Night dving in Bonaire

[tarponchik]

Not fleas, but flies. Looks like I skipped the "f" in my post, let me edit it, sorry.

 

[Mike]

My wife and I are going to Bonaire late August. We love to night dive, and I many times plant a strobe at the entry/exit point for easy reference coming home. For those of you who have dove there, do you think it will get ripped off by others, or do divers have courtesy there? It is a nice tool, but I don't want to lose it. What do you all think??

Best thing to do is just park the rental truck with the light pointing out to sea and leave the lights on. I'd leave it running just to make sure you don't run down the battery.

Or

If you really feel the need to mark your entry/exit, just buy a couple of those disposable glow sticks before you go. $2.00 each and mark your entry/exit with it. If it walks away, you're just out a couple of bucks at worst.

But quite frankly, I think you might find night diving off your house reef pretty hard to resist. You're right there, tanks waiting 10 feet off the water, lit up good... pretty easy way to go.

 

[wewidlund]

RHINO - I've been doing night dives on annual trips to Bonaire for 5 years. I always leave a small strobe on shore, making sure it is facing out to sea and not easily visible from the roads. I haven't done any of the house reefs at night, but most of the northern dives, and probably a dozen of the southern dives. Parking your truck close to shore (where possible) works well as hitting the license plate with a dive light is a great marker. Never had my strobe/headlamp stolen.

 

[Rhino434]

Thanks wewidlund,
I used to teach classes, and used a strobe all the time on night dives. I had a cool red blinking light I would set on shore, facing the sea, and it was great. I just thought with diving a wall at night, it would be nice to anchor one at about 30', so when we came back we woud know the navigation spot out to our exit point. Have you ever used a sausage on night dives, attached to a 2lb weight to mark the exit spot on day dives? I am thinking of that as well.

 

[dbulmer]

Rhino,
The dives are so easy generally that I would not bother. What I would do is keep track of time and then reverse direction. ie 20 mins one way and then 20 mins back. There is little current so just tracking time was sufficient to get me back to the starting point.
Just an idea !