Shortly before Christmas, my buddy Steve Edgar and I visited Bonaire for the 4th time. The high point of our trip was a day of guided dives on the East Side with the legendary Bas Tol. With the amount of experience Bas has on Bonaire I expected him to be WAY older than he actually is. The guy has over 3000 dives on the East side. Turns out, 1) he's been doing it since childhood, and 2) I think he must look pretty darn young for his age!

Access to remoter parts of the island was problematic during our trip because of the rain the island had been getting. A lot of the dirt roads were under water or otherwise damaged. With Bas directing, however, we were able to access Boka Onima and Boka Spelonk. Bas Tol is working through VIP divers these days (vipdiving.com), along with Bas Noij, Derk, and I think perhaps some other guides.

Both dives were amazing. At Boka Onima, the 15' giant stride was a blast! Great to see all those huge healthy corals. Bas showed us a family of 8 big Spiny Lobsters, a couple of Queen Triggers, a Mutton Hamlet and in the shallows he found some really cool Blennies, love the Longhorn Blenny! The exit was lovely and gentle onto a sand beach in the boka itself. By the time we got to Boka Spelonk the wind had picked up a little bit. Both entry and exit looked tricky but turned out to be fun and exciting. There is no way in the world we could have done this dive without Bas. He knew the exact spot to enter, the exact rock to hug until the exact moment when he called out to let go and the swell carried us safely out. I'm a very slight woman and the gear is heavy for me, but with the coaching I was able to accomplish the entry and exit comfortably. We decended along a steep drop off where we found a very nice coral reef and a large cavern we swam into. At the end of the cavern we went up a little bit and looked out over the reef through a 'window'. Pretty neat little cave. Beautiful colors and many small fish on the ceiling. Bas decided that swimming against the current was too much work and turned the dive into a driftdive. Very cool to just sit and glide by the steep walls and different gardens of coral reef. Saw some really big barrel sponges. Also here we saw quite a few big Lobsters. We exited at a ledge which required hoisting our gear out with a rope and again waiting for the right wave (not too low or we couldn't reach the ledge and not too large it would wash us over it) to lift us up to sitting on the ledge. 'It's just like climbing out the swimming pool without the ladder but here you have a wave to help you' he said. Looked intimidating at first but turned out to be very easy.

On both dives, Bas killed Lion Fish. Five at Boka Onima. At Spelonk however it seemed to be teeming with them. There even was one in the cavern. Too many to get in one dive. It was Bas' first dive there in a few months because of all the rain. I guess we were lucky to be able to dive Spelonk that day. Tells me you can really make a difference in the LF population on a reef if you hunt it regularly. He checked with us in advance, but we are very concerned about the problem and encouraged him to do so. It's quite fascinating to watch -- not as easy as you might think! I strongly recommend a trip to Bonaire and a guided dive (or two or three) with Bas Tol!

//Sue Manning

Great report! I went to Boka Onima a few weeks ago to check it out (way too windy to dive it that day unfortunately). I thought my friend was kidding when he told me that you enter via giant stride off the cliff. Guess not! Sounds fun, can't wait to get back and try it.

OK, I'm hooked on trying the East End. East End Grand Cayman rocks, so why not on Bonaire also? Throw in a 15 foot stride and it should be a blast.

I have to plead a lack of knowledge though. What the heck is a "Boka"?

Thanks!
DS

From Spanish, probably a "mouth"?

//sue

I'm glad you and Steve had such a good time! Was good to see you again!

Welcome to Bonaire Talk and thanks for the great detailed report . Makes me wanna do it right now!

Thanks, Other Bas, nice to see you again too, and glad to see your business taking off. Derk was a great guide as well.

And thanks for the welcome, Lloyd! I'm a real fan of Bonaire and have been lurking for years.

Tremendous report. Guys named Bas are very cool.