Scuba diving at Bonaire

We visited Bonaire during February 1997, we stayed at Captain Donīs Habitat. Where you have unlimited access off diving, airtanks are accessible 24 hours a day. You dive as much as you want. There is also three boat trips per day. Boat diving is always done at moorings attached to the reef at the west side off Bonaire. There is a small island called Klein Bonaire, it has moorings around the whole island. At Captains Donīs Habitat you have the opportunity to listen at lectures every evening. There are cock-and-bull stories from Captains Don himself and one evening we listened at a marine biologist who explained how to get in contact with the sea animals. She told us how to let a cleaning shrimp clean your fingers. This we tried several times during our diving and we was always astound when the small shrimp feels at your fingertips with its antennas and then jumps on your finger and starts to clean around your nails. There is one wreck at Bonaire, she is called Hilma Hooker and she got the name because there has been so many divers inside her. She lies at 92 feet's and has three moorings attached. It was a cargo vessel that they found drifting outside the coast, it contained lots off cocaine. After they had burned up the cocaine, they sunk her so the divers could have a wreck to dive at.

One off the most interesting species is the Frogfish, it sits on sponges and is almost invisible. To be able to see the fish you must dust the sponges, that means waving your hand in the water so the sediment goes of the sponges, not touching the sponges with your hand. If there is a Frog fish on the sponge it will swim away. The dusting is also good for the sponge, it clears away the sediment who is blocking the water flow though the sponge. Another strange specie is the Seashore, unfortunately we did not see any during our stay at Bonaire. But there were other divers who saw them, they keep themselves attached to the soft corral with their tail. They are small and very hard to see.

After one week at Bonaire we went for a diving safari with the Sailing Boat Sea Witch to the Venezuelan group of islands Los Aves. It contains of seven sand islands in the middle off nowhere. Eight hours sail to the east from Bonaire. The only people there was a few fisher men, who stays there for six month per year fishing Conch shells, before they go back to Venezuela. We where the only divers there. We saw a lot off wonderful fishes and animals during our dives. On a sand bottom big as a football ground we saw a thousands garden eels. There we also saw one rare fish the Flying Guarnard and Conch shells moving slowly around on the sand, looking up at us.