We spent one night in each of the Aves (Barlovento and Sotavento) and then headed to Bonaire, civilization and the internet and of course, some of the best diving in the world.
When we filled up with diesel and water at the fuel dock in Harbour Village Marina, it was a great opportunity for us to put our brand new sail up. The unusually strong winds in the Caribbean this year had taken a toll on our genoa with many rips and tears and repairing the sail wasn't an option any more.
Each buoy consists of two separate buoys which you tie to each side of your bow to make it a very secure mooring indeed. Not the easiest thing in the world with winds blowing at 30 knots but once done, you feel pretty happy about where you are.
Below is one of the 5 resident squid from one of the concrete blocks in the mooring field. They were there every day - really beautiful, shimmering in the sunlight with golds, purples, silvers glittering away - really great and graceful swimmers, so fast.
One of the great things about Bonaire is that the reefs and fish are so protected that they aren't shy - they don't duck off when they see you and whenever I got in the water to snorkel, a group of fish would make a beeline for me and swim around about 2 feet underneath me, and I could almost hear them bickering with eachother "I got here first", "no, I did", "No, I did" - they were swimming around and wherever I went, they swam with me underneath me, about 20 of them. I tried to take a photo by pointing the camera underneath me - as usual I only got about 3 of them on film but there were about 20 of them. As you can see I'm still having trouble using the camera underwater in it's clumsy camera case. When I think I am focused on something, I'm usually about two feet off so I have loads of photos of sand but nothing of the giant barracuda or needlefish swimming in packs or giant angelfish.
I went the Divi Dive Bonaire diveshop, part of the Flamingo Resort, and what a great dive operation it was. I was expecting the usual cattle boats but it was a very personalized, professional service - a great orientation explaining the rules of diving in Bonaire (they are VERY adamant about protecting their reefs, which is excellent - you cannot dive with gloves on in case you're tempted to touch the coral, for example, and you'll be fined if you're found diving with gloves on). I wasn't sure how much weight I'd need, so during the checkout dive (they insist that you have a checkout dive so they can see how comfortable you are in the water, which is a great idea), somehow I ended up with an instructor who was doing a dive referral with a young lad from Scotland and his girlfriend. She was certified and he was in the last stages of getting certified - he needed to show the instructor various things under the water - take his mask on and off, regulator in and out of his mouth, boyancy etc. Not exactly a refresher course but going over the basics. Poor lad, he just could not do the mask on and off. He tried so hard but you could see he was panicking and we were about 15 feet down kneeling on the sand watching him and the instructor (Ruud) and he'd take the mask off, put it on again and then panic and head up to the surface. He must have done this about 4 or 5 times and the last time he did it, even though Ruud had gone over everything so patiently with him, he just said he wasn't up to it today and was going to head in and take the rest of the day off. I think he'd swallowed so much sea water he was also feeling sick. Anyway, Christina (the girlfriend) and I hung back in the water and Ruud said he'd take Gary ashore and then come back and take us on a dive on the reef - which was fantastic.
We were down about an hour and went down to 50 feet - it is such an easy place to dive, and the dive shop was so well equipped I'd highly recommend it. Everything from nitrox to technical diving and the dock was excellent - two sets of steps from the dock right into the water, showers right there, lockers etc., just a fab operation. Ruud was superb and pointed out all manner of things to us. Unfortunately I got cold and when Ruud saw me rubbing my arms, he told us to turn around and head back to the shore. So I rented a wetsuit for the afternoon dive.
As you can see from the aerial photo below, taken from another website, you can see how great the diving is. You anchor right offshore off mooring buoys and where it goes from light blue to dark blue is a steep drop off, not a wall exactly, but very steep with great coral and marine life. So one minute you're over 30 feet of sand and the next you're in 60 feet. It's good snorkeling over the sandy areas because all the mooring buoys are tethered to great big concrete blocks where the fish congregate. If you rent tanks or have your own, all you need to do is get them filled and you can drop over the back of your boat and you're in dive paradise.
When we filled up with diesel and water at the fuel dock in Harbour Village Marina, it was a great opportunity for us to put our brand new sail up. The unusually strong winds in the Caribbean this year had taken a toll on our genoa with many rips and tears and repairing the sail wasn't an option any more.
Each buoy consists of two separate buoys which you tie to each side of your bow to make it a very secure mooring indeed. Not the easiest thing in the world with winds blowing at 30 knots but once done, you feel pretty happy about where you are.
