In the water:

Toucan Diving has its orientation at 9am, and the check-out dive is on the Plaza’s house reef, 18 Palms (or 18th Palm… it’s referred to by both names.) While this dive site is somewhat less colorful and occasionally there’s more particulate in the water, it’s one of my favorites. What it lacks in soft corals and color is made up for with tons of sea life. This year we noticed many more tarpon out and about, cruising at all depths – not just deep. There were large puffers, a school of horse-eye jacks and an octopus, along with the typical tropicals.

I also snorkeled 18 Palms, and while there’s considerably more coral rubble since Ivan upchucked on the beach here last year, there are also tons of fish. The school of chub at the inlet to the Plaza’s marina is still there. The sweepers are still under the steps at the Tipsy Seagull. There seem to be even larger schools of fish surrounding the pilings at the Tipsy’s outer pier. Just to the north of the Tipsy in about four feet of water, I came across a huge school of silversides, with a lone barracuda working them into a ball. Then a tarpon showed up to help him. I can’t help but wonder if these were the same two I photographed a couple of years ago in the same spot, doing the same thing. A couple of needlefish dive-bombed the bait ball from time to time. There seem to be more (and larger) needlefish just below the surface. I also saw lettuce leaf nudibranchs everywhere, some a nice shade of turquoise.

We dove these other sites:

South Bay – huge midnight parrotfish, lots of colorful corals and sponges. My favorite site on Klein Bonaire. A damselfish got annoyed and attacked Mike’s fin – whacked it hard enough that Mike thought he must have run into another diver, although no one was around him. While he was looking and wondering what the heck happened, the little damselfish zoomed out and whacked his fin again!

Witch’s Hut – One of my favorite dive sites, absolutely gorgeous. There were tarpon, barracuda, squid and four seahorses here.



Hands Off – when you jump off the boat here, you’ll be greeted by a school of chub and a French angelfish, all looking for a hand-out. This is a steeper Klein Bonaire dive site, with soft corals in the shallows and harder stuff packed tightly down the drop-off. We saw a turtle, busily eating. And for some reason, there are a ton of sergeant majors here.

Something Special – Matt and Mike did a night boat dive here, but I passed. I like night diving, but not with a lot of people around. They said they dropped in and the first thing they saw was a bait ball being worked by a couple of tarpon. Also saw an octopus and several eels.

Invisibles – This has to be the brown chromis super highway. It’s like they are crowded on an interstate during rush hour, and every now and then there’s an exit ramp. The highlight of this dive was a spotted eagle ray.

Rockpile – Saw the only Klein Bonaire frogfish here. The Creole wrasse was zooming around, on their way to who knows where… must have been a thousand of them. There’s a big patch of staghorn coral in the shallows here, hosting lots of critters.

Angel City – Great topography here. There were several schools of fish out and about (chub, jacks, black margates) and a couple of sizeable barracuda. A large green moray eel was lounging on the outer reef.



Forest – A drift dive through Forest around South West Corner on Klein Bonaire. It was choppy on the surface and the current was ripping! Quite a different experience for Bonaire, and not my favorite kind of diving – I prefer going slowly and taking pictures. It’s a colorful area, but we were zooming by the fish so quickly, it’s hard to remember any details.

1,000 Steps – A very large blue parrotfish with a bumpy head cruised by during this dive. The skies were a bit overcast this particular morning, so it was darker diving here than usual, and not a lot of fish were out and about. Saw a tarpon and a huge rainbow parrotfish in the distance.

Small Wall – There was a noticeable north-to-south current during part of this dive. Saw two frogfish, tried to see an octopus (tucked inside a crevice.) A turtle was hanging out in the shallows near the boat.



Red Beryl – Because of the current, we did another drift dive north through Margate Bay. This wasn’t as strong or swift as the Forest dive, but there was a chilly thermocline around 50 feet. A nice turtle posed for me, as did a couple of scrawled filefish. Matt posed for me too – it was his 100th dive.



Divi Tree – We found a strong current going west-to-east here, which made heading west into it a bit of an ordeal. Again, the Creole wrasse was parading by. Mike saw a small wahoo in the blue.

We enjoyed every dive, but the best of all was Salt Pier.



Jackson (from Toucan Diving) got the required permission, kindly drove us there and found us a huge assortment of critters. We got in the water around 5pm, which meant for strong, dramatic lighting on the pilings. Several frogfish, octopus, scorpionfish, eels of all types, tarpon, large schools of goatfish and grunts, and a wall of silversides close to shore. A pelican was diving into the silversides… what a rush to look over and see a bird underwater!

Stay tuned for Part 4...