Hi All.

Terry and I arrived in Bonaire Friday night to find that every piece of luggage arrived with us. Our rental truck was ready to go, and we were escorted to the Sand Dollar by the woman who delivered our truck to the airport.

After breakfast Saturday morning we did the dive briefing, grocery shopping, said hello to our friends on the island, and were off to do our check-out dive on Bari Reef. From there on it’s a blur of shore, boat and dock diving to some of our favorite sites and to new sites. Something Special, Buddy Dive’s dock, South Bay on Klein, Andrea II, Nearest Place on Klein, Hands off on Klein, Bachelors Beach, Hilma Hooker, Donkey Beach, Country Garden, and Southwest Corner to see the 4 young reef sharks.

Most mornings we were in the water @ 5:30 AM for dawn dives off the dock of our place – Sand Dollar. Like wise, night dives at Buddy Dive or Sand Dollar were a must. My trusty video camera and Reef Master came with on most dives, but shore entry is tough while carrying the video cam. We plan on replacing the point & shoot film camera some day so I rented a digital camera with strobe for a “look-see”. It will take some getting used to and a 3” screen for these old eyes of mine.

I did not get a chance to do the Reef Cam, but stood in front of the South Beach Cam with my B/T flag – mid week in the afternoon. Hope someone caught a shot of me. We also did not get a chance to go to Gibi’s to meet with other B/T'rs. I wanted to meet Patrick there, but the last I heard he was in the hospital with intestinal problems. Maybe next time Patrick.

Happy Trails!
Linda & Terry

Hi Linda,

nice to hear that 4 young reef sharks are still there... I enjoyed to observe them some 3-4 weeks ago.

Tomas*

Hi Tomas,

That dive was our last dive on Bonaire, and my husband and I were the only divers on the boat. Very beautiful dive, and I got video of the sharks, too.

Linda

Hi Linda,

you were very lucky to be only divers on the boat and spot the sharks on this dive sites. Divemasters from Sand Dollar BDA had some consecutive spotting of young sharks on Southwest corner during my Bonaire trip and I was lucky to take a part... Plus I saw some 3-metre nurse shark (probably pregnant..?) on Cai on each of my 4 dives there (always resting on the same spot under the ledge).

Congratulation !!
Tomas*

Tomas,

Lucky you with spotting the large nurse shark. We went to St. John after leaving Bonaire, and did some diving with a friend of ours who has lived on the island for 17 years. He is a professional photographer/videographer and is quite handy to have on a dive. He found a couple of nurse sharks under a deep ledge on one dive. After viewing his footage we saw a school of bait fish hovering over the sharks. Very cool!

Linda

Linda, great report. Glad you had a good time! what day were you at the cams with your flag? We can search the archives to see if it got captured

Thanks for the nice report!

Thanks everyone. I'd love to do another, but it will be a while.

Cynde, It could have been 9/6 or 9/7 between 1 and 3. I think. I was wearing red patterned shorts, pink shirt, with my Elmer Fudd hat in hand. I should have written it in my log book, but didn't.

We had finished a boat dive - went back to the condo for lunch, and my husband fell asleep. I didn't want to wake him, so I went for a walk. That happened twice.

Good luck with the search.
Many Thanks!
Linda

Linda - thanks for the trip report! Happy to hear you had a good time It's amazing where the time goes when you're on the island - wanting to do so much & then WHAM - time to leave!