
What I haven't found in Bonaire are the things that you can find on Little Cayman: BIG sheer verticals (Great Wall West), swim-through canyons and caves (Hole in the Wall; Marlynn's Cut), wide sand chutes (Nancy's Cup of Tea), spur and groove formations (Windsock), pinnacles (Magic Roundabout), spot reef caves (Eagle Ray Roundup), fish-rich miniwalls (Mixing Bowl), chimneys (Randy's Gazebo), shallow gardens (Baracuda Bight), deep spurs/grooves (name forgotten; Southside), rocky tumbles (Joy's Joy), Double-Walls (another southside), and tunnels (Cumber's Caves; Bus Stop), even Hoo-doo's (The Edge), plus wrecks from the size of tankers down to diveboats if you're into that.
During my trip to Little Cayman last year, the vis was ok, not the best. On several of the dive sites there appeared to be some sort of yellow cloud in the water, hopefully not pollution from the resorts but it could have been. The thing that I noticed most was the lack of sea life compared to Bonaire..
I'll admit that the reefs in the Caymans seemed better a decade ago, but I don't know how much of that is my critical eye becoming better in looking for signs of poor reef health...I hope its my eye, but I suspect not. I'll also say that even the same location can vary greatly both year to year as well as week to week. For example, I suspect that the "yellow cloud" you saw was kicked up particulates from a set of swells from the north combined with winds from the south...the swells kick up the fines as they break on shore and the winds carry this water out ... in extreme cases, I've seen ~15ft visibility for 0-20fsw, with beautiful 150ft visibility 20fsw-infinity.
In any event, I don't dispute that Bonaire has a great variety of little macro critter life - - but where's the big critters and the occasional pelagic? LC is a pinnacle island in the middle of nowhere which does limit its juvenile gardens, but that also means that its visibility is generally better too. Photographically, I don't see the dramatic reef topology in Bonaire that makes me want to pull out my wide angle lens. Even on the Hilma Hooker isn't necessarily a great image because of all of the floating particulates...take a gander: http://tinyurl.com/m4t8. Having lots of pooge like this photo shows, floating in the water, is the trade-off of having the food to support lots of macro critters. And if nothing else, this simply illustrates that different people look for different things when we're diving.
-hh