Bonaire 2016

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Kim and I are back on Bonaire, my favorite place to dive. This is my 18th trip and Kim's 7th trip to Bonaire. Between the two of us we have 570 dives on the beautiful reefs of Bonaire and Klein Bonaire. This year we are being joined by a couple of divers that have never been to Bonaire. It will be fun introducing divers to "Divers' Paradise".

Once again, with the help of Vee at The Travel Shop I arranged a trip to Bonaire.

We are staying at the Belmar Oceanfront Apartments on their "Drive, Dive and Stay Package" which includes a vehicle to get us to the shore dive locations, boat diving and unlimited air from Buddy Dive Resort . The only thing not included is our meals but that is not a problem since we have our favorite restaurants on the island and we may have time to check out a few new ones, too.

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It was rainy the first few days of the trip. This caused the visibility to be less than excellent and the cloudy skies dulled the colors of the corals and fish at times but less than ideal conditions in Bonaire are still better than conditions in many dive locations. In other words, a bad of diving in Bonaire is still better than a good day of diving in other locations.
A small cleaning shrimp living an anemone.
A honeycomb cow fish watches me.
While diving at Sharon's Serenity, a beautiful dive site on Klein Bonaire, we had a pod of about 30 dolphins swim past. This one swam right in front of me and seemed to turn his head and smile at me.
Most were off in the distance as they went by.
More dolphins.
A couple of playful stragglers.
This one swam overhead.
Trumpet fish can change color. Usually they will appear a tan color with a lighter color to their belly.
Sometimes they will be a bright yellow.
Other times they will be a bright blue.
Sometimes they will turn black to blend in with a mob of tangs in feeding frenzy. .
We were joined on the trip by a couple of friends this year. Dr. Mike Canfield and Timberly Canfield were celebrating their 25th anniversary. It was their first trip to Bonaire. Mike is a tech diver that likes to dive some of the many caves in Florida and Timberly has experience diving in Florida, too, but doesn't do a lot cave diving. We had a great time with them. Here we are enjoying a meal at Cuba Campagnie. We had a great time with exceptional service.
A Christmas Tree Worm opens up to feed on the nutrients carried by the current.
A Banded Butterfly Fish takes shelter in the coral.
A tiny Secretary Blenny peaks out of his home in the Brain Coral.
A Honeycomb Cowfish attempts to blend into the background as he races to hide behind the purple tube sponges.
A small blue banded cleaner shrimp taking cover in an anemone.
Exiting the ocean after a shore dive a Salt Pier. Kimberly waits at the water's edge while Mike and Timberly make their way to shore.
Dinner at Mona Lisa's after a day of great dives. Mona Lisa is a German restaurant on the island. Great food and service but save room for the apple strudel with cinnamon ice cream for dessert.
A Spotted Drum Fish swimming in and out of the coral. We usually see a lot of juvenile drum fish on Bonaire reefs but this late in the year we didn't see any young Drum Fish or Trunk Fish.
We saw several eels of different varieties as we usually do in Bonaire. Here a Spotted Moray Eel stopped to pose for me.
A Sharptail Eel (sometimes called a Snake Eel) is out hunting in the day with a brown Coney hovers over to grab anything that the eel may scare out of the rubble.
Here a Golden Eel pokes his head out of the coral to see what we are up to.
This is a Chain Link Eel. They are black with yellow markings that resemble chain links wrapping around their body.
This Green Moray Eel was out hunting at night. He kept us entertained for several minutes.
We saw some little Garden Eels in the shallows at Invisibles, a dive site south of town.
A Peacock Flounder swims over the floor.
A French Angel Fish swimming over the sand.
A Tiger Grouper rests on a large star coral formation.
Kim made her 350th dive while we were on this trip.
A huge Green Parrot Fish swam over the reef.
A Puffer Fish and a few Sergeant Major Fish hang out around a boat mooring at Something Special dive site.
A Rock Beauty, in the angel fish family, swims past.
Lots of various corals grow on the pylons at Salt Pier.
Mystery creature. We found this guy sticking part of his head out of the sand in the shallows at Invisibles. If anyone has any idea what this might be please send me your suggestions or identification at: email Mike
This Scrawled File Fish has his trigger up.
While swimming along the shoulder of the reef at Pink Beach we were joined by five squid who put on a show for several minutes.
Part of their show involved color changes and synchronized formations.
By remaining quiet and non-threatening you can usually get the squid to swim very close to check you out.
This was one of only three turtles that we saw on this trip. He was seen at 1,000 steps.
While most of our dive were shore dives, we did make 6 boat dives since there are some great dive sites that are not accessible from shore.
On four of our boat dives we dove with we dove with two ladies from the University of Georgia. Beth and Sue were delightful dive companions who also invited us to a wine and cheese party at their apartment at Belmar on our last night.
Mike (the other Mike) makes an entrance from the dive boat.
Exiting via the stairs after a dive at Buddy's Reef.
After a week of diving we pose for a shot at Belmar Oceanfront Appartments.
Mike and Timberly pose in front of a beautiful sunset while waiting to make a night dive.
Kim and I did the same.
 
Date Location Dive Site Maximum Depth Bottom time
 
12/11/2016 Bonaire Sara's Smile 73 46
12/11/2016 Bonaire Andrea II 45 54
12/11/2016 Bonaire Invisibles 51 46
12/11/2016 Bonaire Bachelor's Beach 43 56
12/12/2016 Bonaire Oil Slick Leap 63 52
12/12/2016 Bonaire Something Special 44 56
12/12/2016 Bonaire Hilma Hooker 100 45
12/12/2016 Bonaire Sara's Smile 50 42
12/13/2016 Bonaire 1,000 Steps 44 64
12/13/2016 Bonaire Carib Inn 48 66
12/13/2016 Bonaire Buddy Dive 52 60
12/14/2016 Bonaire Salt Pier 49 57
12/14/2016 Bonaire Forrest 55 68
12/14/2016 Bonaire Sharon's Serenity 63 68
12/14/2016 Bonaire Sara's Smile 44 51
12/15/2016 Bonaire Bon Bini Cas 49 62
12/15/2016 Bonaire Sampler 61 65
12/15/2016 Bonaire Pink Beach 47 56
12/15/2016 Bonaire Sara's Smile 47 58
12/16/2016 Bonaire Rappel 61 65
12/16/2016 Bonaire Sharon's Serenity 70 69
 
 

 

 

 

 

 To see pictures from other dive trips, click on the button below to go to my SCUBA page. It has links to other pages of pictures and dive reports from many different dive trips over the years. 

                         Scuba Diving Page

 

 
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