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Bonaire Diving pt2

SPECIAL NOTE: For those who think my blog posts are long and boring, there is an alternative. Jimmy made an excellent video of our trip to Bonaire and posted it on YouTube. Be sure to check it out, and have the sound on when you do.

After our new divers completed their certification, we had another two tank boat dive scheduled for the next day. Since it had been a couple of days of intense diving most of our group decided to take some time off to rest. Only Tim, Shannon and I were up for a full day of diving, going with Peter as our dive master. With us on the boat was another dive master, Max, and one other "customer", Mark. He probably wasn't really a paying customer. It turned out that he was Max's dad who was visiting from the Netherlands. I suspect that since Peter was going out with us and the boat was half empty, Max and Mark decided to tag along. When we talked to Mark it turned out that his father had owned the Sunset Beach Resort. The very first time that Sandy and I came to Bonaire, back in the mid 1990's, we had stayed there. It was also where Tim and I stayed on the first dive trip that we took after Tim got his Junior C Card. The Sunset Beach opened in 1962 and was the very first dive resort on Bonaire,. Sadly in 1999 it was badly damaged by high surf when Hurricane Lenny passed near Bonaire. It never recovered and was closed. I have a lot of good memories of early diving days with Sandy and Tim at the Sunset Beach Resort.

Today we went to Klein Bonaire, a small uninhabited island with a beautiful, pristine reef system. It's only half a mile from Bonaire at it's nearest point. Over the years there have been many battles over development of Klein Bonaire but in the 1990's the forces pushing for conservation finally won. The island was purchased with a mixture of public and private funds and added to the Marine Park and Preserve. It's good to know that sometimes the Good Guys win. Sandy and I still have a framed "Save Klein Bonaire" poster hanging in our bedroom. We bought on our first trip to the island.

Although the water around Bonaire is beautiful, it looks even more inviting around Klein Bonaire. We moored the boat at a site called Monk's Haven where the water was just an incredible azure color. As soon as I was geared up I asked Peter if the pool was open. When he said yes I was the first one in the water.

When Shannon did her giant stride off the boat her spare regulator started to free flow. She tried to control it but it was stuck open. Max jumped in the water right away and gave her octopus a good hard smack. That fixed it. Unfortunately when she checked her gauge, she had lost a quarter of her air. That meant that we might have to shorten our bottom time. That didn't bother me. During the predive briefing Peter had mentioned that we would shoot for fifty minutes as our dive time. Usually I go through my air faster than anyone (which is embarrassing). When I raised a concern Peter just said to signal him when I was half way through my air. While that should work, it didn't completely reassure me. I like to have a lot of margin when I am diving. Now Shannon had a lot less air than me so she would probably be the one to signal when we needed to turn around.

It was another great dive with beautiful coral and lots of fish. I tried to stay relaxed and calm. I swam slowly and deliberately, breathing easily to minimize my air consumption. I was pleased that I still had more than half my air when Peter turned us around. When we surfaced we had fifty six minutes of dive time and I still had quite a bit of air left. I would have been really proud of myself except that Shannon had managed the same bottom time with only three quarters of a tank. I couldn't brag too much.

Our second dive was another site off Klein Bonaire called Mi Dushi, which means My Sweetheart in papiamento, This time Peter stayed in the boat and Max was the dive master for all of us. It was another good dive. Afterwards as we headed back to Bonaire, Shannon mentioned that something had been stabbing the roof of her mouth during the dive. When she checked it turned out that her tongue ball had come off. (That's not a problem that I'm familiar with.) Tim asked if she swallowed it and she said no, she must have lost it somehow. Tim grabbed her regulator and gave it a shake and out came the tongue ball. I thought that was a pretty strong statement for how reliable modern scuba regulators are. They even work with pieces of metal rattling around inside of them!

While the three oldest divers were out on the dive boat all morning, the youngsters rested and recuperated from their three days of hard diving. That afternoon we all did a shore dive together on 18 Palms.

Instead of the pier we used the beach entry at the northern end of the resort. This let us explore more of the house reef that extended to the north. We found a swim through, a diamond-shaped opening made of metal tubing, at the start of the reef just off the beach. I was quick to swim through and Kristan was the only one who tried to follow me. She underestimated how much her tank stuck up above her and klunked it as she went through. Jimmy captured it all on video using his GoPro. But hey, at least she did it when no one else tried.

The next day, Friday, was our final day of diving. As good as the diving had been so far we definitely saved the best for last.

After a partial rest day, Kristan and Stephanie were ready to join us again. Jimmy was having trouble with fluid in his ears so although he wanted to go, he thought it safer not to dive. He came along on the dive boat though to lend moral support. Our first dive was great but the second one was really memorable. There was a huge school of silver fish below us. They were like a dense cloud, at least thirty feet across, probably more. We dropped down to their level and as we reached them they parted ever so slightly, flowing all around us. They completely surrounded us. It seemed like a solid mass but as you would reach out your hand the fish would move slightly to avoid it. You could never quite touch them. It reminded me a little of when I was a kid and we would play with a glob of mercury in science class in school. A shiny, silvery mass that changed shape at your touch. That's what this huge school of fish was like. It was amazing.

