This year, 22 SeaHorses journeyed to Captain Don’s Habitat on Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean from November 16th – 23rd for a week of diving and exploring on this charming island in the Caribbean Leeward Antilles, part of the ABC islands. The ABC islands are Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, the three westernmost islands of the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea, just north of Venezuela.
Our divers: Joe Sharp, Benita Buchanan, Dave Delgado, Rachel Drapeau, Joyce Hoffman, Dave Wakeley, George Barron, Jacob Jurmain, Dauzy Dauzenroth, Don Shingler, Chris Vigil, Amber Dawdy, Oscar Conroy, David Root, Jeff Greene, Jay Greene, and Bruce Preston.
Our non-divers: Suzanne Delgado, Chris Turner, Bill Ralph, Elliott Ralph and Judy Dauzenroth.
Bonaire is world famous for its shore diving, as its reef system is very close and accessible from shore in many places (more on this later). The island itself is low, arid, and an interesting mix of Caribbean and Dutch culture and architecture. Bonaire is not an independent country. It is a special municipality (officially “public body”) of the Netherlands and the people there are Dutch citizens. The official language of Bonaire is Dutch, and you hear it spoken in many places (especially in the very Dutch supermarket), along with English, yet the native language is actually Papiamentu, spoken exclusively in the ABC Islands, and what the indigenous people use to talk among themselves. Papiamentu is a mixture of many languages including Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, French, English, Caribbean Indian, and various African languages.
Advance Scouting Party
Our advance scouting party of Joe Sharp and Benita Buchanan, and Dave and Suzanne Delgado were scheduled to arrive in Bonaire a day early, on Friday. Both couples spent a couple of nights in Miami to break up the journey. On Thursday, we met for lunch at Smith & Wollensky in South Beach, where we couldn’t help but overhear the ebullient fellow, who seemed to be some sort of mobster or something, at the table behind us, very loudly telling his friend a captivating story of a murder that wasn’t a murder, because the “victim” turned out to be okay, family intrigue and inheritance, that sounded like it was straight out of a Carl Hiaasen novel.
Captain Don’s Habitat
Friday, November 15th
We arrived in Bonaire at about 2:30 in the afternoon on Friday, and were picked up by the nice gentlemen holding the SEAHORSES sign, and whisked over to Captain Don’s. The resort was one of the first diving resorts on the Island, and it is designed for divers. It’s very similar to Sunset House on Grand Cayman, but with a more laid back, casual vibe.
The rooms were clean and spacious, and had working A/C, which for our week there of unseasonably hot temperatures and high humidity (feels like 101 deg. F) was a must. The staff told us that the dry season was late and it was unusually hot and wet, which was making the mosquitos a bit of a problem. We didn’t discover the true meaning of, “a bit of a problem,” until later.
The main resort was at the top of a small rise, above the dive lockers, tanks and docks. Captain Don’s advertises “Total Diving Freedom” and they certainly deliver. You can go out on their dive boats plus enjoy unlimited shore diving, 24 hours a day, from their dedicated shore diving dock on the beautiful house reef, or you can rent a truck, throw your gear and tanks in the back, and dive one of the many shore dives on the island. Our package included 10 one-tank boat dives, two per day, at 8:30 and 11:00. Boat dives were all one-tank since all of the sites were so close. A long run to a site was 20 minutes; you go out, do your dive, come back, leave your gear set up on your tank and they hot-fill the tanks right on the boat from a compressor on the dock. A free NITROX upgrade, for both boat and shore dives, was also part of our package.
Diving at Captain Don’s
It’s a law on Bonaire that you can’t do any diving until you’ve gone through the mandatory orientation. This orientation is only held once a day, at 9:00 AM, so we didn’t get in the water on Friday. Saturday, Dave, Benita and I met at the patio above the docks for our orientation, given by the Roger, the director of the dive operation. Roger is a character, with a long beard who looks like he’s definitely spent a lifetime on boats in the tropics and has been there diving forever, because I think he has. The mandatory orientation, which sounds very serious in the online descriptions, consisted of him telling us that dive sites are marked with yellow rocks by the side of the road, not to touch anything or take anything, don’t wear gloves and if you’re away from the resort, don’t leave anything inside your vehicle and leave it unlocked so thieves don’t have to break the window, and make sure you have your STINAPA pass which proves you paid their marine park fee, with you, because the authorities will sometimes check and there’s a fine if you don’t have it. When it was time to show him our C-cards, we dug them out and he just sort of glanced at them and said, “Yeah, I trust you.” Okay.
The House Reef
From the shore diving dock, there’s a very well-marked rope trail out to the reef. If you turn right at the reef, it’s very pretty reef structure with a steep drop-off to about 100 ft., where there’s a shipwreck that a few of our divers visited. If you turn left, there is pretty reef structure with a slightly less abrupt drop-off also to at least 100 ft., and a smaller sunken boat on top of the reef at about 40 ft. Navigation is simple, go out to the reef, turn right or left, descend down and do the deeper portion of your dive, usually about 60-70 ft., hit your turnaround point (time or air), ascend to the top of the reef at about 30 ft. (shallower than the end of the line so you can spot it), work your way back to the line, and follow it home, back to the dock.
There was a convenient pile of concrete blocks and some sunken machinery at 15 ft. right next to the line which featured a resident drumfish, and where we also found a stonefish (or maybe a scorpionfish), that made for a nice spot to do your safety stop. Come up the line to the blocks, play with the drumfish for a few minutes, then swim in.
Bonaire Reefs, Critters and Diving
The reef systems are extensive, well developed, and have lots of life on them, but are tragically sick with SCTLD (Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease), which is affecting the whole Caribbean region. The reef systems are thick with coral, there are lots of schooling fish and there are beautiful soft corals and sponges, but the brain coral and other stony corals have significant dead patches and are covered in algae. There is some bleaching from the high ocean temperatures. Having said that, it really was beautiful and the diving is easy, with warm water, good visibility and minimal current, but 15 or 20 years ago, I imagine it was spectacular.
