Bonaire Trip Report & First Photos - Sand Dollar & BDA

[cdnfireman]

I stayed at Sand dollar....Bari reef....has everything but sea horses and frog fish....

 

[uncfnp]

I stayed at Sand dollar....Bari reef....has everything but sea horses and frog fish....

Actually there is or at least was a Frogfish just yards from the dock!

 

[wwguy]

Actually there is or at least was a Frogfish just yards from the dock!

You're so modest Lisa! Good thing he didn't ask about manta rays... or the whale shark I heard M&K saw last month at Alice In Wonderland.

 

[uncfnp]

You're so modest Lisa! Good thing he didn't ask about manta rays... or the whale shark I heard M&K saw last month at Alice In Wonderland.

What?! Just trying to be helpful!

Missed the whale shark but actually heard it was spotted while we were there. BTW, here's the manta...

 

[lmorin]

..................................
Now the downside: After two trips to Bonaire in three years, I just gotta say, I find the diving underwhelming. The reefs are in good shape, there are far fewer lionfish than in 2011 thanks to a successful eradication program, etc., etc. - but the diving just isn't that interesting. Among our nine divers in a week, I think we saw one small turtle, one octopus, no sharks, one crab, hardly any gray angelfish... Basically, Bonaire is like diving in an aquarium of small reef fish. That's okay, but I was hoping for more marine diversity, more invertebrates, more macro opportunities. And, well, there wasn't much. I loved the shore diving; it's an exciting and interesting way to visit the undersea environment. But compared with, say, Saba, or Cozumel, or even the Boynton Beach area in Florida, Bonaire for me has lacked the topographical interest and diversity I love.

I know what I'm saying is heresy, so I'd be really interested in others' thoughts and reactions. No need to be kind to me - tell me what to do the next time I go............

No, you are not speaking heresy. To each his/her own. But, I think you should be careful about word choice and jumping to conclusions. Let me point out that your home base dive was Bari reef which has the large documented fish species diversity in the Caribbean. Several other Bonaire sites are in the top ten. I was there last week, too. You must have missed the 2.5 ft mutton snappers we saw, the bait ball of boga being corralled by a horse-eye jack or a bait ball of mackeral scad just meandering along, the two spotted eagle rays, the 3 ft midnight parrot fish or the viper moray? True, there are very few gray angelfish ever seen on Bonaire, but have you seen cherubfish and flameback pygmy angelfish on Bari? The bottom line is that the "diversity" is there, but it does not always jump up and show itself off. Next visit, hire Jerry Ligon through BDA and have him guide you on a fish id tour. Recommended highly. What I absolutely love about Bonaire is that I never know what will surprise me and there are always surprises. In Jan., we saw a pink and a red frogfish on Bari, and right next door at Front Porch, saw a longsnout seahorse and 2 frogfish within 3 ft of each other.

The fact that certain species are not present on Bonaire just makes it all the more exciting when one of them is seen. The above mentioned reports about the several recent whale shark sightings attest to that.

 

[drrich2]

He might be talking about topographical diversity. I've heard people speak well of Cozumel diving for this reason. A number of Bonaire sites could be conceptualized as a hillside sloping at about 45 degrees, starting in maybe thirty feet of water, descending past recreational depths, moderately covered with coral and gorgonians with some sandy patches, with some fish inhabitants.

There's more to it than that, such as The Cliff offering a shallow vertical wall dive, the double reef system toward the southwest, and the east coast is different, but some people don't like the perceived structural uniformity of some of the main west coast dive sites.

Doesn't knock it off my to-do list!

Richard.

 

[lmorin]

Yep. Don't disagree at all, Richard. As I said, to each his/her own. Personally, I like sight-seeing the first trip somewhere, but soon look for more detail during repeat visits. We've been to Cozumel twice and enjoyed it for what it is. I'd never speak against it. But we like to poke around and peek with flashlights into every nook and cranny, taking our time without impeding the actions or schedules of other divers. That can be a bit hard on Coz. One of our personal highlight dives on Bari covered about 150 ft in an hour and a half with a max depth of 35 ft. One size does not fit all.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Bonaire has a lot of fan-following even outside this forum. I can not think of a single dive shop that I have visited in my area that does not have an annual Bonaire trip. I used to think of it as a good and cheap training ground for dive students and the newly certified but it also has a strong appeal to more advanced divers who are now as much fascinated by smaller things under the rocks as big-animal encounters. At this point in my spiritual evolution, I am more fascinated with wrecks and sharks than sea horses. Once I get deeper into macro photography, then Bonaire will make sense to me more than right now.

Btw ... Jupiter FL has given me some of the best dives of my life. I have seen a turtle so big (size of a volks wagon beetle) that it was not even funny! I honestly thought someone was playing a joke on me.

 

[KeithG]

Great shots!
1 suggestion: shoot the Christmas tree worms from below, very tight in.

As divers we get to see them from all angles, but then tend to take a picture "from above" which looses the impact of their spiral form. So they appear much more ordinary when showing the pictures to non divers. Yah, it's 2 white flowers. Big deal.

A close up shot from below where the only background is the water column will really highlight the spiral.

 

[Randallr]

Giffenk - great suggestion on the Xmas tree worms. Thank you, and I will test it on my next trip in July.