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Bonaire Cliff in ’23 and ’24

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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 2024. Lac Cai

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Lac Cai. Beautifully desolate.

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 me
juvie banded butterfly
blue 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.

Holy guacamole, I squealed. What a reward!

Bonaire 2024. Salt Pier

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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.

Bonaire, Sept. 2024–it’s hot!

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Ah, Bonaire! Back for September, and wow, was it hot. I’m from the midwest, so while we have summer heat and humidity, it isn’t often in double digits, and almost never for a week straight.

This was my first time in Bonaire regularly using the airco! Airco, for those used to central or window air conditioning, is mounted on the upper wall of the bedroom and usually used to cool a room for sleeping. The rest of the dwelling is usually open and uncooled, at least in less-Americanized places. I actually love this arrangement, and when I’m on the islands in winter, I rarely use it and rely on the ocean breezes through windows and open doors. But September was a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. I used it every night, and by the end of the trip, even used it for an afternoon siesta.

Our pool wasn’t cooled (this is a thing!) so while wet, it often did not feel very cooling. The iguanas loved it, though.

I believe in working with the climate, so I look for places I can stay with wide-open verandas and ceiling fans.

There are scattered, brief showers, but mostly just a lot of sun, so it is nice to have a porch that is always shady.

Even the airport does verandas.

Bonaire Feb. 2025. Something Special

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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.

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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 😀

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Bonaire Feb. 2025. Fishermen’s Pier and Te Amo

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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.

  • sharpnose puffer
  • an assortment of littles
  • tube worms

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.

Freediving

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Freediving is the art and science of diving underwater without SCUBA gear. I never intended to be a freediver, exactly, but I did want to get up close and personal with my photos. It started to occur to me that there were probably techniques to make it easier, and more importantly, safer. A number of online friends mentioned it, but as I’m in farm country, I have to save practice for vacation. Last September, I started the AIDA Freediving course.

First we did some meditation on the beach, then we practiced breath-holding.

On to the actual diving!

As you advance in freediving, the AIDA course is focused on increased time and comfort level of breath-holding. My impression is that it helps one safely identify their limits. However, diving deep is just not where my focus is. so I decided I did not want to pursue it farther at this time. I do have a much better idea of what safe swimming means, however, and how to approach my multiple 8 to 15 foot dives.

Bonaire 2025. Salt Pier

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I’ve been lucky when abroad to find other snorkelers. This visit, I met someone from the Netherlands who suggested Salt Pier, where the Cargill Salt ships dock to be loaded up with salt from the saltwater flats. If a ship is docked or due, they will close the area around the pier for the day. In general, Salt Pier is quite deep and basically open ocean, which means that when it is windy, you will feel it. When I went, I think the wind was 19-20 mph with gusts, so besides the choppy swim, the clarity was significantly reduced for photography.

I absolutely love the area around the pier pilings, the ghostly shapes in the depths and the wildly colorful sponges on the close pilings. Salt Pier is often mentioned as a place to see turtles, but I had never seen mentioned the marvelously diverse amount of sponges growing on the giant pilings.

It is an area known for turtles, interestingly. I’m not sure what draws them there over other places. I saw a very small one as well as a larger tagged one on this run.

Also because of the deeper water, I usually see a barracuda as well as larger schools of larger fish, sheltering under the pilings. This picture isn’t great, but you can see the barracuda swimming through. Though numerous sources suggest a snorkeler has nothing to fear, unless wearing shiny bits of metal, I try to keep a respectful distance.

Unfortunately, most of the shallow areas have experienced a lot of coral die off. To the right of the pier is an area that used to be covered with staghorn coral. I was happy to see there was some surviving, but as you can tell, it is struggling.

Salt Pier also has a LOT of divers. My friend and I had fun playing in their bubbles as they swam underneath us at the pilings.

Getting out was a challenge, as waves had picked up. I got shoved into the limestone boulders, and was extremely glad of my full-body rashguard from Waterlust. Only my hands and feet got scraped. That was probably the worst scrape-up I’ve ever had.

Hello World!

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I’m a devoted snorkeler and swimmer who has finally found a way to share some of my pictures. I have hung out on Bonaire and Curacao Facebook and Reddit groups, particularly for snorkeling, and now that I’ve been to both a few times, I find myself sharing some of the same thoughts. How much simpler to share in one place! Plus, pictures!

One of the most challenging things about snorkel trips is how reports vary. I think this is–of course–due to our perspective. I’ve only been tropical snorkeling since about 2018 or so, so my perspective is very different from people that have been doing it much longer. There are a number of reliable studies that show clear, marked decline in Caribbean coral, for various environmental and epidemiological reasons. I’ve learned for many people, they go on cruise ship type excursions and are interested in megafauna (turtles) or places with ‘lots of fishes,’ so their reports differ quite a bit from the ones I’m always looking for. I’m a swimmer, freediver, and an amateur biologist and photographer, so I’m always looking for a more diverse experience.

I’ve also travelled to the Florida Keys and St. John, USVI, finding both kind of a bust for snorkeling (although I did run into a pod of manatees heading to a bridge channel, which was freaking amazing!) Interestingly, for two of those three trips, I dealt with Tropical Storms/predicted hurricanes (perhaps another blog post), so I’d be willing to give them another chance. That is one of the joys of Bonaire and Curacao, in that they lie outside the hurricane belt.

I will probably never scuba dive, because after one of my Florida snorkeling trips, I developed a deep vein thrombosis that turned into blood clots in my both my lungs. I recovered just fine and my lungs and heart are healthy, but there are so many physiological stresses that go into diving that I don’t feel like pushing it. Reports that are coming out of Hawai’i about flash pulmonary edema in snorkelers–and that have probably happened in Bonaire and Curacao as well, judging by the occasional articles of divers and snorkelers dying–should remind us that us air-breathing humans can’t take our physiology for granted, particularly when coupled with air travel.

Anyways, I welcome feedback about the site. I was using the ‘slideshow’ format for some of these pictures, but I discovered it wouldn’t work on my mobile version of WordPress, so I’ve moved away from that feature, though I liked it as a way to incorporate a group of pictures under a theme.

As I’ve snorkeled more, I’m getting more comfortable with taking videos to give a full-reef feel, although I am definitely not skilled in video editing. So I’m open to requests there as well.

I’m also open to hearing about your experiences in the areas, or in general. I love learning!

a peacock flounder signaling romance on its mind

Bonaire Feb. 2025, Oil Slick and Bari Reef

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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.

A very filling lunch at Yanni’s Arrepas, a popular and inexpensive spot,