adventure – Snorkeling Adventures

Bonaire and Curacao: Which Should I Pick?

July 28, 2025July 30, 2025Tagged adventure, beach, Bonaire, caribbean, coral reef, Curacao, photography, snorkel, snorkeling, travelLeave a comment

Bonaire and Curacao. Both part of the ABC islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. Originally all Dutch territories, they’ve changed over the years to each become their own thing. My #1 advice is to think about the vacation you want and then go to the island that fits it, rather than going for the notch in the island belt. I can’t speak for Aruba, which I hear is very Americanized, but both Bonaire and Curacao are vacation-rental type islands, stemming from their long relationship with the Netherlands. They are not all-inclusive, pay for an excursion type of places. If you want that, I would suggest considering other places. The value in both spots is the walk-off-the-beach access to reefs, which safes boat fees and leads to a more reliable water experience (as opposed to Florida Keys, where almost all reefs are excursion-based. Three-foot waves? I’m not going).

Me? I’m a former competitive swimmer, citizen scientist, former lifeguard, baby freediver, and photographer.

Way back when, each island renegotiated their relationship with the Dutch government. Curacao gets money from the Netherlands, but does more of their own governance. Bonaire has its own governor, but basically has greater connection to The Hague, as they say, with the idea they also get governing help and more money. Does this translate into different things? I think so. It means that Curacao is going all-out on mass tourism as well as carving up their land and selling to the highest bidder. Bonaire is more conservative, and recently put a hold on issuing new building permits. Bonaire has more wild coastline, and to date, appears to be doing a slightly better job of protecting it. Bonaire has a giant marine part surrounding most of the island. Fishing is with excursions or for lionfish. Curacao has no particular protected area. They also do not allow spearfishing.

Why do I care about these kinds of issues? Because everything is related. That coral you come to see is affected by development and run-off. Those fish you come to see are affected by harvest numbers and size limits. That beach you want to sit on? Sandy beaches don’t go great with coral. What does go great with coral is scrub bushes and mangroves up to the shore, because it protects it from sediment and pollution run-off in rainstorms (ask Hawai’i how it knows this). Bonaire is terribly rocky and largely consists of ‘iron shore,’ a term used to describe a mix of rocks and broken coral. Curacao has far more sandy shores. When wind comes up (as it thankfully does), sand gets dispersed in the waves, making for better or worse water quality. It’s also important for coral growth–some cloudiness might have a sunshine protective effect, but too much cloudiness prevents a coral from getting it’s sunshine.

Water: Bonaire is largely a curved shoreline, but without many ‘inlets.’ Curacao, on the other hand, has quite a few carved into its shoreline. This makes the snorkeling much easier, being protected by wave surge and wind. Bonaire is less protected, and indeed, the bottom half of the island is largely a straight open shore. You will be snorkeling in open water. To date, Maui has been my standard for tough snorkeling. Between the surge and the current, it was *work* to snorkel there. Bonaire and Curacao? Easy-peasy in comparison–in places. Curacao is largely easy-peasy on the western shore. But you have to feel comfortable following the cliff lines, which means going around bends away from the beach. Bonaire, well, the current doesn’t feel *significant* in most places, but it is there, increasing as you go to either the northern or southern edges of the west shoreline. As a competent swimmer, I take a careful approach towards the southern half of Bonaire (basically anyplace south of Salt Pier) and of Curacao (Tugboat is protected, but I haven’t gone around the edges there yet).

Shore: As mentioned, Curacao has inlets. Lovely, sandy inlets for the most part. Bonaire is almost entirely ‘iron shore,’ a term that means broken coral and limestone. Even the ‘sand’ in some places is more like ground-up coral and limestone. Soft sandy beaches? Found more often on Curacao and, I am told, Aruba. My guess is it has to do with the wave action and the ability for the shore to keep it’s sand during storms. Curacao’s inlets are more helpful here. Bonaire, with it’s wide-open shoreline, has only a couple, aside from artificial beaches that have to be replaced after storms (looking at you, Chogogo). Te Amo, Bachelor’s Beach are the two main, public access ones that are sandy. What do I do? I wear water shoes into the water, then change into my fins. Yes, it’s cumbersome. But I freedive and need those fins.

Getting Around: Both places have well-maintained main roads. By ‘main,’ I mean the ones traversing most of the country. I need a car to get to all the different snorkel sites I am going, and to the grocery. Curacao has an underdeveloped taxi system, and I am not sure Bonaire has any. People rent scooters, but traffic goes faster than most scooters. Dutch people love to bike, and when I noted a couple biking back to their place without helmets and lights yesterday evening, I was scared for them. In Bonaire, many roads are virtually one way, and you pull over and drive on the edge or wait if someone is coming the opposite direction. Main roads keep to the philosophy of minimalism and have just enough space for two cars side by side. Golf carts? Sure, but they’ll mark you as a tourist, you’ll be hot, unable to keep up with traffic, limited to day hours and subject to rain from passing showers. Again, locals don’t have tolerance for this, and will try to pass. In my car, I got passed twice last night, while going speed limit.

