I have been diving in Bonaire more or less on a yearly basis for 8 or so years now, and it has always been great. I have also always been lucky, never had anything stolen etc...

Anyway, usually the fantastic thing about Bonaire (apart from the originality of the island itself) are the healthy reefs, and the superb shore dives. Unlike some other diving places, Bonaire is definately not about ´war story´ diving for seeing sharks, whales, dolphins or the like...

Last time I went, in april, I had my first unexpected encounter. We were doing an afternoon shore dive from thousand steps, and after a pleasant dive we were on our way back, in about 10 feet of water in the sand area before the exit. Suddenly my father and I both see this shadow approaching from the South, and it all went very fast. At first I thought it would be a shark, but then a huge Manta-Ray rushed past us, quite swiftly. He mussed have passed us by about 3 metres... suffice to say my dad and I had to catch our breaths for a little while before taking the ´thousand steps´back up to our car

Never thought a manta ray would pass about 10 metres from the shore, in only 10 feet of water. It was really amazing!

I would be really interested to hear about any such encounters you may have had in Bonaire!

Hendrik,

In March of 2000, my wife and I were equally surprised by an unexpected encounter. We were down at the Red Slave dive site on our second dive of the trip. We got down to the reef at about 40' and I was trying to take some macro shots of the corals and gorgonians. I looked up and one of the other guys on our trip was frantically pointing for me to turn around. That's when I realized that everyone else on the dive was heading back up into the sand to catch up with a dolphin. We watched him for about 10 minutes as he went back and forth from the surface to the bottom. It looked like he was searching the sand for food, and at one point I think he grabbed something. I have pictures of the encounter, but none scanned into the computer yet. When he got bored with us he just took off into the depths.

I've heard about the possibility of Manta's in the 1000 Steps area but I also figured they would be much farther out.

Our trip over the millenium had us diving at Old Blue with several newbies. As we returned to the shallows 30' +- water depth, a manta swam over the top of us. I was swam to within touching distance of it. A newbie with us had a fogged up mask and never knew what was going on until we told her top side. A young girl swimming never saw it and it went about 10' directly below her. If she wuold have looked down she probably would have planed off getting to shore.

On another trip, during a dive up in the Park, again as we returned to the shallows, I was poking around coral heads. One had a very large hollow under it, and as I looked in the cave like area, I saw what I thought was trash bag floating in the light surge. It was dark under the coral head so it was hard to see, so I went around the other side to look from that angle, and stuck my head into the cave area and as my eyes adjusted I realized I was looking right at the head of a huge nurse shark (Only abut 3' away). The bag, was the large tail slowly swinging back and forth. Shocked me, but was very cool. This was in about 12' of water.

Great experiences and great stories.

Nice stories! The annoying thing is that I have seen dolphins on many occasions in Bonaire, but always from land. They seem to cross between Klein and Bonaire quite frequently, but I guess they barely ever swim up to the reefs...

I have actually never seen a shark myself, which is strange because somehow I expect it before each holiday (because the thoght of meeting one kind of scares me in a pleasant way I have also been diving in the Philippines and an the red sea, where shark sightings are quite frequent, but even there I never saw a shark. Actually, once in the red sea everyone else saw a shark, but I didnt, and only heard the others talking about it afterwards

Another 'unexpected encounter' I have had in Bonaire, which was not underwater, was a strange comet-like, glowing ball that moved across the sky pretty slowly on New Years eve (I think 2 or 3 years ago)... It was very strange because everyone was sitting at the coastline, waiting for the fireworks to start. Suddenly this glowing ball, that seemed to carry blue sparkles behind it, went from North to South slowly, until it faded away. Now, I don't believe in UFOs, but everyone who saw it seemed as gobsmacked as me Sorry to leave the diving subject here, but I still don't know what it was, and it was really quite strange

New Years Eve, eh? What were you drinking?

On the manta subject, I was fortunate enough to see one on a dive at Pink Beach just 3 days after completing certification in 8/2000. It was in around 20' in sandy bottom just above the reef crest. I was at 30' about 30' away, coming up slowly near the end of my dive profile. It swooped up from the bottom into a looping motion in about a 15' circle, cresting just feet from the surface, and flew away with just two deft flicks of its triangular wings. It wasn't a huge one by Pacific standards; I estimated about 8 feet across. But it was no doubt a manta and not just a big eagle ray. Unfortunately my buddy missed it altogether, as we had not discovered the value of tank bangers yet. I later read that looping is understood to be a common feeding manuever for mantas.

