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Trip Reports: Loo Hoo's Report
Bonaire Talk: Trip Reports: Archives: Archives 2000 to 2005: Archives - 2005-08-09 to 2005-12-26: Loo Hoo's Report
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14828) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 4:48 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Getting there: AA/AE, no problems mon! Rafa picked us up at the SJ airport, we headed for the Hampton Inn and had their great burgers. Rafa then dropped us off at the Inter Continental in Isla Verde where we each had an 80 minute massage! That's the way to spend a long lay over in SJ!

Kelly and Steve met us at the airport, along with Susan Porter picking up Darlene. We all headed to Pasa Bon pizza..mmmmm...good!

Did a lot of diving, I'll list the sites later (when I can see my log book...LOL!)

Baby scorpion fish at the sand entry in front of the Eden Wannadive shop. Tom spotted him first as he was getting out.
baby scorpion fish

Caminator
caminator

The water was REALLY warm, registered 89F the first couple of days. By the last few days it had dropped to 84 to 86F. As a result of the warm water, there was sadly a LOT of coral bleaching happening...
coral bleaching

Darlene
Darlene

Dave (from Dave and Wanda of Candada:-)
Dave

Filefish
filefish

French Angel
french angel

Golden moray in coral
moray in coral

juvenile French angel
juve french angel

Juvenile spotted drum. I have to say that I saw more spotted drums on this trip than any other.
juve spotted drum

Tom at the top of the ladder at Oil Slick, with Babs climbing down
ladder at oil slick

Flounder
flounder

My fave, purple anemone
anenome

This purple coral/sponge stuff was beautiful. I got more into the corals and sponges this trip.
purple coral and trumpet fish

In the water at the Something Special dive site, looking toward the Regatta boats
Regatta

Salt Pier
Salt Pier

My dive buddy Smack
Smack

Spotted Drum
spotted drum

Tominator
tom

I love these blue/purple sponges!
blue sponge

Seahorse silhouette!
Seahorse

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Roy Wickham (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #207) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 5:28 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Nice Photos Cynde, great to be able to put (diving)faces to names :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14829) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 5:45 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Tanks Roy:-) Here are a couple more...

My other dive bud Babs:-)
Deity Babs

Spotted Moray
spotted moray

Another juve French Angel
juve angel

coral and fish

Grunt
grunt

eel

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Carole B. (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #5304) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 7:22 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Nicely done, Cyn!! Looks like you guys had a terrific time...how could you NOT on Bonaire!

Wow, the water temps were really way too high...was there a wind reversal at that time, too? That kind of temp will do so much damage....scary. Hope it returns to "normal" soon.

Wish we could have all been there with everyone at the same time. Thanks for the pics! Loved them. Carole

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14834) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 7:49 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Carole, there were wind reversals daily...it was really odd weather. The water temps were going back down, but a lot of places had a lot of coral that was bleaching:-(

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mare (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1120) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 8:29 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thank you for the lovely photos Loo Hoo!

Mare

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14836) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 8:54 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks Mare:-) I really got into the corals and sponges this time. I have a lot more pics I'll post later this weekend. I really need to get a sponge/coral book now because I need to start identifying them! LOL!

I had some of my best dives ever this trip. Got to do a few dives with Susan Porter (that woman can find a needle in a hay stack at a glance!), Ellen, and did Lac Cai with Bas. It was all good!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Glen Reem (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2199) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 10:55 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Cindy,

Did the wind funniness allow diving along more of the east side, south of Lac, for instance? It looks as though the shore would allow entry in a time of flat water.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Your Babsness (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #10049) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 11:08 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Your pics came out great Cynde! There was definitely a lot of difference in the water this trip, less viz, lots of spotted drums, very few turtle reports (I saw none whereas August 04 saw one on almost every dive)....that's the beauty of Bon...always something different to see! :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Greta (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1126) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 11:52 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Very nice, Cynde! Love looking at all the photos. I really like the angle of the Oil Slick Leap photo! It turned out very nice. Too bad about the odd weather and the coral bleaching. My swimming pool (which is much less water than what's surrounding Bon) gets just above 89F in the heat of the summer here in Texas. It may only get to 92F or 93F which is on the warm side. I'm a warm-water wuss though and I like it that way. :-)

