Bubble Blowers-Daily Update

[ReefDivers]

Since so many of us are off island and missing Bonaire’s beautiful reefs, can those that are on island and who are diving give us some dive reports? Or has all diving stopped on the island? We are hopeful to return to the island, for three months, in mid August.

[MelE]

Still diving down here. I’m so grateful that Dive Friends has had tanks available during all this craziness. After all, what could be safer from a virus than being underwater!

i have dived (dove?) mostly northern sites since arriving mid March. We watched an octopus on a night dive last week at Oil Slick. There were all kinds of wormy things in the water column that night. Looked like they were spawning. I’ve been snorkeling and diving at Karpata recently. I forgot what an amazing site that is. Just beautiful mixed coral, great viz, current on and off depending on the day. An adult loggerhead swam over to check us out on that dive. I had never seen one. His head was massive! I felt quite special at his attention.
Yesterday we dove Webers Joy. It was good but the viz wasn’t that great by Bonaire standards.

i can’t say that the diving is really any different than past years but we’ve probably dove more down south of town in the past. And even during the high season I rarely see more than a couple other divers underwater except for Salt Pier. Always busy there. I wish I had my housing but we packed super skinny to make it here so no pictures. But I have also learned that many animals have been avoiding me with my camera in the past. I’ve concluded they dislike the strobe. So for now I’m enjoying the closer looks I’ve been getting without the photos.

[Kate B]

Hi,
Happy to give a dive update, thanks for asking. We live on Bonaire and we and our our friends are still diving. The visibility is great, the water is about 82 degrees at depth, and the sites are almost deserted. For the first time, no one else was at Hilma Hooker on a recent dive.

My husband, Ian Kaplan, posts underwater videos of a number of his dives onYouTube here :
www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Ql9hEiXX25kaUoHfqqReg

Feel free to be his virtual dive buddy until you can get back here in person.

He also has about 300 underwater photos in the “bear cave galleries” section of his website www.bearcave.com

Hope you’re all well,

[smits]

nice videos. Thank you for sharing.

[smits]

S I’ve been snorkeling and diving at Karpata recently. I forgot what an amazing site that is. Just beautiful mixed coral, great viz, current on and off depending on the day. An adult loggerhead swam over to check us out on that dive.

Have you done the drift dive from LaDania to Karpata? One of my favorites.

[ReefDivers]

Thank you for sharing your dives with those of us who want to be there but remain home during these challenging times. We are scheduled to be "on island" from Aug-Nov. We are keeping our fingers crossed that Bonaire will be open. This being said, it's hard to picture our new normal being our old one. Again - thank you for sharing and we hope to visit soon!

[ReefDivers]

Hi MelE - thank you for sharing your dive with us. I forwarded your accounting to our children. Both were certified on Bonaire and both joined us on our July, 2019 trip. We were all amazed at seeing an adult loggerhead. What a treat! There was also a dive report, in 2019, of a manta sighting - how awesome. Last year, B-CV19, we committed to our first extended stay on the island. Fingers crossed, we are very hopeful to be on island from Aug-Nov. We have not drifted LaDania to Karpata. Thank you for the recommend; hopefully, we can add that to our "done that" list on our next visit. We have drift snorkeled from the beach drop on Klein, Knife, all the way around to Sharon's Serenity and then hiked back. We've done this multiple times. It's a great snorkel. Water and snacks are a must! Another snorkel we would like to try is from Oil Slick to Thousand Steps. This is also on our "next trip to Bonaire" list. I'm curious, in our years of visiting Bonaire we have never dived with or seen any sharks. However, on our last trip I saw, at dusk, from our deck in Pueblo Villas, a medium size shark. It came into view around Jeff Davis Memorial and worked its way towards Thousand Steps. Have there been any other sightings on this side of the island?

[MelE]

My husband and I went to Oil Slick to do a night dive to view the ostracods tonight and jumped right into a big smack of little jellyfish! As best as we could tell, they were small maybe 2-3 inches long with 4-5 inch long tentacles that were pink.

I was luckier than my husband because I wear a wetsuit and he does not. The exit was tough because I went up the ladder first to find one of the rungs missing. He had to push me to help me and my short legs over the gap while he was still getting stung! (He says he’s going up first next time lol). We have welts but nothing serious.

We’ve tried to figure out what kind they are from pictures online. The timing and shape is right for the Bonaire box jelly but these guys look smaller and I would have expected a worse sting.

So so heads up to anyone diving that area the next few days. Maybe, rock-paper-scissors to decide who goes in first and test the water.