I would have missed this sight altogether if I had not remembered to look "all around" at all times. If I had been keeping my eyeballs pasted to the reef I would have never known...

Perhaps not a "close" encounter, but unexpected and breathtaking nonetheless.

-LS

NOO it wasn't the booze:-) I have seen it too. It was new years 98/99 23:45. I was on Seru Largu also awaiting the fire works when a brilliant streak of light appeared in the north. It travelled quite quickly (slowly, yes, compared to a comet) It broke up in a few smaller bits overhead. It continued and disappeared under the horizon in the south. Later I learned it was a Russian satelite that came down. It looked REALLY cool and without a doubt the best firework of the night:-)
My one and only Manta in 9 years on Bonaire was on the drift dive from LaDania's to Karpata. Fairly early in the dive coming up from 130' it passed overhead. We were still too deep to rush up but did as far as 'allowed' It was about 30' above us but managed to get a nice viewing. Swam the same direction for a while upside down. This thing was huge and looked impressive gliding seemingly effordless through the water. There were 3 shark suckers moving around the underside. It looked like they tried to swim into his gills which closed everytime they came close to the gill openings. This was 1994.
Last year had a good one too... spotted a huge lobster sitting out in the open on top of a giant brain coral. Went in for a closer look but he shot back under the ledge of another big brain coral above it. So I went after him under the ledge to see where he went and have another look at him. Looked and saw nothing but a big gray tail. Looked to the left to see what the tail belonged to... 7ft. nurse shark!! And the lobster sitting right behind it. This was between baby beach and the shrimp farm last year september. Saw the same nursy in same spot about 10 more times in the month after.
And last tuesday about 50 yards from that same spot we come across a huge green turtle, ramora on his back... ohh quite nice!, lets check him out a bit closer... No sooner do we start following the turtle.. I see two spotted eagle rays coming from ahead...OK, see ya turtle!! And off to meet up with the eagle rays. They were shy. They approached till about 30', stopped and went to the right.. so did we.. they stopped.. turned around and went left... so did we.. they stopped.. did 2 circles, went back a bit and then zoomed to the right and passed deeper in the blue. I think that was my nicest dive ever, there was so much very interesting stuff around. (there's a list of it in the 'Black Tip Reef Shark sightings' topic) Nicely strong current to ride on. Amazing dive! Just talked to my friend I did the dive withand we were still going on about it. Also her best dive on Bonaire.

For a relative newbie, I have been very fortunate. My 4th dive after certification, I did a back roll off a 6-pack boat on the outer reef off the Club Med in Moorea. Several very strong sensations occured all at the same time, first was I was over 80' of water and could see small fish on the bottom. A very strong sense of flying, the next was I was surronded by dozens of Black Tipped Reef Sharks all in the 4 to 5 foot range. The next was the strong current on the surface, a tough swim to the anchor line.

Down to 80' and a 8' Pregnant Lemon Shark showed up. The DM's feed the sharks from a chum bag and the predictable freenzy occured. Nothing like hugging the coral bottom.

We did two more dives in French Polynesia, the next was very similiar to the first, outer reef on Bora Bora. We even saw another Lemon Shark. The next dive was in the lagoon, the a deep channel where the planktin blooms. Lousy visibility (for FP), maybe 60'. After a couple of transists across the channel the Mantas appeared out of the blue. A pair maybe 10'-12' across each with a Remora following. They made one pass and we waited and sure enough a minute of so later they came back through. No camera at the time, so only my memory.

Later in the same trip we dove with the seals in Montery, Ca.

MMMMMM Cecile, I think I need more vacations ;-)

Not on Bonaire. But I was diving in March off of Diver's Cove in Laguna Beach, CA a couple of years ago and was playing with a bunch of bat rays (cow rays) and kept noticing the sand swirling up to one side of me. I kept thinking it was because I was disturbing rays that I hadn't seen. Then I turned around to go out a little deeper and almost ran into a 30 foot gray whale that had been people watching. At the time I didn't know that they are easily spooked by strange noises and started yelling 'OH WOW' into my reg and it took off.

