Bonaire 2015

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Timing is everything in life. Unfortunately, once again, we could not coordinate schedules to allow a larger group of Donkey Divers to dive together on this trip.

Kim and I are back on Bonaire, my favorite place to dive. This is my 17th trip and Kim's 6th trip to Bonaire. Between the two of us we have 520 dives on the beautiful reefs of Bonaire and Klein Bonaire.

Depending on quality of our internet access and surface interval time, I will try to update pictures daily while we are diving here.

Johnny, Linda, Wally and Robin will be coming down here later this month.

Once again, with the help of Vee at The Travel Shop I arranged a trip to Bonaire.

We are staying at the Belmar Oceanfront Apartments on their "Drive, Dive and Stay Package" which includes a vehicle to get us to the shore dive locations, boat diving and unlimited air from Buddy Dive Resort . The only thing not included is our meals but that is not a problem since we have our favorite restaurants on the island and we may have time to check out a few new ones, too.

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We got up at 4:00AM (bet some of you didn't know there was a 4:00 in the morning) and headed for the airport. Ten hours later we landed in Divers' Paradise and got the first flamingo stamped into my new passport. We were able to check into our apartment and make a grocery run to stock up on Diet Coke (36 cans should last most of the week since Kim only drinks one or two a day), chips and paper towels. I also packed about 10 pounds of food in my luggage so we should be good for breakfast and lunch. After that we made a quick check out dive off the docks. The water was comfortable 84 degrees. May not break out the wet suits all week with water this nice. My high pressure hose has a slow leak where it attaches to the pressure gauge, so first stop in the morning will the dive shop at Carib Inn. Hopefully it will be a fast and cheap repair so that we can jump in the ocean behind the shop for our first dive of the day.
This picture is of the sunset off our balcony tonight. After enjoying the sunset we headed to Bobbejans for the best ribs on the island.
On Sunday we had get a high pressure hose repaired before we started our dives but we still managed to get in 5 great dives. One of the things we saw was a free swimming Chain Link Eel. These are rare creatures and usually all you see is a portion of their head deep in the coral. This guy was swimming between several coral heads when Kim first spotted it. I took this picture of him after he settle into a hiding place.
We saw 4 turtles today. This was a little one swimming past us.
There is lots of colorful coral on the reefs here. This is a purple tipped anemone.
Kim swims past a large anchor on the first dive today.
We started out Monday with a great dive at 1,000 Steps. This site got its name because you park you vehicle at the top of a cliff and then walk down what seems like 1,000 steps. Actually, it is only 87 steps but that is still equivalent to putting on 60 pounds of dive gear and going down 8 floors of stairs. The worst part is after the dive when you have to climb back up those stairs with a couple of more pounds of salt water soaking you gear. In this picture you can see that Kim got head start on me. She is almost half way up.
A puffer fish poked his head out from under a coral head to see if Linda was with us today.
We saw three turtles today. This is one we saw at Bachelor's Beach.
Found this squid at Bachelor's Beach. He was by himself but we saw two more later on the same dive.
This is not the biggest barracuda I have seen but it is the largest I have seen on Bonaire. I estimated it at 6 feet. Kim swears it was bigger than that.
This guy had a set of teeth on him that were bigger than a Doberman's.
After lunch we were heading out for our afternoon dives. We ran into Mariska, one of the divemasters here. She asked where we were headed. Kim told her that we were going to dive "Lake: and then go to "Bachelor's Beach". Mariska said that she had heard that there were 5 seahorses at Bachelor's Beach so we should keep an eye out for them. Once Kim heard that our agenda changed. We headed directly to Bachelor's Beach to take advantage of the mid-day sun while in search of elusive sea creatures. Not 10 minutes into the dive Kim found 2 seahorses. This is one of them. That was all we found on that dive. So, knowing that there were supposed to be 3 more on that site, we did the second afternoon dive at the same site. We did manage to find same two on the second dive but if there were 3 more, we didn't find them.
This is the other seahorse. He is not easy to see at first in the photo so you can imagine how hard they are to find in a big ocean. They really blend in well with their surroundings. This one was about 5 inches.
This is the second seahorse from a different angle.
Tuesday was turtle day. We went for two dives with East Side Divers. As the name implies, we were diving on the east side of the island today. They took us out in a Zodiak boat to dive. This is the first time on this trip that Kim and I were diving with other divers. Until now, we were diving alone. We saw over 25 turtles on two dives. When you add the other turtles we saw this afternoon and we saw close to 30 turtles today. This is one of the Green Turtles we saw on the East side.
Another of the many turtles we saw today.
We also saw a lot of rays on the East side. This was a very large Southern Sting Ray. He has survived a serious shark bite on his face.
Linda, here are two of the squid that we saw on the 'east side. Per your request, I told them that you would not be here for two weeks. Then I saw the one on the right shed a tear.
This is a Green Moray Eel that Kim found at The Lake this afternoon.
Staghorn Coral wraps around some soft coral. Prior to 1999 there was a lot of staghorn coral but the huge waves from a storm (Lenny) damaged much of the coral in the shallows. It is slowly coming back.
On a night dive tonight I found a Coronet Fish within a minute of leaving the dock. These fish are very rare. I have only seen 5 counting this one. I never expected to see one on a night dive.
On Wednesday Kim and I dove on the Hilma Hooker, a ship wreck that sets on the sand 100 feet below the surface. Here she looks at me through the propeller of the ship.
A shrimp climbs up on the tip of an anemone to pose for this picture.
This Queen Angel Fish maneuvers though a maze of Rope Coral.
A Red Banded Shrimp.
Several Harlequin Shrimp hiding down in an anemome.
A Trumpet Fish poses for a picture.
This is a Honeycomb Cow Fish. It has a honeycomb pattern on its sides and small "horns" above its eyes that remind people of a cow.
Beautiful colors in the coral of the reef. We dove Pink Beach dive site on Thursday afternoon. The sun was out and the colors were vibrant.
More beautiful colors at Pink Beach.
A tiny shrimp not much larger than a grain of rice dances on the anemone.
A Queen Angel Fish swims past at Karpata.
This guy is called a Rainbow Parrot Fish.
A few years ago I was awarded an honorary bronze ambassadorship for my many visits tot he island. This year I was awarded a silver Ambassador Medal.
These are two Banded Butterfly Fish hiding in the soft coral.
Several Christmas Tree Worms living on a brain coral.
A Spotted Drum Fish hides down in the coral of the reef.
Two Flamingo Tongue Snails feeding on some soft coral.
The reddish-orange object in the middle of the picture is Frog Fish. They look like a sponge growing on the coral. They sit very still until something they want to eat swims close and then they quickly eat them.
A Queen Angel Fish hanging out under a coral ledge.
A Rock Beauty swims over the reef.
A Blue Banded Cleaning Shrimp hangs our waiting for a fish or other creature to comes along to be groomed.
   
