Month: April 2025

Something Special is a dive site that is, indeed, something special. It can seem unremarkable to a snorkeler, except for two things: shallow patch reefs and a wall from surface to 25 ft depth. In 2023, I was excited to examine all the nooks and crannies. Unfortunately, in the time since, many of the larger corals had died off both in the patch reefs and on the wall.

On the upside, I found a new-to-me species, the Creole wrasse hanging out at the wall in a school of blue chromis.

I also found my first Southern stingray on Bonaire. Very cool! Note how the bottom corals are mostly dead, although the one on the bottom left is trying to survive, along with a tiny enrusting of an orange sponge.

Last time I was there, I saw a pair of fairy basslets, a shy little fish that prefers deep water. I was pleased to find a pair still there. Notice the healthy (ish) coral in the upper left and lower right, but the rest of the algae-covered wall. Basslets are elusive and always look like they are blurry to me, but if you zoom in, you’ll see it isn’t the camera 😀

There was also a giant school of fish at the bottom of the wall, which made free diving something like being in an aquarium. One of the few times I wished I was in SCUBA gear.

The shallow sandy areas also had some unexpected pleasures. I found another new-to-me species, the box crab! I think it is pretty obvious how it gets it’s name.

And remember that pearly razorfish from Fisher’s Pier? I found a juvenile! Which is one of the crazy things about identifying fish–many change patterns and colors through their life–not once, but multiple times.

I was so distracted by this little guy that I almost missed the R-rated show behind me–two peacock flounders signaling they wanted to mate. I shot a couple pictures then backed off to let them get on with it.

About 50-75 yards out from shore, the bottom starts sloping down. REEF Renewal has another group of coral trees in the area. I also saw my biggest eel yet, in a staghorn patch about 15 ft down next to a REEF tree. The pictures fail to give a view of just how thick it was, because I was too nervous to look for the head. You see that grunt in the top right corner looking at me? Those are about 6-8 inches.

Interestingly, my camera battery died shortly after I discovered the eel, leading me to discover just how important photography is to me. I glumly swam back to shore, dried off, drove to my apartment and collected the spare, then returned to the site. Luckily, the eel hadn’t moved, and hopefully, lesson learned. However, casual theft is an occasional thing, so I hadn’t wanted to take my spare. Good thing the island is so small.

Still, I don’t know that I would recommend it to the average snorkeler that doesn’t have interest in looking around a lot of sand. The depths near the shore are safe but sandy with iffy visibility, while getting to the wall requires a swim. Call it an intermediate to advanced snorkel site.

After the (mis)adventures of Salt Pier, I thought I’d give a shot at another favorite, Lac Cai. When I was there last fall, I was lucky enough to see a nurse shark! I made an attempt to go around the north part of the lake along Kaminda Road to get to Lac Cai Beach and wow, my poor little rental car could not handle the road. I’ve seen logging roads in better condition! So I turned around and headed south. I stopped at Barends Elshout as it looked like it may be a good launch spot, but after observing the large numbers of windsurfers spread out over the cai, I reconsidered and headed back to town. I spent the afternoon alongside the promenade, trying to improve some of my photo quality.

I got some great shots of bigger fish, including my first-ever pearly razorfish, a pair of transitioning French angels, a nice chain moray eel, a trumpetfish ineffectively concealing itself, and a chain moray eel.

Some amazing shots of copper-colored sharpnose, a small goby with another fish inside, a tube worm family, and some juvenile glass sweepers in the surge, which excited me to no end.

And some curious behaviors, like a trumpet stalking a parrotfish, a needlefish stalking me, a rambling anemone, and one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen, a mass of fireworms wrapped around some fish scraps.

I hadn’t checked out Te Amo yet, so I stopped and had lunch at Stoked Food truck which is conveniently right next to the beach. Warning: the parking lot for Stoked/Te Amo has the worst surfacing I’ve ever seen, so as soon as you pull in, slow down to a crawl. Te Amo is all sandy, so visibility was significantly worse than at the pier, especially as the wind gusts were increasing.

Te Amo is a beautiful sandy beach, the kind you think of when you think tropical beaches. There is a reef parallel to the shore that is in awful shape. Most of the coral is dead, but there are a few live patches.

However, there are still a wide variety of fish hanging out and hunting for crustaceans, I suppose.

Beyond the reef wall is a downslope to the deep, so it can be interesting to go along there and note some deeper-water fish.

I did also get a hilarious picture of a redlip blenny who looks like he’s posing for a dog show.

A week-long, solo adventure in January. I stayed north of the main town, a few minutes walk from Oil Slick dive site. Unfortunately, it was quite windy, 18-21 mph the week I was there. A lot of the dive sites are unprotected from winds, including Oil Slick. It is about 8-10 feet deep right off the platform, so you have to be comfortable with a ladder and with putting on gear while treading water.

One of the main reasons I wanted to scout around Oil Slick is that I donated money to Reef Renewal Bonaire create a coral tree. In the past year, Reef Renewal has been growing the organization and exponentially increasing their efforts to outplant coral through in-ocean propagation. In the old days, they created floating ‘trees’ often made of PVC. Most trees focused on staghorn coral, a type that is friendly to this propagation and is often decimated by storm events. I don’t think I found my tree, but you can see what they look like. It looks like RRB is giving brain or maze corals a try.

Oil Slick is really too deep for enjoyable snorkeling, but had a lovely bottom with large boulder corals and giant sea plumes. In many of the pictures you can see how the coral is struggling with disease, no longer a uniform color. Due to the wave action, there’s lots of particles blown up in the water even though there is relatively little exposed sandy bottom.

First stop for me is always Andrea I, historically one of my favorite areas to snorkel on Bonaire. Unfortunately, Stony Coral disease has continued to make inroads on the larger boulders and to my surprise, the fire coral as well. When I first arrived on Bonaire, I was surprised by how much fire coral there was. On my last visit, it seemed to be remaining healthy, but on this one, I saw definite die-off along with bleaching heat-stress. I think there is significantly more algae growth. It still has a lot of parrotfish and damselfish which love to eat algae. Sea urchins also seem to be making a comeback, which is probably good as they are algae eaters as well.

There was decent fish diversity, with a number of different parrotfish–yellowtail, redtail, Queen, princess, and rainbow–damsels, a few spotted trunkfish and orange spotted filefish, lots of tangs, sergeants, grunts, and goatfish, a few yellowfin mojarra and bar jacks, and even a pair of banded butterflies, a Bermuda chub and a scorpionfish.

The next day I stopped into town and my now-favorite dive shop, Private Divers Bonaire, and picked up some weights. They are incredibly easy to deal with and rely on a delightfully old-fashioned honor system. Weights help me freedive. More on that in a separate post, but hopefully you’ll notice improvement in photos. I certainly did.

Since I was in town, I went to Isidel Beach Park, a new park with a disability ramp into the water to check it out. I think the area in front used to be called Bari Reef, which also extends to the front of Chogogo Beach Resort. Chogogo is a monstrous money-making resort that did not do just stewardship towards beach construction. They trucked in tons of sand for a sandy beach, and promptly lost it to the first storm that went through. The water quality shows here, with poor visibility in photos with any distance. However, there’s an artificial reef to the left of the walking ramp that attracts a nice variety of fish. I’ve noticed structures of any sort provide a basis for corals, sponges and algae to cling to, which in turn attracts more fish.

Actually, I found the fish hilarious. They were definitely accustomed to snorkelers, and acted more curious than frighted. I acquired a school of palometas that seemed confused by me being below them.