When there are that many small fish you can be sure that there will be big fish nearby. On this dive we saw both a large tarpon and a large barracuda keeping an eye on the large school of smaller fish. They were obviously watching for strays that might provide a meal for them.

When we got back to the boat, Jimmy said he had seen a large sea turtle near the boat, which all of us who were underwater had missed. It was definitely the best dive of the trip for seeing marine life for everyone. So far.

We had been talking about doing a night dive all week. Since Friday was our last day of diving, we decided that it was now or never. I really wanted to go, as did Tim. Shannon decided to come along as well.

I had brought four dive lights but for the two large/main lights I didn't bring batteries. Since they took four D cells each they would have been very heavy in my luggage. I was about to make a big battery purchase when Peter at Div Ocean came to the rescue. He loaned us eight rechargable batteries, and an extra dive light for Shannon to use. Have I mentioned that the folks at Div Ocean were great?

While everyone else went to dinner Tim and I were hauling our dive gear to the dock. Although we were excited about the night dive we hadn't picked the best night. It was quite windy and the waves were higher than they had been all week. Getting in and out of the water would be a little more challenging than it had been before. On our other shore dives we just got in the water and put our fins on. Tonight we put our fins on before climbing down the ladder. It took extra care but it was better than fighting the surf when we were in the water.

We were careful getting past the rocks near the dock but after that things were easier. The sky wasn't totally dark yet but it was pitch black underwater. We could only see by our dive lights. Tim took the lead (because Rangers lead the way). Our plan was to do about a thirty minute dive so we would have a lot of air reserve in case our navigation skills resulted in a long swim back for us.

We didn't go very deep, only to about thirty five feet, but there was a lot to see. Lots of marine life hides in the nooks and crannies of rocks and coral during the day but then comes out at night. We saw a huge lobster that had to be at least a foot and a half long. Shannon found a weird looking crab on a coral head that was feeding on little white specs. If we weren't underwater I would have said they were lice. A moray eel, which usually looks fierce, seemed very shy when our lights were shining on him. Tim spotted a stingray in a small sandy area. It swam by us very slowly but eventually left to get away from our lights. Most of the critters that we found didn't appreciate it when we would shine our lights on them. There was a reason that they only came out at night and they didn't want to be in the spotlight.

Just before we turned around I would sometimes notice a faint flash of light below and to the side of us. When I shone my light it that direction I saw that there was a BIG tarpon about twenty feet away. They are very silvery so it reflected the light really well. I saw it swim by us a couple of times.

At fifteen minutes Tim turned us around to head back. I thought we had left the tarpon far behind because he was heading the other direction, but soon I saw faint flashes to the side again. Eventually the tarpon came into view. As we swam back, he followed us, coming closer and closer. Towards the end of the dive he was like a member of our group. Tim or Shannon would be on one side of me and the tarpon would be on the other. A few times he came close enough that I thought I could reach out and touch him. I didn't of course because like I said, he was a big tarpon. I wouldn't want to tangle with him. He was swimming with us because he was hunting in our lights. I never did see him get anything though. It was amazing, swimming only a few feet away from such an amazing predator.

The tarpon even followed us into the shallows when we turned towards shore although eventually he had to give up. During the day we had used landmarks on the reef to know when to head up. At night Tim just used dead reckoning. I was watching the time too and was within a minute of when I thought that we should turn towards shore. Tim did do a great job of finding a safe way through the rocks in the shallows, since the surge could have thrown us up against them.

The exit was a little tricky with the unusually large (for Bonaire) waves. Tim went first and made it look easy though. I looped one arm around the ladder and held Shannon with the other while she took off her fins. A large wave broke over us and knocked her over and ripped her arm right out of my grip. Fortunately she wasn't hurt and got back close enough to where I could grab her again. This time I got a really solid hold and held on for a couple of waves till she got her fins off and got out of the water. I was up and out of the water right behind her.

On the end of the dock, right at the top of the ladder, there was a congratulatory ice bucket with a bottle of Prosecco waiting for us. Our friend Quincy had outdone himself. While it was an awesome gesture it wasn't really practical to have a toast right then and there so someone took it up to our table in the restaurant. After storing our gear, taking showers and getting dressed, we were back in the restaurant for dinner and a celebration.

There was no diving the next day. You need to take a full day off before flying to avoid decompression sickness. But the diving during the week had been fantastic. I was really glad that after all these years I was able to put this trip together. I enjoyed spending time with family. It was great getting to know my step grand daughters better. And after so long it was really fun to go scuba diving again. I enjoy watching the video that Jimmy made of our vacation, reliving it again and again. It really was a wonderful trip. Hopefully we can do another one sometime.