Can't wait to see the rest of the pics!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14839) on Friday, October 21, 2005 - 11:53 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Glen, the water wasn't flat anywhere really. At Lac Cai, it was pretty churned up. Vis going out of the channel was between 5 and 15 feet and the surge and current was VERY strong. Chocogo and Soft Coral Gardens were fairly easy entries, lots of current at Chocogo. The surf was definitely LESS at those areas than I've seen it in the past.

There were thunderstorms in the morning on occasion, and lightening storms off in the distance to Venezuela. Talking to Ruth, in the mornings on occasion the wind would suddenly switch directions so it definitely wasn't consistent.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Glen Reem (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2200) on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 3:55 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

TKS, Cynde. It must be a very rare time when one an dive along the SE side. Should be good, though!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Diana van den Wollenberg (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3141) on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 6:02 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Very nice pictures, Cynde. Wish I was there with you all. Would be very fun.... But looking at the cams made me smile a lots of times as well

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Superturtle (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1727) on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 11:19 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Cynde, your photos are wonderful!! :-) Bring back lots of fond memories of Bonaire trips!!

Thanks so much for sharing!! :-) :-)

:-) Bill :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Lisa Amidei (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1270) on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 8:29 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Great pics, Cynde! Love the purple anemone and of course all your dive buddies! :-):-)

Burgers and a massage in San Juan. Niiice. :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Eileen BT Mommy x 2 (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #8725) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 1:39 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Beautiful!!! Awesome Cynde!!:-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14850) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 1:08 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Glen, you are correct sir! I'll post the rest of my underwater pics today:-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14854) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 1:29 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Diving - 20 dives total. I had some of the best dives on Bonaire this time. We got to dive with Susan Porter (Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy). The book is great and Susan really did a great job on the revision of the book. She can point things out so small...I think she has Superwoman vision!

10/9/05 Bari for our checkout dive. Babs had all new equipment and the current looked pretty strong at Eden so we opted to go to Bari. Kelly and Cam buddied up and Babs and I buddied up. This was also my anniversary, and since I wasn't with Michael, I had to celebrate virtually:-)
Happy Anniversary Honey Bunny

10/10/05 Buddies - Babs and I. Cam had lost a filling the night before and ended up spending the morning at the dentist so passed due to a numb mouth (Caminology strikes again!)

Front Porch - Eden Beach
Sarge and Willy say hi
Babs says hi to Alison
Babs and Cyn checking Willy out

10/11/05 - We were supposed to do the Snorkel trip on the Woodwind, but their motor broke AND it was storming. On our way out we ran into Cam and Cheryl, and Dave and Wanda from Canada. We decided to go dive Something Special, which it was:-)

10/12/05 - Bachelor's Beach with Babs

Cocogo - with Tom, Smack, Babs, and Cam. Norma and Sheryl snorkeled

Windsock night dive with Tom and Smack. This was one of my favorite dives. Had a nice big Charlie join us for most of the dive. He stayed very close most of the time. At one point we all turned off our lights and played with the bioluminescence...one of my favorite dives, almost 90 minutes!

10/13/05 - Boat dive to Klein - Dive site Knife. Klemo from Wannadive is a hoot is all I can say. Saw my first lettuce slug on this dive, and from there on seemed like I saw one on every dive! Babs and Tom buddied, and Smack and I buddied (we buddied most of the dives)

My fave, Ole' Blue. Smack, Tom, Babs, and Susan Porter and I on this dive. Norma snorkeled. I love this site. Susan pointed out some great things, filefish hiding in coral, the coral bleaching. There was a LOT going on (bleaching) at this site. She also pointed out how parrot fish mark their territory on coral. I didn't know that parrot fish were so territorial, but they are!

