In the shark thread, someone called the Gorgonians 'vegitation'.

It's so sad that folks don't realize, or educate themselves that nearly everything down there is animal, not bushes and weeds.

end rant

cheers,

Melissa, s/v Vinga

Sorry, Melissa. That was me. I'll make sure to be more accurate in the future. At least I didn't say "That shark swimming in front of the bush"!!(LOL)

Richard

How about vegetative animal?

Actually, zoozanthallae are algea...

sorry, that's algae!

Hey Melissa,
is that s/v from sailing vessel Vinga? Where's your hailing port...have you sailed to Bonaire by chance?
Where considering it for the future sometime.
Jamie
s/v Zamboni
Fells Point, Maryland

Jamie-

Yes, my home port is St Croix, US Virgins. This will be my third year staying in Bonaire for storm season, when I finally get there. Having last minute breakdowns now. Vinga is a Lagoon 42 catamaran.

I worked as a scuba instructor and had to know so many answers, "What was That!?!" all the time. made me into an amature biologist, I guess.

There's so little plant life UW, compared to land. A bare lot gets covered in weeds in a month or two, so them that don't know think life in the sea can regenerate that quickly. When in truth, those "bushes" only a few feet tall are actually twenty or thirty years old, or older yet.

I rescued a huge old Purple Tube sponge once, after a carelessly anchoring boat had ripped it loose. I grouched to a friend, mentioning the sponge must be fourty years old. Made my friend think some. He was a divemaster Island guy on Bonaire. I will ask about his thoughts again this year when I see him, Erwin is his name.

Cheers,

Melissa, s/v Vinga

WOW, that's a nice home port! I understand about last minute breakdowns (but in my case it's more like every minute breakdowns)! My s/v is a 30'-ish sloop (Columbia 8.7). Sails well if you call 6knots well (please don't laugh toooo much!). Safe passage on your trip and have a wonderful time too. Do you charter or work as a scuba inst?

Bonaire's reefs seem to be doing pretty good. How are those in the VI? Jamaica's are pretty much snuffed out from sediment--oh so sad!

Yeh, Jamaica and other islands are gone, so sad. The north side of Puerto Rico, when it rains hard, is total mud. Brown sea, ugh! So STUPID and avoidable.

6 knots is OK. Cruising multihulls are slow, I'm happy with 6-7-8-9 knots. Faster than that beating is too uncomfortable. And 98% of sailing seems to be beating! Racing cats are bad news, but fun as stink.

I WAS going to order a lot of spare things like water pumps and gaskets, but my list was over two thousand dollars, just for spares! Maybe I should go back to owning one change of clothes and my dive gear. It's really easy to hitch hike around on sailboats... This boat was supposed to give me "diving freedom", but I feel like I'm in mechanical jail!

Virgin Islands reefs have too much fishing pressure. I wish everyone would eat Tilapia! But there's a lot of good scenery and variety in diving St. Croix, unless you do the standard two tank boat dives with most of the ops here, they seem to just go to th same places over and over, with the same profiles.

Back to Vegitation, corals are colored with the algae they have inside them, symboisis, you know.
That's why they're mostly golden-brown instead of brighter colors. Funny stuff, algae... I like one little algae that would make a pretty house plant, it's in Humann, but I can't remember the name.. And there's grape Caulerpa that's really pretty.

Cheers,

Melissa

One of my friends is going to dive on the Dominican Republic, 8 people in October. Anyone with experience with diving on DR?

Oh, dear, Check out scubadiving.com, community, D2D. Some of the DR is good, some horrible! South side, OK, north side, questionable.

Cheers,

Melissa

We dove Bayahibe (southeast corner) in December of 2002. The diving was good (not great). Although we stayed at one of the all-inclusive resorts in the area, we used Casa Daniel Dive School in Bayahibe. I would highly recommend this dive shop.