We’re Back!
Thats right another winter trip to Bonaire. I’ve lost count how many times we’re made the trip, but I can tell you it won’t be our last. Over the years we’ve made so many friends on the island and getting a chance to spend some time with them has been a joy. A special thanks goes out to Sal and Patty for their hospitality and putting up with us for a few weeks. Barb had to play surface support for me this year, the medical procedure that she had done back in July still hasn’t healed completely, so she wasn’t able to get her head wet.
Now let’s talk underwater. The temperature stayed right around 80 degrees both above and below water this year. I would say the water was a little warmer this year than recent years. We started the trip out with a couple of days of great water conditions, good visibility and easy entries, but as we headed into the last week the entries got tougher because of high winds and that wave action caused the visibility to drop on many of the sites, so macro photography was my style of choice. We did a lot more diving south this year and the soft corals seemed to be making a come back. Beautiful fields of gorgonians and sea fans filled the sea bed. What a site. Let’s hope the hard corals start regrowing soon. This year I also did two special dives with my dive buddies. First was a boat dive on the east coast of Bonaire. It about as close to open ocean diving as you can get. Think large waves, strong currents and larger sea creatures. It’s a good change of pace dive from a coral reef and we saw tons of jumbo sea turtles, an eagle ray and a couple of large green morays. The other special dive I did was a “Bonfire” dive. It’s similar to “Blackwater” ( check my blog post from 2021)diving in that you’re witnessing the migration of billions of embryonic sea creatures from the depths, But instead of diving in open waters where the water depth is hundreds of feet deep and you drift along like blackwater diving, here lights are stationed on the reef in much shallower waters and they attract the creatures closer to shore, so bonfire is done from shore, not a boat and you aren’t so much drifting as you are chasing sea life. I’d say from this experience I prefer Blackwater diving, but it was fun and I was able to capture a few shots of sea life even if I don’t really know what they are. So head over here to see some of the wonderful sea creatures I spotted this year! And we’re off to Hawaii tomorrow, so I’ll have some interesting finds when we return. Man, retirement is tough!
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Tim
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