Report on our 8th Trip to Dushi Bonaire, Oct 14-28

Air Jamaica from Atlanta through Montego Bay to Flamingo International went without a hitch (flight back was also without incident). Nice new additions to Sangster Airport in MoBay are welcome. Arrived with fellow BTers Ron and Diane Gould, and the Wounded Warriors and their handlers right on time. Luggage handling very slow this time (2 guys and one cart - what was with that?) More people and press showed up to welcome the Warriors than there were Warriors!

Rented the truck from Budget this time - no problem there.

Stayed at Sun Oceanfront Apartments, second floor with a nice view and a washing machine. Managers Josie and Muys and their crew are excellent (check out their blog describing Donna as a trunkfish! - http://bonblog-sunrentals.blogspot.com/ DM Bert was, as always, helpful, smart, unobtrusive. The dive shop, rinse tank, and gear storage are SO convenient at Sun Oceanfront Apartments.

We were early enough to run our pre-first dive errands (it was the last night for high-probability coral spawning, which required us to be in the water about 9:30 pm): Cultimara for chow, Dutch cookies, and a dozen 2-liter water bottles (freeze some and take them in the cooler, put others on top of the truck to warm up for post-dive showers - refill all each evening), and Bonaire Gift Shop for a few bottles of wine (Deepak really knows his vintages), and finally to Chat and Browse to rent a cell phone from Michael Gaynor (and deliver to him a NY Times and some goodies we brought).

Then we unpacked and loaded up tanks and gear into the truck and were off to Buddy's where we set up, then ate dinner, walked around a bit, then went for our first dive. Saw mountainous star coral egg release, busy little spawning brittle stars and arrow crabs and smoking sponges.

We ate out every night - favorites were Den Laman (this place definitely deserves your patronage - excellent food and service seaside, not crowded, can watch the night divers, hermit crabs walking about), Rum Runners (at Capt Don's), Mona Lisa, Donna and Giorgio, Kon Tiki, Garden Cafe (Raj is still at it, his wife still the main cook, best middle eastern and vegetarian fare in town), Pasa Bon Pizza (climbed up the ladder at Oil Slick and there's Joe listening to the radio and sunning himself - took our take-out order for later pick-up while we stood there dripping in our gear!), and Cactus Blue (stale chips and very disappointing margaritas, but pretty good entrees).

Took dinner out to Capt Don and Janet at their enviromentally-correct kunuku on two different evenings, gaining many insights in the process...

O-ring in my Suunto Cobra computer started leaking, took it to Bruce Bowker's Carib Inn - he wasn't in but the two women who were there were super-competent, changed it out in 5 minutes, tested it, and charged me a whole dollar! I would never take my gear anywhere else if Bruce's operation was in my hometown! This is the third time he and his crew have taken care of our gear problems in minutes at little or no charge. Expertise, efficiency, and low prices - that place rocks.

The usual winds were reversed or entirely calm the first week, and so we made daily trips to what is usually the wildside - calm as a lake everywhere. We pulled up to Willemstoren, lots of trucks... asked the first group we saw how the conditions were, started talking - it was Darlene Ellis and friends! She knew our names from BT (as we knew hers)! And also exiting from the water was Jessie Armacost (original author of the Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy). We dove calm-as-a-lake Willemstoren twice and Sorobon/Lac Bay Barrier reef twice. The entire east side was easily dove from shore! Incredible.

At one point during those calm days, I was checking the distance to the White Hole while snokeling and Larry's Wildside boat was tethered to the mooring there. It was glassy with no swell whatsoever, and Larry was standing in the boat while his divers were down - I just had to kid him... swam up, raised my mask, removed my snorkel, and said, "Hello! Not exactly the "wildside" today, is it?" He said something in a grumpy tone that I didn't quite catch...

The next week, after the normal trades had returned and the wildside was once again choppy and surfy, we ran into Larry at Mona Lisa and he said with a sneer, "Now all those calmside divers can get back to where they belong."

But you know, Larry isn't the REAL wildman of Bonaire. After the trades were back, we were driving along that god-forsaken moonscape stretch of road on the southeast side of the island (actually quite beautiful in a desert sort of way) - not a person or car in sight, just bleached-our coral rocks and gravel and spray from the crashing waves - wait, what's that up ahead? - two guys on the side of the road, wetsuits turned down to their waists, tanks and gear on the roadside...

"That has got to be Bas," I said as we approached - it was. Recognition lit up his face as he saw us, and before he could say a word we pulled up, stopped in the middle of the empty road, and handed him an ice-filled rum and coke we were working on (our cooler goes with us!). We all toasted and he told us they had just done a wildside shore-entry drift dive and had a fantastic time - they were now waiting for his client's girlfriend to come along in her car and return them to somewhere. We stood there in the middle of nowhere catching up on things until finally their pick-up arrived.

That skinny little Dutchman Bas is more of a waterman than almost anyone I can think of. His exploits are legendary and real - Bas is unquestionably the King of the Wildside.

Visited with Jack Chalk at Capt Don's to set up my son's honeymoon trip next May - he'll be staying in Villa 1 where we stayed in April. There will be champagne waiting in the villa when they arrive.

That week of calm weather brought out the mosquitos and (worse) the no-seeums in places where normally there are few or no bugs - we got eaten alive at the southern beaches in the late afternoons where normally there are no bugs at all. A little rain - those typical brief tropical downpours - didn't bother a thing.

Viz ranged from a foggy 50 feet to a crisp 100+, often changing from one extreme to the other in the same dive. Strange currents - strongest when there was no wind - what's with that? And we experienced our first downdraft current - at Margate Bay it suddenly started flowing down the slope - we noticed it at once (all the gorgs showed that we weren't imagining things) and swam uphill against it and once we were over the crest of the reef it stopped. Never really dangerous but weird. Like all Bonaire currents, it didn't last long, but it startled us - and baffled us about the physics of how such a current comes to be.

