We saw black long spine urchins releasing eggs at 16:00 yesterday. Friends also saw egg packages from a small star coral at about 22:00, we had just got out!

I'm sure that was VERY cool. Pics would be GREAT if you have any...

Looking forward to the spawning in Oct.

What do you consider good nightdive site for the coral spawning?

When we are planning for the coral spawning dive, as we did the last two years, we consider the ease of getting to/from the place in the late (9-9:30 PM entry, 10-10:30 PM exit)darkness and having an efficient rinse/wash/stash place - and it's hard to beat the hotel/resort house reefs for that. Out favorites for coral spawning are Captain Don's and Buddy's - both ultra-convenient for night dives. Our best coral spawning experience happened at Buddy's two years ago. We set up our gear and put it to one side out of the way of the flow of night divers and then had a nice slow dinner at Buddy's. After dinner, we took a walk, then put on our wetsuits, ambled down to the dock, geared up and went diving. About 9:45 the very large star coral head that is at the reef crest at just about the dividing line between Buddy's and Sand Dollar "went off" and it was spectacular. I didn't know whether to applaud, jump up and down, or cry...

I agree with Bill and Donna's comments, it's far easier to dive off the resort's dock. We just got back from a dive on Habitat's house reef and saw touch-me-not sponges smoking at about 18:00. We also saw a pair of French Angels, a pair of Queen Angels and a pair of Soapfish who also seemed to be performing some sort of courtship dance. We're going back in at about 21:00.

Strange there seems to be a caching thing with posts, I have noticed that many things I post don't show up for hours, is this just an on island thing?

Can you dive off the hotel docks if you are not staying at the hotel? I'm curious how the 21.00h dive will be as this is the time we aim for tomorrow!

Cheers.

Bas,

This is very odd my posts did not appear for 10 minutes then they were here and now they have gone?? Many of the common topics have not been touched today. For example the last post I can see here is by Bill & Donna at 3:24. Is this a separate view to save comms links back to the US? Inquiring minds need to know.

Blimey it is back upto date, and I had refreshed the view several times. It cant be alcohol as I am diving and not narcosis as we are on Nitrox!

Habitat has a charge (5$ I think) to use the docks and facilities for none hotel guests, they do however allow free shore access at Villa no 6.

How about at Divi (staying there during Oct spawn)?? This will be new to me, don't know much about spawning time....or Bonaire!!!

Last night (21:30 - 22:30) we saw a very small star coral smoking, another releasing small larvae, fire worm releasing eggs and boulder coral releasing egg packages.

Tim and I dove Old Blue last night (21:15 - 22:15) and we didn't see any spawning. According to the chart in the Reporter, the Elkhorn & Staghorn corals were supposed to be doing it. Lots of Staghorn at Ol Blue, but we didn't see anything, except for sleepy fishes & all the night critters. A friend who dove from Buddy Dive's dock last night around the same time also reported no spawning. We're going to try again tonight, not sure where we're going yet, but I think we'll get in a little later.

In the past I have had better luck viewing the spawning of brown barrel sponges between 17:00 - 18:00.

Jim

Buddy and I also saw little coral spawning last night near North Belnem, 1 staghorn coral releasing some eggs and also a gorgonian with some (few) eggs and some spawning sea urchins. But we did see something very nice we never saw before: 2 crabs clinging together releasing clouds of larvae. Pics didn't come out as i hoped they would but here are some:







Lets see what tonight will bring...

spawning sea urchin:



and not spawning, but a colorful tiny 1/2 inch teardrop crab:

Nice! Thanks for the pics

This is what we saw.

Urchins Monday 16:10 two releasing at the same time, we think they are egg packages. We also saw smaller urchins releasing little bursts later that evening



Touch me not sponges 18:17 Tuesday



We think this was the compact version of the blushing star coral (much smaller than boulder star polyps)Smoking at 21:45 on Tuesday



Series of boulder star coral last night at 22:10

Great pictures Brian! I especially like the series of boulder star coral. Nice to see the eggs from still inside the polyps to drifting away. did you take these also at Habitat's house reef? I assume you go again tonight so i hope you have more great pics tomorrow.

yes, great pictures, Brian! I'm hoping I get to see some 'action' tonight!

I used to keep a saltwater aquarium & I had a few sea urchins in it. It used to release the little white spheres, like in your pic, all the time. I always thought it was pooping. Maybe Bud will chime in & let us know if these are eggs.