Where To Stay? By the end of this year, I will have gone to Bonaire twice and Curacao once. Until this year, I have always stayed in some version of an AirBnb. A house, villas, a bed and breakfast, an owner-occupied house. Both places are about the outdoor living, so I look for a large porch or outdoor pool. I don’t do resorts because I am an introvert and love peace and quiet. Almost no houses have central air, but with good design, you don’t need it. Almost all bedrooms have A/C, done with an AirCo machine, and those have been enough to cool me down to sleep if needed. A/C is hugely expensive and each island is reliant upon importing their energy–there’s a real deficit of wind and solar here–so only places catering to Americans and businesses have it. My routine is to go to the grocery on the first day, get a car, grab a list of under 15 essentials, then hit the water. People say they don’t want to cook or do dishes, but I do minimal of either–I wash the dishes I use and the only thing I ever cook is eggs or grilled cheese if I want a change from a cold sandwich.

My advice to you? Think about what your goals are and what you are prepared to deal with.

Handy chart

	Bonaire	Curacao
Fish	bigger	smaller
Corals, hard	small to medium	small to medium
Corals, soft	depends on the site	prevalent
Current	yes	not really
Sandy entry	rare	prevalent
Wind	prevalent 15-19 mph	protected inlets
Surge	depends on the site	depends on the weather
Snorkel excursions?	to Klein Bonaire, private guides	to Klein Curacao, private tours

Driving	yes	yes
Public transport	no	erratic bus
Population	25k	250k
Visitors	Dutch, Americans, cruisers	cruisers, Americans, Dutch

Bonaire Cliff in ’23 and ’24

June 4, 2025June 17, 2025Tagged adventure, blog, Bonaire, coral, coral reef, nature, photography, snorkel, snorkeling, travelLeave a comment

Many people would not think of Cliff for snorkeling. I didn’t, but my guide on my first visit in 2023 suggested a quick snorkel that paid off.

There’s a nice pier at Cliff that makes water entry decent. You do have to descend about 6 wide stairs behind a dive shop, or use a ladder by Hamlet Oasis.

Cliff gets its name from a steep underwater drop-off not too far from the shore. Historically, this was a nice wall of corals. In 2023, I could see some of what appealed to divers. The left edge of the picture is probably 20 ft deep and falling rapidly toward the right.

The first time I was at Cliff, I hadn’t yet discovered weights and freediving, so pictures took much more effort to get. Diving down, I captured this stovepipe sponge in the middle of some lobed star coral and a diverse bunch of sea plumes and rods. There’s a school of chromis in the distance (brown with one blue chromis).

I saw my first barracuda, which was intimidating! I’ve since seen them much more frequently and am better about not being intimidated, although I do give them their space. I suspect when they are in shallow waters, they tend to be active and on the hunt, as opposed to in deeper pier areas where they hang motionless in the gloom.

There was a lovely elkhorn coral, surrounded by fields of fire coral. Fire coral is so named because its polyps have specialized “stinging” polyps containing nematocysts, which release a fun little neurotoxin (sarcasm font). Yet another reason to not touch the coral. Here a ubiquitous Princess parrotfish searches for a bite under the elkhorn.

There were some nice sized and healthy brain corals here. Here I was chasing down a shy grouper, so they weren’t the main focus of my picture. That’s unfortunate, as this was pre-SCTLD.

There was also a lot of lobed star coral. They seem to prefer slightly deeper waters, and I’d guess I’m around 12-15 feet. The grunt hiding in the shadows is a fish that is around 6-8 inches, which helps provide size reference for this large outcropping.

I found my first honeycomb cowfish. No mystery how it got it’s name.

in 2023, I also saw one of the only sea cucumbers I’ve ever seen on Bonaire. I don’t know if it is generally inhospitable environment, or there is a trade in them. In Maui, legal and illegal human over-harvesting is a significant problem, so you don’t see many large ones. This one is huge (the 2 inch sharpnose puffer above the coral helps provide size reference), so I wonder if it is more a local environment issue.

CLIFF IN 2024 was a different kettle of fish. Or coral. Actually, less fish, with damaged and dying coral.

Upon entry, I immediately headed to the left, toward a large fire-coral reef. What a difference a year makes! Once again, I was faced with a 17-19 mph wind conditions, which weren’t awful but did cut down visibility. Here’s a dead brain coral foreground to bare reef.

