Hi,
We will be arriving Saturday Jan. 24 for a 2 week stay at Buddy Dive and are wondering if Omar had much of an impact on the house reef. Would also appreciate a water temp. update so we know which wet suit to pack.
Bottomscratcher

greg, welcome to BT. we'll be arriving a few weeks after you and plan on diving in 5mil (me) and 3mil (mary)...i'm a bigger sissy than she is. water temps should be in the upper 70's...at least that's been our experience with being there in early february.

I am in the same sissy group , if its below 79 degrees the 5mm comes out , it seems to vary a lot this time of year. Im going at the end of february and hoping it warms past 79 so I can take my 3mm.

Hi Greg. We were just there December 27-January 4. The water temps ranged from 77 (at 95' at the bottom at Hilma Hooker) to between 78 and 80 on the rest of our dives. I chill easily and wear a 7mm one-piece in Bonaire. I was quite comfy.

Hey there bottomscratcher, if you are like me and make 3-5 dives per day, regardless of the water temp consider a heavier wetsuit. I'm upgrading to a 5mm for my upcoming trip in May. If you are only making a couple dives a day a 3 mm will probably be fine. I always suggest a full wetsuit for anyone shore diving. Be sure it has knee pads in case you have a "fun" exit/entrance. Shore diving is the best!

Wearing a simple "beanie" type hood is probably equal to at least 1 mm of wet suit. You lose most of you heat from your head.

The beanie is a no brain-er once you have tried one , helps tremendously .

Unless of course you already wear a hood.

I am trying to escape that ... 5 weeks today

We were there in November, three weeks after Omar. Topside repairs were still under full swing. Go out for a dive, come back and something else was fixed...

Under the surface, there was still quite a bit of cloudiness to the water with all the suspended particulate leftover from the storm. The vis was down to 50 to 60 ft or so instead of the usual 100+ feet. I suppose that has settled out by now and visibility is back to normal.

There was some damage to the shallower parts of the reef at Buddy's, as all across that side of the island. The smooth white bottom that you see when you giant stride off the dock and swim out now extends out another 20 feet further than before. We noticed a snowstorm-like covering of 'dust' over some of the corals and sponges at around 35 - 40 feet. It seems like the ocean is always changing things around, so maybe that has probably cleared off by now.

I thought the fish had more marks and scars than I remembered, but it is something I never looked for before so maybe I was just noticing something that had always been there.

The frogfish, seahorses and eels had gone deep for the storm and were just beginning to return. We were lucky to find three seahorses, but no frogfish. (They were probably just there, hiding in plain sight!)

On the boat dives we took, several of our stops were at sites our dive masters had not visited since before Omar, so it was good to hear what they had to say about Omar's effect. They said the reef at 1000 Steps was actually in BETTER condition after Omar because the algae that had been covering the reef was cleaned off and all the colors of the corals were easily viewed again.

As for wetsuit - I have never needed anything heavier than a diveskin. The water is so warm, there is no need. 82 degrees!!!

At the WindJammer on Saturday the 17th there were several thermoclines, one around 18m / 60 ft the next about 33 m / 110 ft and the nasty one at 50 m / 180 ft. I am not sure I got the true temp below 50 m / 180 ft as I tried to stay above it as much as possible.

Very near the surface: 27C or 80F
At 30 meters / 100 ft: 25C or 78F
Below the cold Thermal at 50 / 180 ft: 24C or 76F

Oooh. I prefer to dive with NITROX, so I don't go much beyond 100 feet! i guess you would need something more at 180 feet, I like a 3 - 5 mm suit for 75 degrees.

Hey all, my first post. We were in Bonaire in Oct, left 2 days before the storm. Went back in mid Dec. Fair amount of shore damage, docks, Karals dock bar is gone. Buddy's dock and seawall damaged. Big surges on top of water, boats banging hard on the docks. Diving- it seemed a lot of the "small" stuff was missing. Had to really look for shrimp and a like. Sand was everywhere. And course the eels are gone, only saw one. Was Dolphins. So instead of an A+ got to give it an A, this trip.

I was surprised at the lack of eels, too. We saw some tiny ones and some huge ones, but they weren't everywhere like they had been in May 08. Maybe that is the normal difference between May and November, but I was still surprised.

Welcome to BT, Mike. Hope to see more of you!

Thanks MzFish
From what we were told in Oct, there is some sort of "illness" that is killing the eels. We saw a couple dead ones in Oct.. Sad

I wear my tropical drysuit down there...never diving a wetsuit again.