Not all of it, of course. Sorobon is a place with shacks, shops, picnic tables, and windsurfing rentals. Most windsurfers stay in the bay north and central to Sorobon. But if you swing around to the southern part of the bay, it gets incredibly shallow, too shallow even for windsurfing. This is all sandy, with tufts of seagrass anchoring it, so the surface is very uneven. Depending on the tide, it is about 4 to 8 inches deep over much of that expanse.
You can see the bay is wide open to the ocean, at least on the map. In reality, there seems to be a sort of ridge going north from the southern entrance to the bay. In the photograph, you can see waves in the top, hinting at the rocky ridge. Both times I went to Cai, I did a walk-shuffle across that wide sandy expanse, perhaps 200 yards, until it got deep enough to snorkel, about 4-5 feet.
The fish cage is the first sign I’m reaching snorkel depths.
It seems pretty disappointing at first, easily as desolate under water as it is on the surface.
mustard corals along the bottom of Lac Cai
The mustards were doing pretty well, along with a few rods and sponges, but everything else was struggling.
But the real fun here is the shallow water and the juvenile fish. I am guessing that Lac Cai serves as a nursery for many species, giving protection from the big ocean outside the bay.
adorable little juvie tang peeking at mejuvie banded butterflyblue tang, yellowhead wrasse, goby, juvie puddingwife
This was the first place I saw a rainbow parrot, and got so lucky, I found a small school of four.
rainbow parrot scraping at a depressingly dead reef
I was also lucky enough to snap my first photograph of Caribbean reef squid. I’ve seen them before, but I have found them to be both shy and fast.
The value of shallow water is getting great views. Swimming slowly by I happened upon this scorpionfish. For me, the key to finding these guys is their overall shape and the very cool pattern around their eyes. Like barracudas, this is another fish I keep a respectful distance.
I kept swimming to the north and ran into Lac Cai’s giant boulder corals. This was remarkable, and heartbreaking. I wish I could have seen it three years ago. These were all 2-3 feet across and looked so healthy from the front.
There were some staghorn coral in rough shape, but they acted as shelters for fish. This one appeared relatively healthy.
I found some large fish in the area and got a couple of great shots.
And then, as I was making my way through the rows of boulders, I saw it.
I will be forever grateful to Nicole and Galen at Tropicalsnorkeling.com for putting together detailed snorkel guides. I used their ebook on Bonaire to help me narrow down the 86 official dive and snorkel sites. Andrea I and II were on my priority list, and ended up being so much fun, and so beautiful, that I returned here a number of times on multiple trips.
This is me in the light blue water on the left! You can see limestone and dead reef at shore edge. The darker blue near shore is the coral and rock shelf, then there’s a sandy area, showing light blue, and then the deep dark blue.
Andrea has a very long iron shore (thus the division into Andrea I and II), with a narrow band of finely ground stone/sand slightly inland from the iron shore. It also has a thick patch of bushes behind the sandy area, hiding numerous expensive villas and maintaining the illusion of a quiet public beach.
There are a couple of yellow markers showing you the best spots to enter the water for minimal coral damage (the sea urchins don’t listen to this, though, so still be careful).
Snorkeling was amazing. There were many hard corals, some soft corals, and a wide variety of fishes. There’s a large shelf near shore filled with corals, then patch reefs in a mid-ground, about 8-10 feet deep, then a field of plumes and boulders as you hit the slope and diver depths.
Here you can see the edge of the shore shelf reef and start of the patch reefs, filled with healthy boulder coral (the round greenish ones), slightly stressed but plentiful fire corals, a trumpet fish and grouper, a school of chromis (far left), a tall sponge (bottom right).
A patch reef with a trumpet fish, a four-eye butterfly (bottom right), a grouper (bottom left), boulder coral, a brain coral and a sponge.
Purple bipinnate sea plumes with likely Atlantic sea plumes behind, with a hardly visible Caesar grunt in the background.
There was an area by Andrea that had extremely friendly fishes. I was guessing someone was feeding them because they had zero fear. I actually think I saw the same angelfish pair the next couple of years, and have dubbed them ‘Bob and Helen,’ because they seem to be a self appointed welcoming committee.
Bob the angelfish stopped by on 80% of my snorkels at Andrea I for the next two years. He usually has Helen in tow, but she tends to hang back a bit.
Filefish tend to be shy, so it was an utter surprise to have this scrawled filefish come so close. That’s when I started to wonder about feeding.
Andrea had some great corals! Here’s a giant brain coral with some fire and boulder corals alongside.
A beautiful, large pink starlet coral
Pillar coral. Endangered.