   
   
   
   
 
Date Location Dive Site Maximum Depth Bottom time
 
9/12/2015 Bonaire Sara's Smile 58 31
9/13/2015 Bonaire Carib Inn 53 62
9/13/2015 Bonaire Andrea I 51 62
9/13/2015 Bonaire Salt Pier 37 42
9/13/2015 Bonaire Alice in Wonderland 78 44
9/13/2015 Bonaire Sara's Smile 37 40
9/14/2015 Bonaire 1,000 Steps 57 70
9/14/2015 Bonaire Oil Slick Leap 64 62
9/14/2015 Bonaire Bachelor's Beach 54 57
9/14/2015 Bonaire Bachelor's Beach 53 58
9/15/2015 Bonaire Fuchi (East Side)) 60 61
9/15/2015 Bonaire Turtle City (East) 64 63
9/15/2015 Bonaire Red Beryl 54 50
9/15/2015 Bonaire Lake 77 38
9/15/2015 Bonaire Sara's Smile 34 45
9/16/2015 Bonaire Salt Pier 43 60
9/16/2015 Bonaire Hilma Hooker 101 46
9/16/2015 Bonaire Something Special 54 66
9/16/2015 Bonaire Buddy Reef 61 46
9/17/2015 Bonaire Andrea II 60 51
9/17/2015 Bonaire Karpata 66 48
9/17/2015 Bonaire Pink Beach 65 62
9/18/2015 Bonaire Mi Dushi 60 62
9/18/2015 Bonaire Keepsake 43 67
9/18/2015 Bonaire Sara's Smile 39 55
 
 

 

 

 

 

 To see pictures from other dive trips, click on the button below to go to my SCUBA page. It has links to other pages of pictures and dive reports from many different dive trips over the years. 

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