Dive Report

This dive was made on 18-02-1998.

Location: Bonaire. Site: 18th Palm, the Plaza house reef.

The first day of my 3rd Bonaire holiday, I hadn’t been diving for a whole year. Jeez, was I looking forward to this trip, or what? I woke up around 7 am, ate an orange for breakfast and watched the Disney Channel. Then on my way to the dive shop, I stopped at the beach for a moment. You know what I love best....to sit on an ocean shore watching the sun gain her strength. Feeling like the only person on this planet, simply enjoying the magnificent view, the salty smell and the sand between your toes (definitely the best part). That has been my morning ritual on Bonaire every day I stayed there.

Some of you are already familiar with the Bonaire Marine Park policy. For those who aren’t a brief explanation. You have to pay a $20 annual fee to gain access to the reefs of this pretty little island. This money is used to make moorings at every dive site to prevent anchoring. Game fishing is also prohibited in a 2 mile radius around the island. Spear fishing is also banned from the Marine Park. The wearing of gloves is forbidden too. The reason for this is: You have no business touching the coral, so why bother wearing gloves. The BMP also demands from all the dive shops that they provide a check-out dive to all customers to check buoyancy control, attitude and to asses the experience level. Thus assuring the best protection for the reefs of Bonaire.

So, I had to do my check-out dive today. The last time I stayed at Bonaire I also stayed at the Plaza, so I knew most of the crew. One of my friends from last time, Willem, who’s also DM and Instr., was going to lead this check-out dive. He said to me: ‘Well we could spend the entire morning babbling about the rules and regulations of the BMP, or we could go out and have a great dive. I already know that you know the rules, and those buoyancy assessment can also be made during the dive, so come on, “let’s rock and dive”’. I didn’t hesitate. So off we went. I had to rent a regulator so our first stop was the gear station. I had just bought a new BC, my first. After a hard year of saving my money and checking all the gear reviews, I decided to go with a Diva QD. This was going to be my first dive with it, so I was rather excited. I donned my gear and we walked to the shore. When we entered the water, I inflated my BC for a short surface swim. But when I wanted to descend, my deflator wasn’t working. I finally managed to deflate and descended, when I arrived at the bottom, I wanted to put a little air in my BC, but my power inflator was stuck, it kept inflating. Fortunately my buddy was able to keep me down at first. Luckily we were rather shallow, so we could safely come up. At the surface I explained my problem to my buddy. He said: “So you want to abort the dive?” I said: “Hell I do, but I will have to, won’t I?” So I exited the water still muttering and swearing to myself when we saw this OW group exiting the pool. Willem said: “You know, we could borrow one of there BC’s, they all use rental gear, so we can be sure this one works properly.” So I took my own BC off and put the other on. During this entire operation I had already used part of my air due to the BC free flow. We entered the water again and descended to about 13 mt. (39 ft.). Beautiful staghorn coral, a bright red with white dots, covered in a blanket of fish. Butterfly fish, sergeant majors, filefish, grunts, snappers and blue chromis gliding past like magnificent colourful waterfalls. Also a giant meadow of elkhorn coral with round formations of brain coral. A school of blue tang hovering over and under this giant piece of elkhorn. A spotted drum fleeing to saver places, wondering what strange creatures had entered his domain.

Every time I enter the water this feeling of serenity strikes me. The majestic feeling of being able to glide over a reef, experiencing such peace.......And even though I’m much bigger then most of the creatures surrounding me, I still feel small, when I realise that I’m simply a part of a much bigger something. And, the awe that that realisation makes me feel, is my thrill to dive. Thank God for St. Jacques who invented the aqualung, the first SCUBA. If it weren’t for his insatiable curiosity we wouldn’t be sitting here.

Popping in and out of his coral protection is one of my favourite fish. A yellowtail damsel fish. This tiny creature has something vivid over it. The way it protects his habitat, so determined to scare all possible intruders away. It has something very cute....

I glance over the reef, viz is moderate for Bonaire’s standards, approx. 20mt. At a distance in the gloom I see 3 huge shadows hovering over the reef. Excitement strikes me, would this be my first shark encounter........Then I realise that that isn’t possible, b/c these figures are hanging still in the water. I signal my buddy and we close in on the shadows. 3 big tarpons, I think each of them well over 3ft. With my nr. of big fish encounters at zero, these guys seem humongous to me. After a few seconds I realise that I have to resume breathing....Then I hear my buddy tap his tank so I turn to see this barracuda watching us with this very evil grin on his face. I figure that I don’t want to get in an argument with this Arnold Schwarzenegger of the Caribbean, so after a few moments we swim along. At this point it is time to seek a shallower depth. This beautiful group of black durgons cruises the reef. And a filefish shifts colour right in front of me. On a sandy patch in the reef a group of very small yellow goatfish is sifting through the sand. A few longspined sea urchins were moving, very slowly, from one piece of coral to another. Then my buddy motions for me to come and see. He has his hand on a sandy patch, this tiny shrimp has come out and is now cleaning his fingernails....Then we swim on watching the omnipresent parrotfish grazing of the coral. At this depth fairy basslets, hamlets, rock beauties, bluehead wrasse and sergeant majors galore. I see a tiny octopus coming out of a crevice, I think he was about 1ft. tall. Then I see this French Angel approaching me, cruising back and forth in front of my face at less then 1ft. distance. The French Angel keeps following me when we swim away. My buddy, who thinks this is a very funny sight, is making the buddy-up sign for me and my new admirer. We swim towards the exit point, but the French Angel keeps following me, at this point my -former- buddy is laughing so hard his mask keeps flooding. We now have reached the exit point. I like to keep my head under water as long as possible, so I even scuba/snorkel my way up to a few ft. of water. There in the exit, with a lot of sand and a few patches of concrete covered in some sort of algae or seagrass, I encounter something I will remember for ever. A group of 12 juvenile tangs. The biggest one about 6 cm. the smallest one 1.5 cm. They are sooooo cute.......These guys just formed this small school. You could hardly distinguish them with the sandy background. Then we exit the water, walk up to the showers and gear-off. The heat of the noon-sun is coming up, so I decide to clean my gear, put it in my locker and spend the rest of the afternoon snorkelling and waterpolo-ing.

Well, this was my first dive report........

Haitske

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