Some weirdo brain coral with star coral at the bottom. I am guessing that wave action might have affected growth pattern, but it might have been a virus or mutation.
Orange cup coral. Never very plentiful, you can see small patches like this that look like innie belly buttons. They open up at night and look like tiny anenomes.
It also gave me a chance to work on my macro photography. WordPress isn’t being kind to my high-definition star coral, but you should get the idea.
Patches meant I could get close without touching other coral, since there was empty sea floor around me. Much easier for photography when I don’t have to worry about bumping into coral! You can see tiny little polyps extended on the white nodules.
Here’s a sea fan next to a diseased star coral. Sea fans are a type of soft coral in the Gorgonian genus. They are communal coral polyps arranged in flat groups, each contributing to secreting gorgonian proteins to build the internal structure they all live on. Some Gorgonians use calcium in their structure, so like all coral species, ocean acidification is a serious threat (further interesting detail at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History).
Detail of the fan
A cool bell sponge! Sponges are cool, and confusing to identify. They come in so many shapes. One of the earliest multicellular animals, they have a few specialized cells for feeding, reproducing and structural support. Water flows through many pores and canals to allow it to trap food (find more info at wikipedia). I have learned that identification is tricky even for professionals, and in some cases, requires lab equipment to accurately identify. Still, a few are obvious, like this bell sponge.
And there were some fish! The three stooges giving me the side-eye (just kidding, blue tangs).
I followed a honeycomb cowfish and got to watch it change colors as it moved from plumes to corals to sea bottom. Pretty clear where it gets the honeycomb name. You can just see the tiny horns above its eye.
Soapfish aren’t the smartest fish in the tank, and apparently assume that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them. Here’s one in some fire coral. I thought it was hilarious.
There were a LOT of damselfish. We won’t even talk about how many shots it took to catch this one in some staghorn coral. Damselfish are highly territorial, particularly when they are guarding eggs, and will harass other fish/ animals/ humans. Some of them are known for grooming tiny patches of algae ‘farms’ and will protect those as well.
Oh, and everyone’s favorite, it seems. A turtle! I think they are definitely cool, but as someone who has had pet turtles in the past, I’ll also note they aren’t the sharpest tool in the drawer. They mainly eat, sleep, and breathe so watching them is an exercise in Zen meditation. I also saw so many in Maui that I got used to them. Still, they have such interesting shell patterns.
My first time on Bonaire, I decided to hire a local guide. I had some ideas where to go, but what I wanted was someone who knew the ocean landscape: currents, depths, wildlife, and maybe even biology. Our first stop was a water retention pond in town known for flamingos. The marina is across the street here. It’s hard to get close, because there are mud flats leading up to the water area.
When you ask people where to go in Bonaire, they will almost universally recommend 1000 Steps. There aren’t really 1000 steps; the story goes that it just feels like it after a long dive and when carrying scuba gear. Lucky for me, it was only a bag of snorkel gear. Beautiful-Bonaire has a picture that captures the access.
Because it is so recommended and has a sandy apron making water entrance easy, it is extremely crowded. Below are people starting to park along the road on the approach, as the small parking area is easily overwhelmed.
You can also see how delightfully narrow that road is. Technically, it is two way, but past this point it becomes one-way, committing the driver to a long route through Rincon and around the eastern side of the island back to Kralendijik.
I enjoyed our snorkel, but it was too deep for me to really love it (picture below is ranging from 15-20 feet or so). Still, it was amazing in the diversity and the size of corals (note this is 2023). Boulder corals (big green ones), huge brain corals (center picture), sea fans (in front of brain coral), a Gorgonian (tall, left side and branched, front corner), stovepipe sponges and fire coral all show a wide diversity. Some have a lovely deep color, others look a little too light; perhaps signs of recovery after heat stress the prior summer.
This was before I discovered weights and freediving, and had to rely on my own skills to keep me at depth. Below is a nice patch of diversity, about 12 feet or so.
However, even doing duck diving, I still managed to find a cute little lettuce nudibranch on some dead staghorn coral. You can see the healthy stuff with the nobbies above it.
This is also where I saw my first schools of blue chromis, a gorgeous little fish that prefers deeper waters.
It was also my first glimpse of an extensive staghorn field. I am told that there used to be acres of staghorn until a hurricane/weather event in the mid 2010s broke much of it up. These coral patches act the same way a grove of trees between farm fields do–they offer protection from predators and a concentration of sea life that allows for easier feeding, along with potential nesting sites, as many fish eggs need something to attach to.
But this was only the first dive stop. On to Cliff!
Snorkeling Adventures 