10/14/05 - Oil Slick with Babs, Tom, Smack. Angela hung out and sun bathed on this dive. Tom and I buddied on this dive. I swear, we were both laughing through our regs half the dive...must have wasted a lot of air doing so...LOL! Oh, found out that Tom doesn't really care for no stinkin' eels...LOL!

Soft Coral Gardens - now one of my favorite sites. Absolutely beautiful. Smack, Tom, Babs, me, and Susan Porter. Norma snorkeled. When we walked up to shore to check the conditions, there were about 8 alpha male rainbow parrots in the surf zone...just an unbelievable site! Norma was in the water first and said she couldn't count how many there were. Said she felt like she was in a Rastafarian parade with all the colors...LOL!

10/15/05 - Boat dive with Wannadive - Klemo at the helm - Sampler dive site. Smack, Tom, Babs, Dave, and I dove, Norma, Darlene, and Wanda snorkeled

Eden Beach - Babs had reached Deity status a couple of days earlier, and Tom had been looking for flowers for a couple of days. Tom and I headed out again before our dive to try to find flowers...over an hour later no luck. If you want fresh flowers on bonaire, you are going to have a heck of a time finding them! When we made it back to Bongo's, Babs, Smack and Dave went in to dive Eden. Tom and I got geared up and went for a Zen dive:-)
pinky says hi
pinky loves Bonaire
Tom and Bob

North End I did an early twighlight dive with Ellen Mueller on the North end. I've missed diving with her on earlier trips so it was great to hook up and get some dives in. I made it back in time to meet everyone who was already eating and drinking at Swiss Chalet:-)

10/16/05 - Alice in Wonderland with Smack, Tom, and Babs. Pea soup...things were kicked up a bit and vis had dropped to around 40 feet, but it was still a fantastic dive.

Playa ChaCha - Tom, Smack, Babs, and I. Great dive. Saw a school of 9 barracuda. I've never seen that many together before.

Belmar House reef - Tom, Smack, Babs, and I. Late twighlight early night dive. Vis was down a bit but I love seeing all the fish getting into their jammies and into bed. Last half of the dive was dark, which I love because you can play with the bioluminescence. We did manage to have a star wars light saber fight with our dive lights (even though Tom was convinced he was doing something from Close Encounters...LOL!)

10/17/05 - Lac Cai Dive with Bas, Smack, Martini, myself, and Martini's cousin and his wife with Bas at Lac Cai. I wish I would have done the dive with Bas earlier in the week so I could have done more than one dive with him. in the "hole" there were about 20 to 30 tarpon, nice group of spotted eagle rays, big grouper, big snapper. Everything is just "bigger" on the East side. Definitely an advanced dive when conditions are the way they were that day. Low vis and a lot of current and surge getting in and out of the channel. We did get tossed in the surf on the way back in a bit.

Salt Pier. I had been emailing Roger Burnam (Blenny Lips) before the trip and we were going to try to hook up for a dive this trip. I gave him Babs and my passport numbers on Monday morning and he managed to get us cleared so we did a dive at 4PM. Roger and Marcia are wonderful folks, and I wish I would have had more time to spend with them. They know Salt Pier like the back of their hands and it was an absolutely awesome dive. Marcia found 2 octopi curled up and hidden. I have a lot of pics from that dive to post. Roger is doing guided dives there as well.

10/18/05 - Another early dive, my "no dive day" so I had to get up early to get one in. Tom and I were going to head North to Andrea 1 or 2, but decided to dive Eden. It was by far my best dive at Eden ever. This is where we saw the baby scorpion fish at the top of this thread as we were getting out of the water:-)
cynde and Pinky say hi
I love you honey bunny
Tom says I love you to Pan but you can't read it:-)


 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14858) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 2:34 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

This is the first trip that I really got into coral and sponges. I saw so many things I'd never seen before by closely studying this marine life!
cowfish
orange spotted filefish
orange spotted filefish1
trunkfishsmall
greenspongesmall
gruntscoralsmall
juveangel

