Night Diving with Bas
I just got back (well one week ago, still on island time) and I can’t wait to go back (again). If you haven’t done or experienced this you must try it. TRULY AMAZING I really can’t even put this into words what I saw. Little history I was in Bonaire for a week in the beginning of 08. One week after coming home I saw a special The Blue Planet on Discovery and they had an hour long special on coral. I was dumb founded on some of the things I saw in this program. One of the increditable things they showed was coral under UV lights when I saw this my jaw hit the floor. I was thinking to myself how the heck I could’ve missed this when I was in Bonaire. I promised myself next time I was diving, I would check this out, and I can tell you I’m happy that I did. Week before (I’m a last min kind of person) I was suppose to be on the island I found a post that referenced UV night diving in Bonaire. I was able to post a message looking for Bas and 2 hrs later I had reply from him. Bas was great over email very responsive and catered to EXTACLY what I wanted to do. We made a plan to dive for the whole day. We started out doing a drift from La Dina to Karpata drift. This was a great dive to do with a guide for the first time we wouldn’t have found that if we didn’t have someone with us (great dive along the wall LOTS of coral) On the way back to town Bas took us on the scenic tour to some places that we had never seen before (not diving related but great views) We grabbed lunch at a local spot ( mmmmm shorma ) and headed down to salt pier, there were TONS of fish down there. It was still early so we decided to meet back up before sunset to start the night dive; Bas was at my door waiting to roll exactly the time he stated. He took us to the dive site, did a quick briefing about the location and went over the gear. The sun was going down and we hit the water, I was so excited to do this I forgot my fins (don’t make this mistake, your buddies will get a good laugh but its a good walk back to the shore with gear on) We were under right after the sun went down and this is pretty much where I go speechless. When I first when under it was like looking into space. Lots of black with little fluorescent green dots all over the sand. There were little anemones that you never see during the day. Fire worms are CRAZY they are all kind of different colors. Lizard fish would glow in the sand, corals would glow in a fluorescent green color in all kind of shapes and sizes. Checking out the coral up close while they were open and feed was awesome, this is def something you have to check out on your own words can’t really describes. I wasn’t able to take pic’s, but I’m not sure they would do it justice. (if you are interested post a reply and I have a link to some pics not taken by me)The other cool thing was most fish don’t reflect this light, so we had a HUGE red snapper follow up during our dive. Funny thing is he looks like a dark black shadow moving in the water and that’s all so that took some getting use to. All and all this was an amazing experience, its times like that when I’m happy to be alive and I feel very fortunate to be able to experience things like that.
In closing Bas is a great diver and guide. His local knowledge of the Bonaire is amazing if you think you have seen everything on Bonaire, I will guarantee he will show you something you haven’t seen before. I feel very fortunate to have a new friend and will stay in contact as long as he lets me 
Thanks again Bas
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By Patrick (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #2) on Monday, August 25, 2008 - 4:21 pm: 
