Tonight's the night for Bonaire sea wasps!

[jimbeeler]

Gulp... I just checked and the moon is pretty full my whole time there. I sure hope I can get in some night dives.

I leave from Bonaire on the 11th. Full moon on the 12th... Isn't that when you get there Bill? Not good....

Jim

 

[deco_martini]

Gloves are forbidden, but you could put baggies over your hands...

 

[drbill]

I leave from Bonaire on the 11th. Full moon on the 12th... Isn't that when you get there Bill? Not good....

I leave LA on the 11th but won't get to Aruba until the 12th (my birthday). One night in Aruba and then I'll be on Bonaire the evening of the 13th for 9 days.

 

[drrich2]

While gloves are forbidden, I suspect you could stuff a pair in your BCD pocket for night dives. Officials may stop to see if you have your Bonaire marine park tag, but I don't think they're likely to search your BCD pockets. I'm not advocating for breaking their laws; I'm stating this on the assumption that if you're at the tail end of the night dive, getting ready to exit, look up and in your light beam you see little 4-tentacled jellyfish in some numbers and have an 'Oh, crap!' moment, I don't think pulling out a pair of gloves from your pocket for safety during exit is a bad thing.

Richard.

 

[deco_martini]

While gloves are forbidden, I suspect you could stuff a pair in your BCD pocket for night dives. Officials may stop to see if you have your Bonaire marine park tag, but I don't think they're likely to search your BCD pockets. I'm not advocating for breaking their laws; I'm stating this on the assumption that if you're at the tail end of the night dive, getting ready to exit, look up and in your light beam you see little 4-tentacled jellyfish in some numbers and have an 'Oh, crap!' moment, I don't think pulling out a pair of gloves from your pocket for safety during exit is a bad thing.

Richard.

I was going to post something similar and decided not to. I can't confirm or deny if I do the same thing.

After an experience in Roatan at the CocoView where some numb nut put the night dive stobe at the top of the buoy, I had a "never again" moment after getting stung on my hands and face by sea wasps.

However, I can't condone breaking any STINAPA rules and of course I would never do so. ::cough::

The no-gloves rule is weird, I suspect it doesn't prevent reef molesters from doing so. I think it just winds up making people who follow rules get stung by jellies.

I carry "oh ****" equipment in my BC pockets for emergencies. I will leave it at that.

 

[gypsyjim]

In @ 10 years of diving Bonaire I have never been stopped and Checked for gloves, but I still don't bring them to the island.

On one eventful east or Wild Side shore dive exit with a large SB group, I had a moment when I wished I did have some. The exit was long and shallow, with heavy surge across an endless bed of fire coral and sea urchin!

We were swept across that $#it !!
I reacted by putting my hands in the fin pockets and crossing the fins in front of my face, and riding the surge till I could stand. I fared better than most of our group on that badly chosen exit......

Looking back the fins did a better job of protection than a pair of dive gloves would have.

 

[Scubawankenobi]

After reading this thread about the sea wasps/BBJ I'm debating of picking up a full suit for our trip to Bonaire this month.

Most of my diving is cold water (Monterey CA and now live on Vancouver island BC, so drysuit), so when I dive warm water I really like wearing "bare minimum" (i.e. just shorts or worse-case 2/3m shorty).

Will find some wood to knock on, but as I mentioned before - in ~25yr have not had anything bad. Few scrapes/rashes/stingy spots that hurt. Worst sting was in cold water when a monstous Lionsmane jelly (up here in BC) wound having its tendrils wrapping round my regulator/lips - ouch.

So for Bonaire, I'm leaning towards just wearing 2/3m shorty & keeping my eye out for jellys. My hard bottom boots, for the shore diving/beach walks, are quite tall so legs will just be exposed from just above knees to just below. I've got a UV protection long-sleeve water shirt I think I'll wear under/over shorty to protect the arms.
I think the biggest "risk zone" on the body would be forehead/checks/neck/etc... & I'm definitely not going to be wearing a hood.

Couple quick questions:
1. Think that the UV long-sleeve shirt will suffice for protecting the arms?
2. As much as I enjoy night diving, I'll be doing 4x day dives so was thinking I could give it a miss & leave my big lights (jelly attractors?<g>) at home... Is the night diving in Bonaire really worth it? [ as in, gonna see many different critters @ night? ]

Checked the Lunar calendar & the full moon is on the 13 & we'll be arriving (& 1st day diving) on Sat the 21st...so think we'll be out of the "jelly zone".

Thanks all for the great info on this site - really enjoying SB.

Will post a trip report when we get back home & to our chilly BC waters.

 

[gypsyjim]

We usually dive with just a skin, which is little more than uv/rash guard and that is plenty of protection from stingy things.
No thermal protection at all but water is plenty warm enough for me to do 4 to 5, @60 minute dives a day without getting chilled.

 

[crabbyfiddler]

To Bill...An early happy birthday!
What a great way to celebrate.

 

[Doctorfish]

To Skubawankenobi,
Do a night dive or 2, the small hunters come out at night so you will potentially see crabs, lobster, puffers, octopus and free swimming eels. For me, the night dives are the highlight of any trip to Bonaire. Despite some of the the comments on this post, jellies are not a common problem on Bonaire. Just look up before you go up. If there are jellies, a regulator purge usually clears them.