Below is one of the 5 resident squid from one of the concrete blocks in the mooring field. They were there every day - really beautiful, shimmering in the sunlight with golds, purples, silvers glittering away - really great and graceful swimmers, so fast.
.
One of the great things about Bonaire is that the reefs and fish are so protected that they aren't shy - they don't duck off when they see you and whenever I got in the water to snorkel, a group of fish would make a beeline for me and swim around about 2 feet underneath me, and I could almost hear them bickering with eachother "I got here first", "no, I did", "No, I did" - they were swimming around and wherever I went, they swam with me underneath me, about 20 of them. I tried to take a photo by pointing the camera underneath me - as usual I only got about 3 of them on film but there were about 20 of them. As you can see I'm still having trouble using the camera underwater in it's clumsy camera case. When I think I am focused on something, I'm usually about two feet off so I have loads of photos of sand but nothing of the giant barracuda or needlefish swimming in packs or giant angelfish.
I went the Divi Dive Bonaire diveshop, part of the Flamingo Resort, and what a great dive operation it was. I was expecting the usual cattle boats but it was a very personalized, professional service - a great orientation explaining the rules of diving in Bonaire (they are VERY adamant about protecting their reefs, which is excellent - you cannot dive with gloves on in case you're tempted to touch the coral, for example, and you'll be fined if you're found diving with gloves on). I wasn't sure how much weight I'd need, so during the checkout dive (they insist that you have a checkout dive so they can see how comfortable you are in the water, which is a great idea), somehow I ended up with an instructor who was doing a dive referral with a young lad from Scotland and his girlfriend. She was certified and he was in the last stages of getting certified - he needed to show the instructor various things under the water - take his mask on and off, regulator in and out of his mouth, boyancy etc. Not exactly a refresher course but going over the basics. Poor lad, he just could not do the mask on and off. He tried so hard but you could see he was panicking and we were about 15 feet down kneeling on the sand watching him and the instructor (Ruud) and he'd take the mask off, put it on again and then panic and head up to the surface. He must have done this about 4 or 5 times and the last time he did it, even though Ruud had gone over everything so patiently with him, he just said he wasn't up to it today and was going to head in and take the rest of the day off. I think he'd swallowed so much sea water he was also feeling sick. Anyway, Christina (the girlfriend) and I hung back in the water and Ruud said he'd take Gary ashore and then come back and take us on a dive on the reef - which was fantastic.
We were down about an hour and went down to 50 feet - it is such an easy place to dive, and the dive shop was so well equipped I'd highly recommend it. Everything from nitrox to technical diving and the dock was excellent - two sets of steps from the dock right into the water, showers right there, lockers etc., just a fab operation. Ruud was superb and pointed out all manner of things to us. Unfortunately I got cold and when Ruud saw me rubbing my arms, he told us to turn around and head back to the shore. So I rented a wetsuit for the afternoon dive.
We went out at 2 pm on SUNBURST, which was a boat filled with a group from Tennessee, all either dive masters or assistant dive masters, and really friendly people. We went over to Klein Bonaire to do the dive, which was 45 minutes at 60 feet - and we saw all sorts of things - spotted eagle rays, turtles (well, one), blue frogfish, yellow frogfish, peacock flounder, moray eels, loads of blue tang and a host of other fish I couldn't identify, and as we were ascending at the end of the dive, doing our 3 minute/15 feet deco stop, we saw a pufferfish swimming with a group of fish - he must have been about 4 feet long, he was huge, the biggest I've ever seen. Anyway - great dive, very easy and great fun. Wished we could have stayed in Bonaire longer to dive some more but we needed to get to Curacao to start getting the boat in shape for its journey to Fort Lauderdale. We were told that there's a guy in Curacao known as Watermaker Barry who specialises in watermakers and we need a new membrane for ours, so we decided this Curacao is the place to go. Paul and Joyce will stay on a few days longer to dive and then join us before we leave for Florida.
When you see the reefs close to shore, where I was snorkeling, they look pretty much destroyed - thanks to tropical storms and Hurricane Omar from last year - so it's not boat/anchor damage, it's mother nature. Obviously, when you get a little further out, where the boats are anchored, the reefs are more or less OK from there onwards, it's only the shallow areas that were affected.
When you see the reefs close to shore, where I was snorkeling, they look pretty much destroyed - thanks to tropical storms and Hurricane Omar from last year - so it's not boat/anchor damage, it's mother nature. Obviously, when you get a little further out, where the boats are anchored, the reefs are more or less OK from there onwards, it's only the shallow areas that were affected.
