It takes while to get here but it's worth the effort . . .
GREETINGS FROM BONAIRE - The good news is that we (all 12 of us) made it here safe and sound and were able to get in dives today. (I actually did five.) The bad news, at least on a personal level, is that I seem to be having some sort of a camera or flash problem where basically my strobes don't fire &/or the camera isn't exposing correctly. I'm hoping it's some camera setting I inadvertently screwed up so I'll check in the morning and see if I can figure things out. Fingers crossed.
THE OTHER BONAIRE PROBLEM - And it's a serious one: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, aka Wasting Disease. It's happening in many areas of the Caribbean and is now affecting Bonaire. About a dozen dive sites are affected, bascially from Something' Special to downtown. All dive operations had added some anti-cross-contamination procedures which includes mandatory gear rinsing in a mild chlorine solution after every dive and dividing the island into zones (Klein Bonaire, northern sites, southern sites) and asking you to only dive in a given zone on a given day. So that all makes logistics a little more complicated but as I mentioned above, we were able to get in five shore dives today on the Buddy Dive house reef (which is a fab reef anyhow).
THE NUMBERS - I'm shwoing 80 degrees on my gauge throughout. Visibility is probably 60 feet or so and just a bit hazy. (And it may be better on other reefs.) But, despite the disease issue, the Buddy reef looks pretty healthy and there are tons of fish. I especially noticed a LOT of tiny Sharpnose Puffers. Two of our folks spotted a friendly turtle, we got a Yellowhead Jawfish just off the entry site, there are Creole Wrasse and Scissortail Damsels everywhere, but no River of Fish (thousands of Creole Wrasses on the move) tonight at dusk. Air temps are in the mid-80s during the day and mid-70s at night. But there's also been a lot of cloud cover and it's windier than normal. We'll see how that affects diving while we're here. (We start our boat dives tomorrow.)
THE OTHER PROBLEM - Box jellies. (A quite painful and venomous jelly in case you don't know.)There's an alert out starting Wednesday evening and lasting through our stay for these creatures. They come out at sunset and spread into the shallows and then go deep at sunrise the next morning. So it's not a daytime problem at all. But night diving is discouraged starting Wednesday. Another wrinkle. But it also goes to underscore that anytime you go on any vacation, it's a dynamic situation and you have to roll with the flow.
TARPON GALORE - As you can see from the shot at the top of the page, taken right under the Buddy Dive pier, the Tarpon are out in force. In fact, when I took that shot, there were six of them hanging under the pier. It seems they've grown accustomed to waiting for the afternoon lionfish cull and the fish waste that's dumped off the pier. Many years ago, you only saw the Tarpon at night. A daytime sighting was rare. Now, it's commonplace.
THE EASTER BUNNY WAS HERE - I bought a whole bunch of Peeps and passed them out to our group and others proclaiming, "Peeps for my peeps!!!" Additionally, Buddy Dive organized an Easter Egg hunt in the afternoon. They buried 16 rock "eggs" with prizes awarded to those that found the eggs, all hidden within a designated area on the reef. Gayle Chin in our group found one but she was our only winner. But everyone had a good time and all of the eggs were found.
TOP 10 DAILY PIX - The camera situation will determine whether I can post a Daily Top 10 Pix on FaceBook. If I have to shoot available light, that severely dimishes photo opportunities. So we shall see.
ONE CHAMBER DAY PITCH - We're a shade over 3 weeks away from this critical fundraiser for the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. (55% of the funding needs to come from public sources like you and me.) One key component of that is the Flying Dutchman, our mythical boat ($95) where yo get a special t-shirt that has your "pirate" name on it. Reef Seekers usually is the #1 recruiter for the Dutchman,and while we're in the lead at the moment, it's not by much. So hopefully all of you Dutchman divers will go to
www.chamberday.org and get signed up for the Dutchman. It's for a good cause and it's fun.
THE BONAIRE CHAMBER IS DOWN - Seems it was privately-owned by a local guy who has retired and moved. They're trying to find someone to buy it and take his place. So now is NOT the time to get bent in Bonaire. It really makes you appreciate our Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber, which is a public entity that stands at the ready 24/7/365 and is certainly worthy of your support. 'Nuff said.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken
