Bonaire Night Dive - Advice/Suggestions for First Timers?

[EdC]

I am so glad to hear that I am not the only one who has had the crap scared out of them by the unannounced flyby's of those tarpon.

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

I 'like' to nightdive at saltpier....it's basically an underwater haunted house at night...

it's a 'mind over matter' thing for me which i weirdly quite enjoy...the first couple of times i did it solo and i was finning back to shore at quite the clip thinking 'sh11111111111111tttttttttttttttttt'....it's pretty creepy...

 

[decompression]

First night dive, then definitely Buddy’s or Capt Dons, easy entry, lots of lights to get you back and a nice place for a drink post dive. 1200 lumen might be a bit much, 500 lumen perfect for clear water. Easy nav so no worries there. Enjoy!

 

[DiveProKoko]

First night dive, then definitely Buddy’s or Capt Dons, easy entry, lots of lights to get you back and a nice place for a drink post dive. 1200 lumen might be a bit much, 500 lumen perfect for clear water. Easy nav so no worries there. Enjoy!

Good to know! I have a Big Blue 1200 that has dimmer settings I can select. Thanks for the tip!

 

[dmcutter]

I second Bari reef. Also, just a little ways from Bari is the tug boat, not sure what its official name is. It sits at 90 ft and it's easy to find following a pipeline down the slope. Last time I did it, my buddy and I were the only ones there and there was an enormous lobster crawling around it.

 

[Damselfish]

A light that dims is good, Bright light may be comforting on your first night dive, but as you get comfortable with the whole thing you'll probably want it less. Turning a night dive into a day dive tends to scare away most of the stuff you want to see, if you don't turn them into bait first.

Your light will attract clouds of bloodworms in some places, which can be pretty annoying. However, you can feed them to hard corals by moving your light close to the coral (pointing sideways, not directly at the coral.) The coral will suck them in.

 

[Schwob]

I also liked Cliff as our second ever DIY night dive. But I also dove it during the daytime (all firsts on first ever dive trip). Diving it during daytime helped. Nevertheless, at night the waves sounded three times as high. They were not, they were maybe 1/2 foot higher than doing the day, maybe 2 ... 2.5 feet high. It was indeed the sound. But at that wave height, for a beginner, the entry/exit, single legged fun removal, ... does take all your attention ... and maybe a "buddy pillar" preared to stem inot the wAves for two if donning or taking off a fin does not happen fast enough to fit in a wave trough. If the waves had been higher we might have rethought the location for entry / exit reasons... 1 footers or less would have been nicer.

First DIY night dive ever was just in front of the yellow submarine because of the easier entrance (and there were no waves then), Easy peasy and lots of Tarpon. Good dive to get used to things...

Edit: Oh, and we could rinse our gear after the dive at Cliff.

 

[Soloist]

Something Special is at the top of our list for night dives and it has an easy entry/exit with lighted landmarks. We also like Vista Blue, but if you are new to night diving I don’t recommend the southern sites because they are somewhat desolate. As stated earlier, the Cliff and the boat at Bari are great at night. Salt Pier can be good, but it’s often crowded. Below is a video I took at Salt Pier.

Our last trip down we did an ostracod dive at The Lake, but a lot of other divers had the same idea. Unfortunately many of them turned their lights on while the amazing mating dance was still in full swing, thus ending the show prematurely. We did the next ostracod dive further south at the Kite School location and had the place to ourselves. Incredible!

 

[Steelyeyes]

I've heard the Hilma Hooker is a good night dive but I've yet to do it. It's probably not a good first night dive. We've done a couple of ostracod dives so far and liked those.

 

[shoredivr]

I've heard the Hilma Hooker is a good night dive but I've yet to do it. It's probably not a good first night dive. We've done a couple of ostracod dives so far and liked those.

Yes that big step down along the ironshore would be a pain at night