Octopus and squid

[tarponchik]

@Ironborn I see. 1st, you did not dive too far West where the best sites are. 2nd, to get into Bonaire-type habitats, dive from Bonaire-type shores. These are rare in Curacao where most of shore diving is done from small sandy beaches absent in Bonaire . Still, there are some, like Playa Mansalina and couple of adjacent sites (I forgot the names) which can be reached from the old plantation entrance.

Curacao's shallow reefs may be narrow, but there's plenty of stuff to see. I've never seen as many sea lettuce nudis, sea anemones with a variety of small shrimp, and flamingo tongues as over the Curacao shallows reefs. But the further East (South) you go from Westpunt, the more deserted the reefs are. I counted just 1 sea anemone at Habitat Curacao reef, for example.

 

[wwguy]

Admittedly I don't dive at night as much as I used to, but I've seen octopus in the open during the daytime fairly frequently on Bonaire. They're quite curious and intelligent, some say similar to the intelligence of a mature house cat.

My experience, learned in part from other divers more knowledgeable than me, is that if you approach them quietly and carefully... and if they're in the mood... they enjoy observing and/or interacting with divers. For divers the key to this is to exhibit non-aggressive behavior, extend an invitation to them (rather than making them feel "pursued"), and let them be if they're obviously not in the mood to interact.

For example, here's an octopus that shared some bottom time with me just north of DFB's Yellow Sub pier a few years ago:

 

[Bas Tol(B.A.S.Diving)]

And sometimes they are 'in the zone' and really don't care who's around... like this Conch killer at Cai.
They are cool critters. Too bad they show up on so many restaurant menu's. There would be many more if they were not hunted so much.

 

[cjibber]

One of the squid from the top of the reef near The Hilma Hooker

 

[wgw04024]

My last trip to Bonaire I saw my first Octopus there. It was a night dive, right in front of the Plaza in maybe 6' of water in the sand. He was white, and almost passed right over him. We watched him for quite a while, he didn't scare much at all. It was beautiful.

 

[ijdod]

A few regular Octopusses I've spotted the last few weeks: Pretty much straight under Oil Slick's ladder, a few meters out from the wall, and straight out from Dive Friends Yellow Sub's pier. Often see them around the Salt Pier too. Squid can be found (or not found ) anywhere.

 

[DiveFans]

oms21, in case you're still checking this thread, we've been to Bonaire for the past 3 years for that same week in DEC and were VERY interested in seeing Reef Squid - our favorite sea creature.

We are boat divers only and the first 2 years we dove with a large dive op in the north of Bonaire, and only once saw a Reef Squid; of course with 15+ people surrounding them, we weren't able to have any personal interaction with them.

Last year we dove in Dec with Div'Ocean instead - they take only 6-8 divers on their boat. They found Reef Squid on several dives for us, and I was able to spend all the time I wanted to interact with them in a non-threatening way. They are so curious and will approach you if you simply stop and allow them to come closer at their own pace. Often we'll see a group of 3 or more Squid and they form a half-circle, and each one in turn will come closer to check me out, then return to the group while the next one comes close - fascinating.

Needless to say, we'll be going back to Bonaire this Dec and diving with Div'Ocean again, so if you do any boat dives with them we may meet up. We'll be there for the first 2 weeks.

We used to dive often at Kura Hulanda in Curacao and frequently saw Squid on those dives. But the very best encounter we had there was snorkeling at their beach, when I found a group of very tiny juvenile squid, all lined up just like the adults do

 

[Rhone Man]

It is a little know fact that Octopuses are descended from ninjas. They are excruciatingly hard to spot during day dives. They are one of my favourite types of marine life, but in approximately 1,400 daytime dives, according to my log I have seen 12. So I am batting just below 1%. Night dives much better.

 

[ijdod]

Octopuses tend to stick to a location, so if you've seen one in a certain spot, they're likely to be around there somewhere the next time you visit there. They also tend to want a spot to watch their surroundings, so you can often find them sticking out of the reef a bit, compared to the corals. (Essentially, look for the highest coral, if it's looking back, you've found the octopus ). I'm lucky in that my favourite dive site in Egypt has a couple of resident octopuses, it's actually rare *not* to see one (or more!) during a dive. As with many hidden critters, once you've spotted a few the next get easier. I've yet to find a frogfish here... although I'm sure I missed many

I've seen more squid than octopus on Bonaire, though. This was last Thursday at Karpata

Octopus hidden at Dive Friends Yellow Sub. Picture from 2 weeks ago, was still there last Friday

Same octopus, less hidden

 

[ZzzKing]

You must have a Great SAC if you watched for several days... Or you had a snorkel?

Jim

I was thinking that about the squid if they kept it up for several days...