Just curious as to what people have experienced around the island today re: visibility. The strange wave conditions have brought an almost silt out situation here at the Andreas with the same at least as far as Witches Hut. What about further north or the sites to the south?

We were doing a drift dive on Kleine this morning and ran into the same type of conditions. Visibility was down to 10ft or less at the end. We started at Sharon's Serenity. We were told by someone that the Caribbean is currently experiencing a lot of churn. Based on the visibility I would say it makes sense.

Makes sense given the dive location. I wonder how the sites opposite on the other side of Klein fared? Or those that are protected from the NW (the direction the waves are coming from). Might be a good time to go east.

We drove south to Atlantis, then north to 1000 steps. Vis was very poor at all sites. We tried near Eden Beach, aborted and moved to 1000 steps. Very poor vis, even below 60 feet. After about 35 minutes we exited in very difficult conditions and called it a day.

I wonder what the full moon/vernal equinox combination play in all of this?

Bruce, I received an e-mail from a friend that lives on Bonaire, she echoed what you said. Mentioned 4-5 foot rollers breaking on the shore near The Rock. On the second dive at Andrea 2 she said that there was a Rip current in the entrance channel and 3-4 foot waves.

A Big storm out in the Atlantic is the cause.
Be happy you are not on St. Martin they are getting 4 to 5 meter - 13 to 16 ft swells/breaking waves.

Walt, thanks for posting.

We did boat dives today - Carl's Hill late morning and Rappel (no Beach) at 14:00 and both had poor viz. Lets hope that this passes soon.

looks like a day to off gas

Wow on the waves on St. Maarten...having been there, and dived there...wow is all I can say. I wonder how all the pod ships are doing in that area, they get four or five a day there!

Hope it clears up soon for all those on Bon!

Hey, 10 foot vis is like home...lol...

BC Not a problem - a good day to go to the Park

HaHa Cynde, that's what I thought too... 10ft hey that's good vis

Seriously hope it clears up soon for you all - how else can we enjoy your pictures

Cheers!

Word is it will not calm down before monday...so the weekend looks 'murky'

I'm diving tomorrow so will report back in the evening about conditions.

how's the wild side? any better?

Check out www.stormcarib.com for photos on this incredible Caribbean wide storm. HUGE SWELL from T and T to SJU.

Looks better today, still some surge but less waves and smaller. We took some interesting pictures of the waves at the park, no diving was allowed there yesterday. Time to go diving

Much better today, we did Bonaventura on Klein at 11:30 and had 80 foot viz, this afternoon we did Petries Pillar and had 60 to 70 foot viz. The surge is dying down now and hopefully tomorrow we will have good viz in the sandy shallows as well.

Yo Mo and the Wild Side, you go GIRL! Yes we're jealous but will return the feeling in 4 weeks.

Indeed viz was not too bad. Seemed to be better today the further south you got. Looks like the worst is behind us.

Thanks for the link Annie..nice pictures

I am coming to Bonaire next week for the first time and would like the visibility to be very very good, anybody got a great big filter unit to put in the ocean.

funny you should ask;)...i think the reason the water is so clear IS because of the very active, natural filter system that's already in place

Could any one update conditions , temp and viz , thanks!

Temp. has been in the 26c/79f for most of the winter. The viz IMHO has not yet gotten back to the what I was seeing before last Thursday. Still lots of particulate floating around (it's quite the challenge shooting wide angle with strobes). Also the whole reef looks like its been dusted with powdered sugar. The hard corals look better - my take on that is when they bloom at night a mini dusting takes place to get all the matter off their surfaces. The wind conditions are probably slowing down the whole "settling out" process.

It's getting clearer each day but still not what we are used to....maybe tomorrow. Swam with a pod of dolphins off Windsock this morning....always a treat.

I will find out for myself saturday , no matter what...its a whole lot better than where im coming from . thanks for the updates

Ken,
You flying from ATL?
If so we will be on the plane with ya.
9 more days and counting!!!!!

No Ron we are flying from Miami. We don't arrive until Thursday afternoon.

Linda

We missed the dolphins, have a really good time. we are still on Bonaire time and I was only an hour and a half late for our management team meeting toady - Hah.