Water temps were 82 to 86 degrees, never a noticeable thermocline although it did get a little cooler at depth (we bounced to 140 and 150 fsw on two dives).

Surge and surf were totally non-existant for a week, and then minor for the second week. During the calm week there were lots of "stingies" in the water from Oil Slick to Belnem - a nuisance but not dangerous.

Dive sites we worked, N to S: Playa Frans (fishing village at the end of the road past BOPEC - disappointing, terrible damage from Lenny still evident - looks like a war zone underwater), Taylor Made and Candyland (best hard corals on the island we think, huge hawksbill in a cave), Oil Slick (that's where we found 2 sea horses without a DM pointing them out to us - this is also where we found our first frog fish and a huge loggerhead 3 years ago), Buddy's (night dive during coral spawning), Something Special, Hilma Hooker, Salt Pier, Invisibles, Margate Bay, Willemstoren, Sorobon/Lac Bay Barrier Reef. Besides all the usual reef characters, we saw tribes of big rainbow parrots (Willemstoren and Lac Bay Barrier Reef), a number of green turtles, a huge green moray swimming in the open in 6 feet of water, a trio of eagle rays, and a dense bait ball at the shallow end of the Salt Pier with 22 tarpon, 5 snook, 3 barracudas, a dozen pelicans, countless snappers, and several ballyhoo all patrolling the bait. Oh, and there was the fat green frogfish we found (again, no DM helping).

That sums it up - be back on-island second week of May 2007.

Selected pictures and videos at: http://s139.photobucket.com/albums/q317/billanddonna/?sc=3

Nice report and photos! What camera are you using?

Ditto that. What camera. Just fantastic pics.

nice pics;)

are the dive sites Taylor Maid and Candyland marked?

thanks,

NOTE on the movies: Be sure to click on the movie, not the slideshow - otherwise you only get 3 seconds of each movie.

Taylor Made and Candyland are not marked with yellow rocks but some of the old guides tall where Taylor Made is and I believe Susan (Porter) said that they will be in the next edition of the Bonaire Shore Diving guide. They are both on the little turnout road (no more than tire tracks in the coral rubble) that starts opposite of the little lagoon where the BOPEC dirt road returns to the beach after taking you above the oil tanks. Watch out and don't get stuck in the coral rubble where it's steep - hasn't happened to us but it sure looks possible.

Biggest challenge up there is finding the breaks ("windows" as Don sez) in the elkhorn rampart - like a solid wall right to the water's surface along this stretch of coastline.

Thanks for the kind comments on the pictures ... Cameras: Sony DSC T1 and Sony DSC N1 - both are basically point and shoot cameras that we have souped up by using 2 gig cards (gives 32 minutes of reasonably hi-rez mpeg movies) and attaching (with a small section of ball-and-joint strobe arm connectors) a Underwater Kinetics Light Cannon with a diffuser (otherwise there's a big hot spot) for movies and a full-spectrum-restoring filter. The filters and cases are stock items also from Sony. We carry two extra fully charged batteries and extra chips when we hit the road in the ol' truck full of tanks...

Bill and Donna, thanks for sharing your wonderful story, photos and movie files. Your photo http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q317/billanddonna/DSC06768c.jpg is beautiful.

Your tale of encountering Bas brought back fond memories from my last trip. I hope to repeat them soon!

Thanks again!

Thanks, Tom ... That the picture came out well exposed and in focus was just dumb luck (like most of the good ones) - before I make prints I'll Photoshop out those specks in the sponge above the shrimp.

And later today I'll dig out the jpegs of Bas at that roadside meeting and publish them here.

Okay - I've added another shrimp-in-a-tube and two shots of the Bas meeting. Note: the 4th, 5th and 6th items are MOVIES - click on each of them (not the "Slideshow") to view.

Fabulous! thanks so much. We are leaving in 30 days and hope we finally see a frog fish and seahorse

Great report and pictures!!!! So glad we had a chance to meet!

I like shrimps in tubes! Do you have anymore?

FANTASTIC! Great report and the pictures and videos were awesome! Thank you for posting!

what kind of housing do you use for the cameras?

Hey Tom, that's it for the "shrimps in tubes." I had a lot but most had focus and lighting problems. This was the first time I've tried this endeavor - and it's harder than it looks. First you gotta find one of the dern critters that's cooperative, i.e., doesn't get the bejeesus scared out of him when a giant face looms over the sponge's excurrent aperture and immediately flee to the bowels of porifera. Then you need perfect weight trim and no current so you can hang head down without touching the sponge. Then you need to figure out how to light it - what's working best right now is aiming my light (UK Light Cannon with diffuser, mounted under the camera in my weird homemade set-up) at the bottom of the sponge to backlight the critter(s) - makes for a cool spacey image. Found some sponges with both a goby and a shrimp but things didn't work out photographically speaking - I'll try again next time. So far it seems the shrimp prefer those gorgeous, somewhat translucent, grayish sponges.

Nell - the housing are the stock housings sold by Sony for their DSC T1 and DSC N1 cameras. The light (used mostly for movies) is an unusual setup - UK Light Cannon with diffuser (to avoid the "hot spot") on a ball and socket joint attached to the bottom of the camera where you would otherwise attach a tripod. I removed the handle from the light because the ball-and-scoket connection makes a perfectly balanced handle between the camera and light, plus the handle interferes with getting close to some subjects. Also many shots use a color-correcting filter, also sold by Sony or available as the "magic filter" from a source at Digital Diver Network.

Thanks so much for the information.
Your photos are beautiful.