My wife and I have enjoyed night dives from boats in Bonaire, and almost all of the great shore sites, but on our next trip, we'd like to try some of the shore dives at night. If it's just the two of us, I was wondering what recommendations the experts might have on how to mark the exit point.

Bonaire is certainly one of the easiest places in the world to navigate, even at night, but some sort of light on the truck would seem to be a prudent measure to save time, disorientation, and a long post-dive surface swim/hike.

What are your experiences/suggestions?

Thanks!

We always do a night dive a the salt pier every year. We usually enter the water at sunset and with the structure of the pier, navigation is very easy. Also with the lights at the salt pier it is very easy to see the shore.

A night dive at the Town Pier from shore is also very easy for the same reasons (but you will need a guide).

We have also done shore dives at other locations and relied upon our compasses to navigate back to shore. But all and all I think night dives right from the docks at the resorts make for convenient, safe and eventful night dives. Nothing beats a nice hot shower right after you get out of the water.

John,

Buy a small strobing flashlight - runs for hours on a couple of batteries. In areas that I don't know blind, I'll take one of these with my, with a weight attached to it (the light is positively buoyant) and drop in near my exit point underwater - the flash can be seen from above the water quite readily (if you surface), or for at least 100 feet under water.

Jake

PS Best advice is to also dive the same site by day first so you can get familiar with the area, of course.

John-

Email me and I will tell you where we did a night dive. It is quiet and impossible to lose your way. I just don't know the edicit about disclosing mostly unknown spots to the public (I will gladly release to all if the pros on this board say that I should).

PJ bakerpj@musc.edu

Work on your navigation during the day and dive the same site at night. I usually snorkel out to the marker buoy (reflects your flash light so its easy to find) and mark your direction with compass. At the buoy, take a few minutes to find natural markers or lights on shore. Tori's Reef for example has two bright lights and a tower across the street from the dive site. If there is any moonlight, you will be surprised how much you can see.

If you want to cheat, I like the idea above with the strobe light. You could even attach it to the marker buoy 15-20 ft down. You should have a good compass reading to snorkel back to the exit point.

I would not try to leave a light on the vehicle or on the shore because it might get stolen.

If you not confident with your navigation, stick to the Town and Salt Piers.

John,

If you're worried about having a long swim/hike back to the truck as you've noted then simply "you ain't doing your night dive right". I've done countless night dives and never been more than 50 feet from my decent point. You must be on some kind of mission or something thinking you have to swim all over the place to see everything. Let me tell you, if you slow down, and examine, and I do mean really examine every single square inch of the reef on a night dive you won't have time to go very far. Dive at night as if you didn't have any fins, keep it slow and I guarantee you'll see more than you've ever seen. Makes for a short swim back too.

Another option would be to stick to the house reefs.

Now if I've totally missed the point here, and you're trying to identify a narrow entry/exit channel to snorkel in/out, then re-review your open water training manual, about lining up two flashlights on shore. Maybe you remember, one light down low, the other above and behind the first, when the two are lined up vertically you're at your exit point.

We did two night dives on Calabas a couple of weeks ago. It's a great night dive...right under the pier! Out near the anchor I found a beautiful CLAWED lobster, a bright orange one, under a piece of coral. Dee Scaar says this little guy is in Paul Humann's revised Reef Creature book as a Flaming Lobster. Cool! However, the coolest thing about our night dives was at Windsock. Six of us shared this experience and a good thing too, or none of us would have believed the other. We've all seen bioluminescence, but this was a Light Show! There were chains of light, new dots blinking on above the chain, as the lower ones faded out. Millions of them. When Brad first indicated that I should cover my light, I thought I'd been narc'd! It was amazing. We quickly gathered up our other buddy pairs to show them. THAT was our diving highlight of 50 dives we did this month! Awesome. Oh, yeah...Windsock is an easy night dive. We entered at dusk and each of our buddy pairs exited on target using a compass and a couple of natural navigation markers. If anyone is going to suggest these chains of light were jellyfish, I don't think so. We turned our lights back on, then off, ran our hands through them...nothing. No stings, nothing visible in the water. Like something from The Abyss. Also did Punt Verkant as a night dive. There's an amazing coral head in about 9 feet of water, that has an incredible abundance of sea life on it, night and day. I had two trunk fish in my close up framer at one time. Two of the SIX trunkfish on this little coral head which is the size of a large dining room table!