Weird and Wonderful Dept.

Weird #1. Hawksbill at Small Wall.
Four years ago staying at my missionary cousins (next to Jake and Linda's) at Small Wall, there was a semi-resident hawksbill turtle, about 3ft long. It was there almost everyday. One day at noon it had it's head inside an old fire coral section, tail end up. It was hunting for food. I eased my way closer and followed it for almost an hour.

This turtle moved all over the reef hunting in behaviour I have never seen before. Using its head, jaws, and legs, it was turning coral chunks over, aggressively moving debris out of its way, and at one point planted it's back legs on the bottom to get leverage to move a big section of dead fire coral. This was bizarre in and of itself, but what it was hunting and eating was even stranger.

This turtle was eating bristleworms. It was a sight (I was cheering for him) to see, as he was pulling them out from the rubble, like it was eating spagetti. It would even get one in it's mouth and through it's head big back to gulp it down with successive grasps. It was simply wild to watch.

I keep a Nature Log while on Bonaire because the days all blur together and lots of details get lost in the neurological maze of gray matter. This was fun entry to re-read and re-remember. A sea turtle eating bristleworms...too much.

Bud

Well, I finally found them... sorry about the scan quality, it's late and I don't feel like messing with it anymore. I really don't know what the big blob at the south end of the Dolphin is, I suspect something on the film that I didn't notice. Anyway, here's one of many dolphin shots.

He really didn't let us get too close for any good shots, most of them came out a little dark, like this one.

About those dolphins....2 years ago..in sept.2000, we just finished a dive at pink beach, took our gear of and sat on the beach for a while,...then we saw a group of dolphins coming from klein bonaire. We rushed..goggles on and snorkel, was no time for fins and we swam out like crazy...At first I didn't see, so I looked up out of the water and one dolphin jumped right over me...amazing!!! I looked in the water and I saw a mom an baby dolphin passing me at about 3 metres ( the mom looked me in the eyes) showing off her young. But as quick as they came they were gone again. We went there the next day and saw them passing again...now to klein bonaire..but we were just out of the car, so no time to go in.
I think they come there a lot, I have heard of many people that have seen a group of dolphins at pink too. But that was 2 years ago...don't know about now...I also saw some pretty big nurse sharks at klein bonaire...while snorkeling....the lady of the woodwinds showed us, maybe you can asked her. The woodwinds is at the divi resort.

A teacher friend of ours recently told us about dolphin snorkels in New Zealand and indicated that she was told by the Maoris running the trips that dolphins are attracted by the truly unusual and that meant that when in the water near dolphins the humans should act spastic and make all sorts of weird noises to attract the dolphins, and then make eye contact. It worked every time, and every time the spastic and odd behavior stopped, the dolphins lost interest and moved on. Food for thought for potential Bonaire dolphin encounters :-)

Jake

Nice photo, Michael!

LOL... Jake, what sort of spastic behaviour were you doing exactly? Sorry, just imagining what it would look like if a group of divers try to keep dolphins´ interest by acting strangely. LOL I will try that next time I see a turtle too, maybe it wont swim away then

Wasn't me doing the spastic behavior, but I'm certainly willing to give it a try next time I'm in the water with dolphins nearby - making weird sounds is apparently a very important component too :-)

However, I suspect if you try this on a turtle you will quickly see its little tail disappear off into the distance.

Jake

hendrik,

This is a situation where you want a photographer to catch the dolphins and video to watch the divers attracting the dolphins. :–)

I can vouch for the sound part. I have had very good luck with making squeaky chirping and clicking sounds. On several occasions dolphins have approached very close a foot away or so and really looked at me like what the *#%^ are you trying to say and in what language. It has worked best on smaller groups.

It also worked during a controlled dolphin encounter in Florida. The others in the group could not figure out how I got so much attention.

hendrick we were in bonaire new years eve 1998 and saw the same thing at the tipsy seagull.we were just as amazed as you as it streamed across the sky. we never got an explanation either. kinda fun thinkin it might have been a ufo karen

Karen,

According to Bas it was a russian sattelite that came down. Of course, this might be nothing more than a rumour spread by the CIA to calm people down because really it was a UFO, and they dont want us to know because they have been in touch with "them" ever since the other UFO came down in Rosswell and... erm... sorry you never know Dont let Bas demystify the occasion