Jake,

I know you will respond to this, so I'll address it to you. I've been doing alot of research on Bonaire and came accross a couple of (old)sites that spoke of the damage. I know it's been almost 3 years to date, but after e-mailing a visitor of Bonaire, he said to ask the dive master. What I've read are that the one's in the park and some spots on Klein Bonaire. But they did not say which ones. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Ida

Ida,

The issue of reef damage by the wave surge caused by Hurricane Lenny passing 150 miles north of Bonaire in 1999 is well documented on BonaireTalk. Use the keyword search and search for "lenny".

Jake

Jake,

I will give it a try. Sounds like alot of work!

If anyone else would like to help me out, it would be great. I thought maybe the people that have gone recently could give a better account of the ones which are still damaged as of 2002. I have ordered the Bonaire Diving Book and it would be nice to know which reefs are still in bad shape.

Thanks To Everyone,
Ida

The Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy book was also done after Lenny so the information there is accurate.

Basically, the coral down to 30 feet is gone.

Ida,

Lenny's waves did change many sites, mostly moving and tumbling coral in less than 30-40 feet of water. There weren't the same staghorn and elkhorn stands that were there just before Lenny. Most is now about like the view from the Reef Cam and new coral is growing.

That said, most divers report more Bonaire-style fish and animal life in the shallows than before, likely because of the stirring of the bottom (the surface of the bottom in the shallows is mostly coral rubble filled in by sand). Bonaire's shallow corals have been damaged repeatedly over the last 30 years, each time reducing the amount standing. On my first trip in 1983, there was large standing elkhorn and staghorn all along the front of Habitat and north and south. Thought it was great-Cap'n Don told of there being so much in the '60's that you could hardly find a way through from shore.

The bottom line, IMHO, is that the diving is great Bonaire-style now and that if you haven't seen the reef 'BL', you won't know L happened and will enjoy the diving. I believe a lot of others have about the same view as you can see from their trip reports.

Ida,
Many dive sites were not affected much by Lenny and still have great coral formations above (and below 30 feet).

The entire south side and east sides of Klien were not affected. Andrea 1 and 2 still have lots of good coral in the shallows. Jeff Davis Memorial is still good in the shallows as are many of the northern sites such as Karpata, La Dania's Leap, and Rappel.

I also agree with Glenn that if you didn't dive Bonaire before Lenny you probably wouldn't notice any damage at all on most dive sites. Even the sites that got hit the hardest are still worth diving...to Greg's point everything below 30' on those sites is fine.

Scott

Thanks Everyone!

What I found on the archives:

Damaged- Shallow Corals, Extreme North Dive Sites in Washington - Slagbria Park, Nukove, Reefs near resort areas, Oil Slick Leap, 1000 Feet, Jerry's reef, Southern Sites (shallows), Tori's Reef, Midushi, North Shore of Klein.

Ida

Greg,

That's kind of a broad statement. Snorkeling in my back yard, which was ravaged and scoured by the unrelenting force of 10'+ waves in November 1999, I see coral growth everywhere - but most of it is tennis ball size or smaller (mostly brain corals and star corals - branching corals are coming back elsewhere but not directly behind our house just yet) - in 15 feet of water & shallower. Once you get deeper the size of the coral heads gets a lot larger. On the dive I did yesterday there was a veritable forest of soft corals starting about 100 yards north of the ReefCam, all in about 20-24' of water.

I've seen the same thing at many other sites touched by waves, and of course, you neglect to mention that a fair number of sites were geographically positioned such that the waves didn't affect them at all (e.g. Karpata, Ol' Blue, the south side of Klein, etc.)

Of course, you may feel I'm biased since I choose to live on Bonaire, and that was why I recommended to Ida that she spend some time searching comments from a multitude of divers instead of relying merely on my opinion (especially since I've yet to find a dive site on Bonaire pre or post the Lenny-caused waves that I don't like or enjoy diving - maybe I'm just easy to please...)

Jake

Maybe I should have used the word "generally" instead of "basically." There are some spots where you will find some coral growth in less than 30 feet. In most you won't find much. Karparta was probably my favorite dive because there was something to see in the shallows, but even at this site there is alot more to see below 30 feet than above it. Once you hit about 30 feet almost anywhere, there is plenty of healthy coral growth. Ida's response that she thought using the search function was alot of work just seemed to me she wanted a quick answer. That's what I gave her.

Note:

The search function worked fairly well, did not seem to be in date order? It would also be nice if it went directly to the phase or word when you enter the archive instead of having to find where it was stated.

Jake,

You almost started answering my question with the sites that were untouched. Maybe that should have been my question.

Thanks,
Ida

Ida, just a quick one here from me... I've snorkeled/freedived on Bonaire pre and post Lenny, and I can tell you that Bonaire is teaming with marine life in every site that was hit by the Lenny surge. New coral is forming everywhere, and even though some areas were reduced to rubble, the regrowth tells us that Bonaire has sufficient suitable substrate for the settlement of planulae larvae. (New coral growing on dead coral and so on..). Since Lenny, I have snorkeled at the same sites for the past five years, and am thoroughly enjoying seeing the progress. Enjoy, I know you will..

Thanks Sarah!

Ditto to Jake's findings. The coral in 6-25 feet or so of depth from our dock ( Between Bachelor's Beach and BelMar )out to the reef, was indeed bleached and damaged during Lenny. However, I'm pleased to note the new growth all over the area, and look forward to seeing the newest additions to the flats. As more and more small sea lift finds a home, we expect the find ever larger growth. The boating traffic around us seems to have respect for the area, so we're very hopeful moving forward.
The Clownfish'll be in the water 05/28, and may never come out.

Brian,

So once you get to 25 feet then the coral looks like it allways has?

Great to hear it's coming back.

Ida.
At about 25 feet or so, the reef and wall appear to have fully recovered to their previous state. Still a bit of damage noticable, but nothing like the flat up to the shoreline, where everything was literally wiped out and covered with sand. Now, small coral and plant formations are making a recovery, that seem to be growing quite fast.
Clownfish.

Ida.
By the way, I spent 13 years in Tally, graduated from FSU in '72. Had a great time living there. Dove Wakulla Springs for fun, and later as a movie set diver. How long have you been there, and are you a "Nole?"
Clownfish hangs out on the reef.

Clownfish,

Born and raised! Love those NOLES! We are season ticket holders. Maybe this year will be better than last, we are spoiled fans...

I live about 20 minutes from Wakulla Springs, beautiful place. They have been having some problems with an invasive plant and divers have been having annual dives to manually pull it out. Just last week they put some kind chemical in the spring that has killed all of it, they said it is safe and have been researching it for years? Sure hope so...

Go Noles!

I dove Bonaire the spring after Lenny, and there were several sites that the dive operations would not take us to because of the coral damage. There was, however, a noticeable increase in the number of fish life.

After just returning this week, we visited many of those sites this time around. (Forest and Midushi were two that I was most interested in.) While there was still evidence of damage (lots of large coral heads upside down), there was also lots of new and old growth. The newest diver in our group didn't even notice anything on his first dives until we started talking about it, proof that you might not even notice the damage. The only sites that Buddy Dive indicated still had lots of damage were those in the Park, but I did not visit them to confirm. And, of course, there are many dive sites on Bonaire that weren't even touched. Bonaire still the best diving that I've experienced.

Maureen Patrick,

Hope you do a trip report soon. I love reading them. Most trip reports talk about all the fish which I love to see but I also wanted to see alot of coral after reading what you wrote above it sounds like alot of places still have alot to see other than fish.

Thanks,
Ida