On Thursday I went diving with a group and an instructor named Albert on the eastern side of the island in Lac Bay at a site called Cai. Normally diving is not possible on the eastern side to to large waves and strong currents, however this time of year the waves are generally smaller, which makes diving easier. This was a fairly shallow dive, reaching a maximum depth of 59ft, which allowed me to accumulate a bottom time of 74 minutes. I saw my first sea turtle at this location. It was too far away for me to get a pictures, but was very neat.
Looking out into the ocean.
This site also had many large sea fans.
Caribbean Spiny Lobster (Panulirus argus)
There was also some large elkhorn coral formations here.
I met a man, named Jaap, from Holland, on this excursion that was here with his non-diving wife and was looking for a buddy. Him and I paired off and went on to do another dive in the afternoon at the far northern end of the island at Nucove. This was one of the nicest locations I have been to so far. The coral was fairly broken-up in the shallower areas, but was quite lush and vibrant in the deeper waters.
This is what I believe to be a Black and White Crinoid (Nemaster grandis) a species of Sea Star
One of my profile pictures of the reef.
Peacock Flounder (Bothus lunatus)
Friday, I went out in the morning with Edwin again on his boat to do some work with the drop camera. We again went out to Klein Bonaire to visit some of the deeper sites. After purchasing all of the necessary components to power the camera using the boat's battery I hooked it up and everything was working above water. I lowered it down seeing nothing but water. Once I had let out about 150ft the video changed to nothing and was since after useless. It still displays a fairly clear picture on the surface, but does not work underwater.
This is what the camera displays while underwater.
After failing with the drop camera, we decided to do one dive at a location called "The Cliff" which is one of the only reef walls around bonaire. We have some AUV data very close to this location, so I was able to get some good structure pictures here. There was also a small sea turtle that followed us for about 10 minutes.
Steep slope
It's difficult to tell due to the bad lighting, but this is a vertical wall.
In the afternoon, I did two more dives with Jaap, one at a place called "Angel City" and another called "Tory's Reef" These were both nice sites, however my camera battery was dead, so I don't have any pictures.
Today, Saturday, I went diving with Jaap again. He flies home tomorrow evening, so today was his last day to dive. We visited the Lighthouse at the southeastern end of the island, the waves were a bit chopping, making entrance and exit difficult, but the reef there is very healthy due to the low number of visitors that dive that site. The second location was called Red Slave due to its location near the slave houses at the south end of the island. I hope to make it back down there to get some on land shots this coming week. This island has quite an interesting history.
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