Day 4 - Saturday

Since my last dive on Friday I was significantly chilled, I decided to get a shorty as well, so after breakfast, it was off to Carib Inn.

We got back in plenty of time to make the 10:30 boat dive - this time to Joanna's Sunchi on Klein Bonaire.

Since I hadn’t had a chance to re-balance my weights, I left the shorty behind for this boat dive. Bart was our divemaster and this time he showed us a cute yellow frogfish. This is a gorgeous reef there is lots of soft coral and fish and tons of cool stuff to see. Bart also pointed his light into a little coral cave, and
showed us a juvenile trunkfish. He was so cute - like a little black and yellow die.

There was another bad diver on this boat trip. This lady kept bumping onto stuff and crashing into corals. One of the other divers later told us he saw her break a tube sponge.

We were swimming along the reef when Don (one of the other guests at Buddy's) took off after the biggest free swimming green moray I've ever seen! He was huge! Of course, by the time we got there with the camera, he had his head and most of his body in a hole.

We loved this dive! I was a little queasy on the boat - but still ok.

This picture didn't turn out too well, but what the heck, I'll show you anyway


Tube sponges make nice subjects, they don't move on you!


Christmas tree worms


When we got back, we went to City Cafe for lunch. We liked the food, but the service here kind of sucks. It took so long for the waitress to come and ask us if we wanted drinks, that Steve finally went to the bar. Then the bartender took forever to get them too. I know we're supposed to be relaxed and on island time, but we were thirsty. Hungry too. Anyway, we finally got our orders taken and lunch was tasty.

After lunch, we went back to Buddy's reef to look for the seahorse, and for me to get my weights situated with the new layer. A lady who was staying there by herself came with us. She was very nice, but she kept touching the coral! Steve found the seahorse, and she pushed coral branches out of her way to get a better look. Unfortunately, the seahorse is very small, so I didn't get a picture. He was tucked in between the branches and I didn't want to hurt anything just to get a picture. After the seahorse, we swam towards Lions Dive to find a frogfish we heard was around. We found him too! We kept going over to LaMachaca to check out the wreck, then made our way back. There's a lot to see
right off of Buddy's dock!





After our dive at Buddy's Reef we showered and ate some rum cake and chex mix and waited for it to be time for our night dive. A NIGHT DIVE - YIKES! We had arranged with Hagen earlier to do a private trip to Town Pier since Buddy does their official trip on Tuesday nights and we were leaving on Wednesday. I have to admit that this was only my second night dive, and I was a bit apprehensive. Hagen did an outstanding job
of letting us know what we were in for though, so I felt much better. Once we got into the water I was ok (the same thing happened on our first night dive). That is I was ok until we got under the pier. I have always been uncomfortable in overhead situations and the tight quarters combined with the pier overhead and the darkness kind of freaked me out. I made Steve take the camera - I had intended to take it back once I got comfortable, but that never happened, and I didn't have it set right so no good pictures. We did complete the dive, and it's beautiful. I'm
glad we did it, but I won't be doing that again!

Stay tuned for the Hilma Hooker and more...

Thanks again Renee!
I do like your pictures. The yesterday-ones had better color, but these are still good.
Nice Frog-Fish!
I'm looking 4ward 2 the next episode!

ps Don't u just hate it if people are careless?

THANKS RENEE.

I've been injoying your trip reports.

I still haven't been able to do a night dive.
Maybe one day.

Night dives are very strange. I've done 2 as well. A suggestion-try starting at twilight, then you will ease into the night. This is what I did last time, and it helped.

Lovin' it Renee! I agree with Mary about the twilight entry for a night dive; easier psychologically. Also diving a reef that you are comfortable and familiar with, and planning your dive to within x number of yards of the mooring. Some people actually put a little blinky light at the foot of the mooring. Night diving is such a thrill for me!! Buddys Reef and Lamachaca are easy to navigate, you should try it there. m.

I can't do night dives, either. I've done three and have psyched myself out of doing them anymore...although, the last one I did we saw an octopus! He flashed all kinds of colors at us...it was way cool!

This past trip to Bonaire I bought a light and I was ready to try my first night dive. I chickend out at the last minute. I told Tim I would prefer to go in at sunset. So maybe on our next vacation.

Whereas I love night dives, and Dan gets his best breathing rates during night dives. I'm curious to know if you folks who are uncomfortable with night dives do much day diving in low-visibility situations (20 ft or less)? We did our training and do most of our diving in the year here in New England, where 20ft vis is a good day. Makes night dives in the Caribbean look positively spacious. I can well imagine that someone who's used to high visibility might feel a touch of claustrophobia or the like when they can only see as far as the beam from their flashlight illuminates...

Faith

Hi Faith!

I don't like either low viz or night dives...my imagination tends to run away from me...something grabbing me from the dark, etc., etc. I stress really badly on night dives, because my buoyancy is not as good and I don't want to hurt anything or be hurt by something. Dive masters tend to overweight one on night dives. The last one I did I refused to be overweighted.

