Bonaire Report_Fritz and the Frogfish

[fmerkel]

After a very long time gone Joyce and I finally made it back to Bonaire. We're staying with friends that got us into SCUBA. We're 100% shore diving and going independent like we always have. Its a treat hard to get anywhere but Bonaire (and home). It was a nice shock to go from certification in Cove 3 one weekend and into Bonaire blue waters the next. It's still a location that we enjoy immensely. Flights sure have improved a lot with the 2 hop Continental Huston-Boniare route.

Weather is almost normal-hot and windy. It's rained a bit more than usual so things are pretty green for here. I was fortunate enough to find a Frogfish on my 2nd dive , the first one I've found personally in over a 100 dives here. Maybe PSL hunting has improved the skills needed-maybe I was just lucky.

Frogfish on Sponge

We've seen a lot of the usual suspects. My tropical fish ID skills have gone into serious atrophy so I'm spending some time with Human and Deloach and things are improving.


Decided to explore so we went for a 'wild side' dive off Cai day Thursday. THAT was pretty fun. We saw so many Tarpon it looked like a gigantic bait ball. Fish all over the place. There definitely was current and it's taking you OUT to the big ocean do that's a bit disquieting. There's no one on that side to rescue your sorry self if you screw up. It's a ways out to the reef edge (15-20 minutes)and we missed our steel 100's as we didn't get to spend very long on the outer reef. Next time we'll try to rustle up some larger tanks and spend less time gawking at the Tarpon.

Tarpon at Cai-not great viz in the channel

Coming back in (as one option rather than fight the current in the channel) can use the wave surge in the shallow shelf to the north. That's another interesting aspect to the dive. You just don't get that kind of experience much in Puget Sound.

Fritz

[nwbobber]

Wow that is amazing you spotted him. Nice report.

[lizard0924]

Hey Fritz - great report. The Cai dive is very fun, especially the tarpon pit. If you are looking for steel 100s, try Tropical Divers (across from the Plaza Resort and next door to Sense restaurant). They have DIN connections, too.

Enjoy your time on sunny Bonaire!

Ayo,
Liz

[Biodiversity_Guy]

Fun fun. Looks like I might get to go in early December!

Excellent spot on the frog fish!

Thanks for the tip on Tropical Divers/ Steel 100s. Have you ever stayed at their resort/used their restaurant?

[fmerkel]

We are using Tropical Divers for air. We have AL tanks down here so are buying aircards. They are switching out a compressor this weekend so loaned us steel 100 tanks. They use convertible valves so just put the insert in. I swap back over to yoke for the trip here.
We used the first round on the Hooker, a good application for that dive. A nice thing about being independent is waiting until everyone leaves then having the site to yourself....until the boat with about 12 divers showed up. That certainly changes the mood.

Did Vista Blue in the AM. Nice soft coral and sponge garden. Found 3 juv. drums.

Juv. Drum

We are finding ~ 1-4 invasive Lionfish/dive. The place isn't crawling with them but they certainly are around now.

Fritz

[lizard0924]

Yes, I stayed at Tropical Divers resort (Tropical Inn) in January 2010. Clean rooms, but sparse. No biggie as long as you're not looking for luxury. Reasonably priced, too. And the location is pretty convenient. The restaurant next door (Sense) is good. Hot water was plentiful and there was a mini-kitchen that allowed you to cook in the room if you wanted to (we didn't want to). Nice sized fridge, too. Plenty of room for as many Polars or Brights as you ever needed.

I liked the fills at TD, very precise on the nitrox (every single tank was 32% exactly...unlike some other places I've gotten air on Bonaire) and the tanks were FULL. That was very nice. The one downside I encountered was that they wouldn't run the compressor to fill tanks until they had a certain amount of empty tanks. So, sometimes they ran out of HP100s with nitrox and we ended up diving HP100s with air or using an AL80 for nitrox. Not a huge deal, just a minor inconvenience.