Today I went with Larry on his impressive new 33ft zodiac rib to the east side.
Larry launches the boat from the fisherman dock at Sorobon on the south end of Lac Cai.

It was a very positive experience. I will be diving with him again and again :-)

Check my website for the digishots I took during this two tank boat dive.

http://homepage.mac.com/pa1zz/PhotoAlbum24.html

The photos are absolutly beautiful!

Fantastic, Roger! Thanks!
At what depth was the sand bottom with the rays? Was this dive at one of the holes, blue or white? Say hi to Larry from Bob and Niki. :-)

Here is a picture of Roger taking one of the pic's on the web site listed above. What a couple of dives! For those looking for something different I would suggest a 2 tank dive on the "Wild Side" with Larry.

Thanks Walt for posting the pic, It is always neat to see the other side of photos!! The water looks so beautiful.

Walt, ditto to Eileen's comment...Roger, most excellent pictures!

Great pictures; a side of the island we've never seen. How do we get in touch with Wild Larry? May consider a dive or two depending on the conditions.

Try www.larryswildsidediving.com

Great pics!

The better ray digishots were taken in Blue/White hole in no more than 40ft of water.

Roger,

You already know how much I enjoy your images! Is that a shiny new steel tank?

Walt, Great pic of Roger and the Ray!!!

Sea Fans anyone?

Absolutely great shots Roger!
Thx 4 sharing.

Holy cow; look at all that soft coral!!! I'm off to email Larry..............right now Thanks, Walt, for sharing your photos. Never done the wild side; assume it's all "off the back of the boat" diving?!?!

....32 days and counting!!!

Kobi

We want to do some dives with Larry. Anyone interested in setting something up during May 21-June 6?

Ken & Lisa,
Hi! Good to know you are still around. How is Lisa doing with her diving? Are you staying @ the Divi? Enjoy your trip. We won't be in Bonaire then; we'll be on a liveaboard in the Caymans, working on our photography with Mike & Mike from the Church's School of Photography. Maybe we'll see you again @ another time in Bonaire.
Sue

she's doing well... seeing Josie in the water a few years ago convinced her to get certified

Yes to the divi.

Enjoy the Photo course... I need one of those some day. And Jake can attest to my need for a video course (or at least a course on keeping ahold of the camera ;) )

We're going to try and get back to Bonaire more often!

Ken

Ken & Lisa and anyone else.....Rob and I talked with Janice and now want to secure a spot on the boat on May 26th (Wednesday) for some Wild Side diving

I called yesterday and had a wonderful chat with her getting all the scoop on the new boat and diving in general on the east side.

Anyone else game for that day? If so let's make a date! Email Janice and save a spot too! That would be cool for some BT'ers to have the whole boat. Min of 2 divers and max of 12 so come on guys.........

Kobi and Rob

Here's the new boat ~>{Text description}

Well then...as you can see my linky dink on Larry's new boat TOTALLY manfunctioned. I'm still new with all this site allows me to do with posts so maybe someone else has the pic they can post or can spoon feed me through how to do it.......

Sorry!

Kobi

On that boat, a note of warning... If you see Larry approaching in a blue Jeep Wrangler towing that thing, STAY CLEAR... It's huge, he almost drove me off the road yesterday :-/

Ok... I just sent Larry an email to add Lisa and myself for the 26th


Rob and Kobi: where are you staying? We'll be at the divi.

He doesn't tow it with his Hog?
Marc: the question is....was it on purpose?

(Message edited by raxafarian on April 21, 2004)

I went with Larry yesterday for a try out. He's got a very nice boat. Handled it very well... had some pretty big waves out there. We did a drift dive from white hole towards sorobon and the second dive just in the white hole. It was a nice experience to go out there conveniently on a boat. I've always gone from shore.
Viz wasn't too good. I guess it's just like that when the winds and waves are up like that day. Pretty strong surge kinda whirls things up a bit. But never dove that location in those conditions. Later in the afternoon I did Baby Beach (from shore) and also there the viz was not so good...never is in those conditions.
The marine life that day... a bit disappointing, the 2 dives combined.. 1 sting ray, 5 turtles (one covered with tumors..sad:-(, school of cubera snappers, tiger-, nassau- and yellowfin grouper,1 big barracuda, school of small horse eye jacks, school of tarpon in the white hole. Yes, I'm spoiled but just goes to show what you can expect from Bonaire's east coast diving!!
Larry's boat filled with BT-ers on wednesday may 26th!? Hmmm, Wednesday is my day off :-) I should ask him if I could crew for him that day.

Bas
46 short of 1000 east side dives

Ken....Rob and I will be at Buddy's; building closest to the bar & water this year since it's just the two of us! Let's, for sure, all meet at Gibi's on Tuesday. We can yack about the Wed. dive too! I'm really psyched now........30 days from TODAY we'll be ON island!!!!

Bas....we'd love to have you on the boat with us; you can be the guide for us east coast newbies

An other day of great diving @ the East side with Larry.

See the latest underwater digishots :-)

http://homepage.mac.com/pa1zz/PhotoAlbum26.html

Roger, excelent pic's!!! What camera do you use??

Hi Bas, how's Minkey???

Martin,

I use a Nikon Coolpix 5000 with the E68 wide angle converter. The housing is a Subal CP 5000 (you can see my and the housing on the pic's that Walt posted on this page).