The lowest viz I have dove in was 35 feet. It was okay but I kept thinking something big (shark) was going to pop threw the fuzz. My husband spear fishes around here and sometimes you can't see your hand in front of your face and he love night dives. So maybe you are right.

Faith, I think you're onto something there with the low viz thing and night diving. The zebra mussel infestation in the Great Lakes has improved some of the Lake Ontario viz to 35 ft -woo-hoo! There's the 5-10 ft viz in the Niagara River, drift diving and looking for bottles, trying not to thump into old dock pilings as the current whooshes you along.
I think it also helps if you have a good initial night dive. The first one I did in AOW training was on some other island (Roatan) and my buddy and I were the last 2 in the water from the boat. The other students were in a semi-circle on the bottom in 50 ft of water, and the descent down to them and their winking, twinkling dive lights reminded me of the movie 2001: A Space Odessey, so I hummed the "Blue Danube Waltz" during free-fall.
Another absolutely wonderful experience was Stealth Night Diving off Sand Dollar in 1999, full moon illuminating the sand flats, so I turned off my dive light and what a great trip that was. Now I try to stealth night dive whenever I can.
This past trip we did the Town Pier late at night and there was so much light both from the pier itself and my dive group, that I could turn off my light from time to time and enjoy the cathedral lighting effect. Just move very, very slowly, small fin kicks so you don't touch anything, breathe slowly, and the buyoancy thing is no problem. (Although you do have to watch for other divers zooming around...)

I've done many dives up here in New England with less than 20 feet vis (and a few here and there with less than 10 -- murk!), and I find that many folks who dive mostly good vis find that a bit nerve-wracking. I can imagine that adding darkess to the equation would probably compound the problem. I won't go into detail about the night dive up here with 10 ft vis, other than to mention that Dan brought along the camera on that dive, and every time he took a shot of an anemone, the resulting blast of light off the subject and the surrounding murk burned the picture of the anemone into his retinas for a good 30 seconds at a time...

Fiona, I like the sound of the stealth dives! On our trip to Grand Cayman last week, the moon was in the 1st quarter, and it was just bright enough that, on our safety stop at 15 feet, we turned off our lights and could still see the bottom at 30 feet. Couldn't see fish or anything, but could make out coral shapes and the like. Very cool... We did our ascent without lights after that.

We did a night dive in St. John, USVI, back in January. There were two women on the dive who had never been night diving, and several other folks who were also fairly new divers. Lots of folks who had buoyancy problems -- Dan and I finally backed off from the group because we were tired of being kicked in the head all the time (we tuck in fairly low near the reef, so I can peek inside sponges and things -- cool critters living inside the sponges at night!). But the divemaster was good, and took things slowly. After we surfaced, one of the women said she never ever wanted to do anything like that again as long as she lived -- she found it a horrendous experience. The other woman wanted to know if they were doing another night dive that week, so she could go on it...

My first night dive ever was at Town Pier in Bonaire, with Jake. We were doing our Advanced with him. That's the dive where Dan found our first octopus. It's also the dive where I darn near broke my ankle getting into the water -- stepped on a rock on the steps on the way into the water and turned my ankle on it. Sat down mighty quick-like! Luckily it didn't affect my diving at all (walking was another story). After nearly killing myself getting in, the dive was a piece of cake...

Faith

Faith,
Lucky there wasn't a sea urchin anywhere either!!


Geoffrey had me night diving pretty early on (Bonaire, not up here - brrrrr!!!!), and I really love them. We've often turned our lights off and just hovered a bit back away from the wall, watching other divers lights flit around pointed at the reef and them completely unaware that we're there, only a few feet away. Also, once your eyes get used to the darkness (and once you're finished playing with the phosphorescense (sp)), your eyes get used to the dark and you can see some cool things in the shadows.

In 1999 I had a nearly identical ankle-twist/quick sit-down thing doing a night dive around the Ro-Ro pier. The Dutch Navy was at the Town Pier, so that was out of the question, why not do the next pier over? The divemaster took us down what was then a tree and brush covered slope at the curve in the road near the Fort. (Since landscaped with the Playa beautification project) Scrambling down the rocky slope I did a sort of ballet move that didn't work. I also did the whole night dive, and kept diving for the rest of the week with the help of sports tape. One good thing about a spare pair of 5ml booties is that you get some ankle support. Plus the ice you don't use on your swollen ankle you can always use in your drink!

Single malt??? Attention, Michael: Fiona is one of the good ones.

A variation on a stealth dive is to put a dark red photo filter (with an opaque center dot to shield the bulb filament!) and use that red light as your dive light. You will see many things that run from a white light, especially a bright one. A plastic 'gel' can be cut to fit inside the lens, the opaque dot can be alum foil.