Norma snorkeling
Norma

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14871) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 4:25 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I don't know the name of this coral, but it was pretty!
coral

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14873) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 5:04 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Tried to adjust the color background on this one (unsuccessfully). This cow fish was really blue. He changed colors as he swam down the reef!
bluecowfish

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Lisa Barclay (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #786) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 6:41 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Cynde, I LOVE these pictures! Sounds like you had a great time!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Your Babsness (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #10082) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 6:49 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Okay, had to play with that one Cynde...let's see how it looks on line
a.jpg

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Your Babsness (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #10083) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 6:51 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

LOL, well it's slightly different!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14876) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 7:23 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks Lisa. I'm working on the seahorse, Salt Pier, and Lac Cai pics now:-)

Babs, I was trying to get the background like it was in the trunkfish. But it took the color from the cowfish. It was really cool watching him change colors:-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Greta (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1128) on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 11:49 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Enjoying the report so far...keep it coming!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kelly Baum (GDLW) (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3341) on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 11:23 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Cynde, your pictures are GREAT! I really wish I would have done a dive with Bas too this time, maybe next time. :-)

I really like the one at Oil Slick, great angle!

My underwater pictures sucked this time, I have no idea what I did wrong, but only 8 or so came out decent. Now I want Santa to bring me a digital for Christmas!

Miss you Cactus Flower !!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Debbie Babcock (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2350) on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 1:12 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Love your trip report so far, keep the pics coming! Thanks.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Linda Stoltzfus (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #709) on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 1:28 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Cynde,
Thanks so much for taking the time to re-size, etc. your photos to post here. I've really enjoyed the report and pics. What a fun time you all had without us!!!! :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cam (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #557) on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 8:56 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Fantastic pics Cynde!!! Can you believe that my card was damaged, so all of the great shots I got of you, Babs, Tom, Smack, Kelly Dave and Wanda could not be printed...thank God I downloaded the first half or I wouldn't have gotten any, but that may ne why the card got damaged as well...thanks for the great time, we will have to do it again :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14898) on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 11:05 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Cam, say it isn't soooooo....Caminology at work againnnnnn....LOL! Had a great time that's for sure:-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By pat murphy (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #264) on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 11:17 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

i know what you mean about the sea slugs...we'd go forever without finding one then we'd see one and soon we'd find a dozen more. little slug herds i guess. same is true of flamingo tongues...we found one while looking for seahorses then started to see them all the time. only found one seahorse tho...but found a pipefish that i thought was almost as good.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14900) on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 12:59 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Pat...herd of seaslugs...LOL! True...so true! Susan Porter found a pipefish for us at Ole' Blue...she was tooling along, you'd se her stop dead in the water, flip upside down, and then she'd point to some small cool thing!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mare (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1130) on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 7:27 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Cynde, Susan is the best.
She told us where we would find cling fish -- Sure enough, right where she said we'd find one, we found one, just hanging out in a fire coral curl.
mare

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By ...boom dee ay (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #732) on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 7:58 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Great Trip Report -- I can't wait to have one of my own :-)
More, More, More!!!
Muchos Gracias

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14910) on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 8:00 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Mare, what is a "cling" fish? Curious minds want to know. I also like her underwater communication...she is great to dive with!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mare (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1135) on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 8:33 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi Cynde,
A cling fish is a cute little guy that clings onto things -- here is one that seb took a picture of

cling fish

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cyn Loo Hoo (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #14912) on Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 10:36 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

WOW Mare, only Susan could find something like that! Truly amazing!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Tom (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #2742) on Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 12:55 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

WAAAAAH!!!! I wanna go back!!!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mare (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1140) on Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 4:22 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

EASY Tom, you'll be back in Bonaire soon.
Keep telling yourself that as you plan your next Bonaire trip...

mare

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By DARLENE ELLIS (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1758) on Tuesday, November 8, 2005 - 11:12 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Awesome pictures and report!!! It was great to get to hang with you Norma and Barbara!! We had a lot of fun times together!!! We will have to do it again sometime!!

 


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