I chased this butterflyfish pair for a bit, trying to get a shot with both of them in it. I was dismayed to see the disease spots on the rightmost one. This picture also shows the condition of the fire and mustard coral, two species that seemed indestructible to me. To the left is some lovely colored fire coral, getting paler and more diseased towards the right. You can see the mustard coral, the small mustard-yellow round bumps on the bottom left and bottom right. They also seem like they are everywhere, but are clearly suffering here. Usually they form a solid ball like mass. You can see the white dead stuff surrounding these two.

I was following this honeycomb cowfish who decided to hide under an overhang (as they do). I didn’t zoom in, because I think this is another one of those that shows the reef condition. Washed out fire corals on top and an absence of life around it.

I did find a small cluster of orange cup coral, which cheered me up.

Here’s a few ‘littles’ (juvie damsel, gobies) in some very bleached out but alive fire coral, and a bleached but healthier star coral. Notice the color on the coral is deeper as the depth increases.

I always try to capture fun shots of the fish I see. I thought this Queen parrotfish looked like it was talking to the damsel. Undoubtedly the damselfish, known for being highly territorial, was saying, “piss off, pal!”

I also found a very large, very dark-patterned doctorfish, very striking with tiger-like stripes. I don’t usually see them this dark.

I was excited to find a lettuce nudibranch. I haven’t found them very often in the Caribbean.

I did a swim over the drop-off as I was following an eagle ray, my first ever! It was very focused on feeding. Initially I followed far behind, having no idea how timid it may or may not be. It seemed to display no concern about me (I credit my whale shark pattern rashguard set from Waterlust), as well as the fact that I was about 15 feet above it, so gradually I relaxed enough to focus on getting good pictures (not just any picture). It would swim for about 25-50 yards, then do a turn, then head in a new direction. I got this shot on one of the turns. Isn’t that vertical eye amazing?

The ray preferred the depths, eventually leading me over the slope down to the deep. I tried to take heart from the percent of green-colored coral down there. Maybe even as high as 30%, which, you know, isn’t 0%. So there was that.

Still, a somewhat sad outing. I tried to take hope from the fact that some varieties were surviving, but I am afraid I am just documenting a slow death.

Bonaire 2023. Andrea I and II

May 13, 2025May 22, 2025Tagged adventure, Bonaire, coral reef, nature, photography, snorkeling, travelLeave a comment

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.

Brain coral detail.

Staghorn coral. Staghorn used to play a pivotal reef-building role around Bonaire, but legend says heavy storms and hurricanes (although we don’t normally think of Bonaire in the hurricane belt) resulted in significant mortality that has never recovered. So it was kind of thrill to see some healthy-ish patches in 10-12 feet deep water.

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.

Bonaire 2024. Salt Pier

April 30, 2025May 22, 2025Tagged adventure, blog, Bonaire, coral reef, photography, salt-pier, snorkel, snorkeling, sponges, travelLeave a comment

My first time snorkeling Salt Pier was amazing! I’ll be honest; I was prepared to be underwhelmed, mostly because anyplace that everyone always recommends can be crowded. Since it is a pier, I was also skeptical of the depth problem when snorkeling. One of the earlier times I was in Bonaire, the ship was in, so I didn’t get to try it out on the days I had planned. This is a real issue, for obvious reasons.

Salt Pier entrance area from a snorkeling perspective. The salt piles are actually across the street and quite far away. The line of trucks are vehicles from divers.

Frankly, I had such beautiful luck at other sites, I wasn’t motivated to keep trying. (You can check Bonaire.portcall.com to see list of ships and locations, or you can just ask in a Facebook group). But now I know! What is ah-maz-ing about Salt Pier are the pilings, the variety of sponges on them that are so uncommon at snorkel depths, particularly.

Well, to be honest, you can tell from the blue that I was free diving for the first picture. So maybe not snorkel depths for everyone. I caught this little smooth trunkfish on the way up a piling in shallower water. Notice how some of the mustard coral looks a more washed-out. That’s bleaching.

One of the other fun things about Salt Pier are the schools of chromis and sergeants in the deeper water that make me feel like I am in an aquarium. There are often larger schools of grunts and snappers in the deeper water under the pilings, along with the occasional barracuda. I think I’ve seen one every visit to the pier, but I tend to be respectful and give them a wide berth. My pictures of the big schools are too blue, but here’s a clear group of snappers that broke away from the school, a grunt up by the pilings, and some nice sea plumes at the bases.

People always wonder about the beaches. Like most of Bonaire, the area here is largely what is known as ‘iron shore,’ or a crumbled/rocky mix of dead, broken coral and limestone. In a few places, there is some sand (or rather, pulverized coral and limestone), but not much. There’s an area in the shade to sit–believe me, this is underrated in this windswept area–if you like the industrial feel.