Strobe is a Nikon SB28 in a Seacam housing.

Wow Bas,

You really can humble us tourists. 46 short of 1000 East side dives. Here we thought we were experienced divers when we we're in the hundreds of dives. Can't imagine what your total dives including west side and other parts of the world are.

I must look like a clumbsy newbie to you.

;)

P.S. hope things are well with you.
P.P.S. Pinchy says Hi.

Is this the same Roger Willems of BD&A? Are you still there or did you move to new venues? Best of luck! Coach Izzy

Hi Martin,

Minkey is doing great. He is now called Romeo. I've e-mailed the 'Apenheul' for some help and advise. Appears to be a Weeper Capuchin (Cebus Olivaceus) They've sent me a diet. Pretty amazing.. these animals eat better than I do ;-)Three times a day a whole list of different veggies with a couple that are very expensive here. But most items can be found here quite easily. He calmed down a lot... we are getting closer every day. Yesterday he was trying to pick old scabies of cuts from my hands again.. pretty cute!

Hey John,

Most of my dives are here on Bonaire.. 2 on klein Curacao, 15 on Las Aves and one on Martinique.. that's all. And a little over 700 on Bonaire's west side. You are not a clumbsy newbie otherwise I would not be diving with you on my day off.
Things are well. Having fun. A bit tired from yesterday's dive from Cai to the survey marker next to Baby Beach. A 200 minute dive with twin 80cft nitrox tanks. Was very nice, lotsa cool stuff.

Bas

Wow, sounds fun.

I showed Sue some of Roger's pictures. I think we can convince her to try it again.

Hope to see you in Aug., we're there the last week of July, first week of Aug.

John

AWSOME!!! Bonaire was already top of the list for next year and now that i have seen your pics it makes me a bit sad that i have to go to the Caymans then wait a whole year to see Bonaire. Thanks for sharing.

Congratulations! Come to Bonaire next time. You'll see in person what we're all talking about.

We attended Larry's "unveiling" party in April. Here's a shot of Larry with his boat.

We attended Larry's "unveiling" party in April. Here's a shot of Larry with his boat.

Go, Larry! Carole

After hearing about Larry and his boat I had to try a couple of dives myself; I couldn't believe what I saw as diving with Larry has been phenomenal. Just this past Saturday I saw a plethora of corals and fish including: 6 spotted eagle rays, 3 southern stingrays, 7 green moray eels, 7 Green turtles, 2 hawksbill turtles, ~40 tarpon, glassy sweepers, glasseye snapper, juvenile spotted drum, sea fans everywhere, and all the usual parrotfish, damselfish, butterfly fish, etc.

I have to say that the dives here were well worth the time and effort, and have to be some of the best on the island.

His boat handled the conditions superbly, 8 foot swells and I barely noticed them (although I am used to some smaller swells). After the dive, I spoke with Larry and he hopes to expand the dive sites north along the coast and I can't wait to get a chance to dive with him again at some of his sites to come!!!

Here is a shot of the Boat leaving Lac for a dive.

Wild side indeed!! Note the lines held by each diver against boat motion!!

Questions. Have any moorings been placed on the Wild Side?? How is the boat manned during dives?? Does Larry go in the water?? I note Bas talks of being crew at some time. It looks as though the boarding ladder is mounted between the engines, implying that they are not operating when recovering divers.

Maybe someone can give us a short trip description.

Just got back from Bonaire. Dived with Larry and had a great time!!!!!!!!!!!!
Marilyn McKay

Marilyn, maybe you'll revise and extend your report after your gear's all away?

Wow Marilyn - it took a dive with Larry to finally get you to post after 3 years of lurking!!!!?

C ya soon, Buddy!

If you've ever been on a boat that is NOT in calm water, you hang onto something all the time anyways. Seeing as this boat is almost never in calm waters (once out of Lac Bay) you do hold onto a line or something often.

Larry pilots the boat, a divemaster goes in and leads the dive. On the drift dive, the DM holds a SMB (through the use of a line) so that the boat can follow and pick up people as they surface. I don't want to say too much more as you should come experience it yourself!! ;)

As for getting on the boat, the ladder comes AWAY from the engines and mounts onto the side of the boat. This can happen because part of the inflatable hull is removable (on either side - where the diver with the wetsuit at the rear and the shirtless guy are sitting is where it comes out). Thus, the engines can be in motion IF necessary - I am unsure how this works, you would have to ask Larry as I am not a boat captain and don't know much about maneuvering a boat.

As you've probably guessed, one dive we did is a drift dive, therefore no mooring. Another one involved a mooring installed by the Bonaire Marine Parks people. Hope this helps people. :D

Martin

TKS, Martin.

Today I went once again with Larry to the East side. And I found what appears to be a canon. Cant wait to chip some stuff off to see what is in it ;-)

Martin is correct regarding the ladder. Larry picks the ladder up out of its holder between the engines and places it into slots built into the deck of the boat on both the starboard and port sides. Here is a picture I took in May of a diver coming out of the water. Hope this helps.

Roger, and you would be chipping off coral from a cannon ... why?!!
How about just let it be.
mary w

Sorry about the picture. Here is my second try. /image

(Message edited by murraykhc on June 15, 2004)

Maybe it will work for my third try. /image

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Now everyone knows why I am not in the computer business. If at first....etc. Sorry for the inconvenience.