Gills, Brian, as usual, great pics. Brian, I love the series shot...wow...truly amazing. I think I finally started looking at coral about 3 years ago, and I find them so unbelievably fascinating

Brian, I should be there right now...our trip we were supposed to take this week to Maine got cancelled...ggggrrrr!

Keep the pics coming folks

Thank you Brian,

I wish I were there with you two!

Most wonderful pictures that make me want to drop everything and go directly to bonaire....

sooon,

Mare

Truly fascinating -- please keep up the posts.
All of the photos are just amazing
Thank you for taking the time to share
Tara

Brian - Wish, thanks for posting the pics!

Brian and gills... thanks so much for posting! Please add more when you get them. Some day I will have to make it for the spawning

We are diving off Habitat. Last night was amazing, it was like a snow storm at times, whole heads of boulder star coral and blushing star corals went off. Brittle stars (the smaller ones) were disco dancing as they sent off their eggs. We met other divers who had been diving at Andrea and they saw nothing, very strange. We will sort out some pics later.

Gills, I love the crab shots.

Jenny, it may be poop but they did look very round and slightly pink in colour.

Awesome shots!!!

We dove from a house in Hato, close to the Black Durgeon. We were in 3 small groups. 1 group saw nothing spawn (they saw the floating eggs of course), the other 2 saw a number of boulder star corals spawn. Quite spectacular. The thing is...you have to float near one that spawns to actually see it well. So a bit of luck is needed. We started to see action around 22.10h yesterday and it lasted untill the end of the dive at 22.40h. We entered the water at 21.35h. It was my first coral spawning and I was quite impressed.

Cheers.

Bas.

Quick update we saw the brittle stars releasing eggs when we first got in at 20:00 to 20:30, then very little until we got out at 21:00 the boulder coral starting to look ready when we got back in @ 21:40 and releasing eggs from 22:00 until we got out about 22:45

Last night we saw the orange brittlestars all out but only a few releasing eggs or smoking and one small boulder star coral release egg packages about 20:15. We saw two small boulder star coral release egg packages at 21:45 to 22:45.

We will try again tonight for the brittlestars and get in at 19:30.

I'm such a newbie I didn't even think about coral spawning, or the crab larvae. I feel like I've been in a segment of Jaques Cousteau Underwater World! Thanks for the information and the pics. I now have a reason to want to go on a night dive. (The idea scares me. :-)

Saw very little last night we got in at 19:40 for an hour, a few ruby brittlestars were out, strangely - huge areas with none and a few patches with quite a number. The only spawning I saw was at the end when a strange wiggly thing about an inch or so long swam up into the water column shedding a shower of eggs. It then dropped back onto the reef. Nearest land critter would be like a sort of centipede.

This is strange, Mods what is happening to my posts, the last post visible to me in Bonaire is yesterday at 17:57, yet I posted on this thread this morning.

We saw a Gorgonian smoking at noon today, no other sightings made and we have the Rocky Horror Show at Habitat tonight so no more dives for us today.

And now my previous post is there, is this some new mind game or is there a problem with BT?

Brian, so far you seem to be the only one with this problem so my guess is...no BT problem but a B (Brian) problem. Maybe some sort of browser caching?

Bas

I don't see how it can be browser caching as pages I have viewed - ie after posting then are no longer visible the next time I go to the page. Even if I refresh several times the additional text and other updates are not there. However if I post the updates seem to come back.

Dang my previous post has gone again.

Here is the critter we saw shedding eggs in the water column at 20:25 on Thursday evening, it was an inch or so long and we could not get a full head shot were it fell to.

Any idea what it is?



We also saw gorgonians smoking at noon 12:00 yesterday Friday.

(Message edited by brianl on September 17, 2006)

(Message edited by brianl on September 17, 2006)

Here is the other view

Brian I think you are dealing with posting ghosts... the photo above looks like some type of worm {that was for your benefit if it should disappear again.at least you know I saw it.}

Thanks Freddie I read your reply, but that has gone now as well. I looked in the reef creature book and could not see anything similar.

I can guess, but what are ghost posts?

Test Message

Personally, I ahven't had that issue. Love the pics, we'll be there for Oct spawn, first spawn. Is is comparable? What differences should we expect?

Mike

It is a bit of a lottery as the full moon was early again this year. September may have been the "big" month or maybe October. We can't learn much from 2004 which was similar as few people were in the water in September as a storm was passing by (Ivan) but we did see a lot when we here in October. I have posted the times and dates above for future info. We hadn't realised that the spawning is so selective and different areas have shown little, when other areas have shown a lot. We will be very interested in how the October spawning actually goes.