The plan had been, Geoffrey (who is a PADI Master Instructor) would certify my brother Joe and then we'd all do some serious diving. Like many good plans, it had to be adjusted due to reality rearing its ugly head.
My brother had done his pool and class work in the Boston area. So Geoffrey just needed to take him on his checkout dives in Bonaire and he'd be all set. But he had had an issue with removing his mask and putting it back on, which we didn't realize was as ingrained a problem as it turned out to be.
Our first few dives were in front of Captain Don's at the house reef, La Machaca. The rest of them, if not at La Machaca, were boat dives, as Geoffrey has sciatica problems and didn't want to risk hurting himself more with entries and exits.
For the first one I watched worriedly as Geoffrey worked with Joe - he's my baby brother, and I couldn't help feeling protective. I still got a chance to look around a bit, and was happy to see that, even at this checkout reef, the coral was starting to come back. It was a noticeable change, in just the one year since we'd last been here. And the fish life was abundant - I saw many parrotfish, goatfish, and even a porcupine fish - they're one of my favorites, along with trunkfish.
Our second dive, also at La Machaca, Joe and I practiced alternate air source exchanges. I then went off to the side and, staying relatively shallow, saw baby eels, sea urchins, a sargeant major guarding his eggs, a cleaning station, balloon fish (also awfully cute), and a barracuda.
For the third dive at La Machaca, I really started ignoring my brother and Geoffrey, and looking at the tiny stuff and practicing staying still and just looking . I watched blennies, and more goatfish, and saw a lizardfish and another baby eel; I just hovered and watched. It was great fun.
Geoffrey had gotten my brother to take off and replace his mask once, but neither one felt that he'd gotten over his block. Nevertheless, we wanted to see something other than La Machaca this vacation, so we went on a boat dive with Joe, hoping that diving repetitively and also in varied situations would make the block go away. This turned out not to happen, and finally Joe just decided to stick with snorkeling.
Anyway, the rest of our dives:
North Belnem , where we saw two turtles (I found the first one), squid, some really lush gorgonians, anenomes and sea cucumber, along with the usual suspects: angelfish, trunkfish, parrotfish.
Mi Dushi , where there were sea horses, triggerfish, queen triggerfish, a cowfish, and lots of trunkfish.
Jeff Davis , where we saw a huge lobster, trunkfish - both adults and juveniles, and parrotfish, etc. I cut this dive short because I was getting cold. We'd been diving in skins, which were fine last year but this year, maybe because I was more relaxed and happier underwater, they just weren't enough. I switched to my 3 mil full suit after this dive, and was comfortable throughout all of the rest of my dives (except for the ones where Dee kept us in the water for over an hour and a half.)
Johanna's Sunchi , we saw more trunkfish, more parrot fish, spotted drums...
at this point I foolishly got lax about entering things into my log book, so the rest may be less than informative. Yes, I'm kicking myself now about it - I know that at all the dives we saw many and beautiful fish, and new growth coral as well as life that had been swept away by the Lenny surge but was now coming back. I just can't give any more details than I wrote down at the time, alas.
Old Blue - there was a HUGE parrot fish here, s/he looked like a contender for sure!
La Machaca/Cliff for a night dive. Many sea urchins were out and about; two large tarpon (Charlie and his friend?) stalked us. We shut our lights off for a bit and watched other divers as they swam along the wall past us, not knowing that they were being watched - a little voyeuristic endulgence on our part. Coming back, I saw a brittle starfish, some fish bedded down for the night and a small crab.
Bon Bini Na Cas , where there was lots of nice coral scenery, burrfish, triggerfish, filefish, and a lot of juvies of all types.
Andrea 2 , where we saw yet another huge parrotfish (what are they feeding them on this island!?), lots of gorgonian, nice coral, and some squid.
Angel City , which is a two-reef dive site. The coral was gorgeous, and there were myriad parrotfish, angelfish, trunkfish, and a ittle barracuda.
Rockpile - this is a gorgeous reef. We saw groupers, black durgon, and more angelfish.
Alice in Wonderland . I saw lots of cleaning stations, scorpion fish, and beautiful coral.
Rockpile - we did Rockpile again since the dive site we were going to was already occupied. That was OK by both Geoffrey and I, as we really liked Rockpile. We saw a big grouper and an eel, among all the other gorgeous stuff.
La Machaca . Alright, we were lazy and skipped an early afternoon dive, so decided to do a late afternoon dive instead. We saw a sharptail eel swimming along, a spotted moray, a very big balloonfish under the boat dock. We also saw what looked like tuna, though I can't be sure. There was actually a strong current that day and we cut the dive short.
