Bonaire East Coast Fatality

[handben]

I came to check here for more details. Apparently the fatality occurred about a week ago. There was a very brief report in the March 10-24 Bonaire Reporter:

"As we go to press police report well known Bonaire resort owner Mike Stanfield died in a diving accident on Bonaire's east coast. ore (sic) details to follow in the next Reporter."

 

[Jersey]

Was on island, first heard from a local that a resident instructor had gone missing from a Lighthouse dive. Saw heli serches. Heard from another resort guest they saw a brief mention of it on the local TV news. I heard it happened around the 8th - 9th. Winds were down between 8th - 14th and lots of folks were heading to the far south sites.

 

[kcstark]

I was on the island as well and what we heard differs from the very minimal details in the new edition of Bonaire reporter. I will not include what I heard on the island because I have no way of knowing if it was speculation or fact. Here is a quote from the obituary in the Bonaire Reporter "According to reports he was guiding two other divers in from a dive at Cai when they became seperated. The divers did not see him again and called for help. A search was mounted and his body was later found in Lac Bay."

---------- Post added March 25th, 2014 at 04:01 PM ----------

Disregard previous post. That was from the obituary but I found this further into the Reporter. This is much closer to what I heard while on the island.

"On Friday, March7, my husband was doing a dive at Cai withtwo other divers. Yes, the waves werehigher than normal. The three discussed thedive, made exit plans and reviewed signals.Weights came out of one of the diver's BCsand he surfaced. The other two also came tothe surface. Two of the divers decided tohead back to shore on top of the water.Mike signaled that he was going down andback to the shore. An hour passed and wenotified 911. The helicopter arrived an hour​

and a half later and found Mike...."