Sharon's Serenity , where we saw a small ray at the beginning of the dive. For some reason, things were paired this day: balloonfish, honeycomb cowfish, smooth trunkfish - all in twos.
The evening of this dive, we attended the BBQ sponsored by Jake and Linda of Bonaire WebCams fame. There we met Jake and Linda, some other denizens of Bonaire Talk , where I'd been spending much of my time prior to the trip, and some of Jake and Linda's island friends. Good food and interesting conversation was had by all, I think. We had a great time. Thank you to Jake and Linda for inviting us all!
The Lake , which was a very pretty dive, with lots of fish life. We saw a sleeping porcupinefish, cowfish, and barracuda; the divemaster pointed out 2 pretty frogfish to everyone.
Hands Off , which was OK, but not my favorite. We saw barracuda, but not all that much fish life otherwise, and the current was comparatively strong.
Hilma Hooker , which also didn't actually enthrall me; probably mostly because of the crowds - there were two or three other boats moored there too. Actually, the worst was a couple on our boat who, when Geoffrey gestured me over to look in at the toilet that can be seen through a hole in the wall (he'd been kidding around and gesturing madly, as if it was something really special I had to see), came dropping down on top of me like a couple of boulders trying to get what they apparently surmised was a "great picture." On another dive they swooped in on a sea horse with so little control or grace that they knocked it off its perch with the arm of their camera. They were not my favorite people to be near.
Oil Slick Leap , another nice one. Groupers, and the divemaster pointed out four seahorses. But this was where Spike and Silky (honestly - that's what their fins said) struck the sea horse, and earned my eternal disgust and disdain. I'm half sicilian and half irish, and when I say eternal, I mean it!
Touch the Sea
The next two dives were part of the Touch the
Sea
PADI specialty course with Dee Scarr. For each dive, there was a predive and a
postdive talk.
Bus Stop/Boy Scout
, which is actually not marked as a dive site on my maps, but is down from the
Green Submarine on Kaya Playa Lechi. We saw a small eel, a scorpion fish which
we patted, picked up a sea cucumber, fed grunts and some trunkfish and parrot
fish; got cleaned at a cleaning station, saw two huge puffers swim by, jawfish
wriggling down into holes, razorfish dive into the sand, and probably a lot
more that I either forgot or couldn't fit in my dive log.
Bus Stop/Boy Scout
, as a night dive. The original plan had been to do the Town Pier, but Dee's
helper had scouted out the place and saw 3 dive boats tied up there; we opted
for a less crowded venue. We saw large crabs (batwing coral?), held sea
cucumbers again and were cleaned at a cleaning station again; Dee found tiny
crabs on sponges to show us; saw the sea urchins walking around (with tiny fish
living in them), lots of morays and other eels, and brittle starfish on red
coral. Again, we saw much more than I wrote down or can remember now,
unfortunately.
La Machaca/Cliff
, again. Our final dive with Dee was scheduled for the afternoon, so we decided
to do another dive in the morning first. Fairly deep and near Cliff we saw two
dozing nurse sharks and a large tarpon. In shallower water, coney at a shrimp
cleaning station, anenomes, sea urchins, feather dusters, christmas tree worms
(I know I saw and noted the tiny things before, but didn't write them down for
any of the other dives), grouper, queen angels, and french angels.
Town Pier, during daylight hours - the final dive with Dee. There were
lots of tire habitats. We saw hermit crabs, a little conch using a fish head
skull for its home, Two-claw shrimp, arrow crabs, banded coral shrimp, golden
coral shrimp, a very agressive chain moray eel, a scorpion fish, a few spotted
morays, a tiger tail sea cucumber, an octopus that looked like a smudge on one
of the pilings until Dee offered it a bit of fish. We played with and fed a
snake eel. There were lots of trunkfish, angel fish and yellowtail fish.
That was our last dive, and it was a doozy - we were underwater for over an
hour and a half, and poor Geoffrey (who was still diving in just a skin) nearly
froze his butt off.
I'd been fighting a head cold all week (I actually missed a couple of morning
dives due to being stuffed up), and right around this time Geoffrey was
starting to get it too. After the marathon dive with Dee, he wasn't up to
diving the next day even though we could have, at least up until 3PM. So the
rest of our time was spent recovering from the colds and relaxing, and looking
forward (though not altogether enthusiastically) to our trip home.
Oh yeah! How could I forget this? It was my birthday, too! We went to the
Lions Den
, conveniently right next door, for a nice romantic dinner, and a wonderful way
to cap off a wonderful vacation.
Next, Thanks to all the staff at Habitat, and our trip home.