Bonaire has the usual Caribbean critters, lots of pretty schooling fish and reef fish, scorpionfish (or stonefish, we’re not sure), lionfish, several varieties of eels, crabs, lobsters, turtles, barracuda, grouper, parrotfish, including a huge super-male parrot fish, somebody reported seeing an octopus one night, and very large, very friendly (at night) tarpon. And we found a few of our namesake critters, seahorses! However, there was one particular fish that had it in for me; the bi-color damselfish. It’s an aggressive little fish about 2 inches long, that stands guard over its patch of coral and darts out and confronts anything that gets too close, even if it’s a thousand times its size, like me. I was nipped on the hand by one of those little buggers twice on our first dive, and once on each of the next two. They didn’t do any damage, they’re tiny, but it was surprising being assaulted the yappy little chihuahuas of the sea.
The bicolor damselfish is a territorial animal that does not tolerate any incursions into its living area. It is particularly virulent against other territorial species and it can provoke heated fights. In a constant quest for dominance, the dominant males of this species cannot stand each other. The battle between two individuals can be intense and violent. It will result in the submission and sometimes even death of one of the protagonists.
Like I said, diving was easy. Visibility was good but not spectacular, maybe 60-70 ft. There was virtually no current on any of our dives and the water temperature was a balmy 87 deg. F. Nobody reported being stung by anything, in the water anyway. At night we always had an escort of large tarpon, using our lights to hunt. It wasn’t unusual to have a couple of these sleek, 6 ft. long bright silver predators swimming a right beside you or crossing a few feet in front of you; on one dive we had 4 circling us. As we explored the reef, if you lit up something tasty, a tarpon would dart in and eat it.
Many of our group took full advantage of the diving opportunities. Benita and I each did 21 dives in 6 days. I think the most dives in our group was 26 over 5 days.
SeaHorses Arrive
Saturday
The rest of the crew arrived on Saturday. Sixteen people were on the American Airlines flight, with an additional two coming in on other flights, but all arriving about 2:30. The process was mostly smooth. Our total group was 22 people; 17 divers and 5 non-divers. Most had Ocean View Deluxe rooms, Joyce and her family had a 2-bedroom bungalow which worked out nicely for them.
The main group couldn’t dive on Saturday, having not been through the orientation, so Dave Delgado and I went out on a night dive. It was fun, with spotted eels, one on the hunt, two spiny lobsters, 2 drumfish, and a stonefish (Scorpion fish? We’ll need to figure it out.) at our safety stop. As on all night dives we had a contingent of tarpon escorting us the entire time. Started with 2, ended with 4.
Sunday
We slept in for the first time in many days after getting up at stupid o’clock to catch airport transfers and early flights and crossing 4 time zones. The main group met for the mandatory orientation, which this time was given by Roger’s assistant and right-hand man, Wilco. Another character. When it came time to take roll, of course us three early arrivals were absent since the orientation wasn’t interesting enough to do twice. When he called our names, a number of folks in our group told Wilco we’d done the orientation the day before, but he just muttered, “That’s what everybody says.” Sure enough, we discovered we were left off the roster for the boat dives the next day since the boat rosters and dive sites were written on a whiteboard outside the dive shop. We wrote our diver numbers on the whiteboard ourselves, and figured we’d sort it out in the morning.
George joined us for a dive in the afternoon, this time we went right. George dropped down to see the deep wreck at 100+ ft. It was a nice dive full of coral and pretty fish, but no premier animals, although I think sometimes in our quest to find special critters like turtles, and sharks, and eels and such, that we don’t take the time we should to appreciate just how beautiful the reef and its schools of thousands of colorful reef fish are.
Our Boat Diving
Like I said, our package included 10 1-tank boat dives. The boat went out at 8:30 AM and 11:00 AM. Monday I got up early to talk to Wilco about being left off the boat. It wasn’t a problem getting us on there, but he kept insisting that he hadn’t missed anybody. He was a bit grumpy about it honestly, but we all got on the boat, so no harm no foul.
SeaHorse Down
Unfortunately, one of our members, David Root, suffered a sprained ankle and missed a few days of diving. We were all glad when he recovered enough to join us. George sprained his ankle too, not as severely and I don’t think he missed any boat dives, but let’s all be careful out there.
Our Crew: Ludson and Sherman
The boat was modern, with plenty of room for our 17 divers, especially since we only had one tank per diver, plus the occasional guest divers they put on with us. Our crew were Ludson and Sherman. Both were native to the island and had been diving there for decades, since they were teenagers. They definitely knew their way around the reefs and were great at finding all the fun critters, not to mention being world class at replacing leaking tank O-rings. If you raised your hand and told them you had a leaking O-ring, it was like a NASCAR pit crew changing tires. Only one boat at a time is allowed on a particular mooring, so we often didn’t go to the dive sites listed on the board in the morning, but that was okay. They had a knack for finding interesting places to dive.
After the morning dive, we’d motor back to the resort, returning about 10:30, and we’d leave our gear set up on our tanks with the 1st stage disconnected, then we’d all go find a spot in the shade and hang out or grab a snack or whatever for 30 minutes while our crew hot-filled all the tanks from the compressor on the dock. At 11:00, we’d get back on board and head out again.
I have to say, despite its reputation for shore diving, I’d much rather giant stride off a boat than pick my way over sharp coral rocks in the surge (and biting bugs) for a shore entry and exit. Besides, when diving off the boat, there were no mosquitos and Ludson and Sherman were there to show us where all the cool critters were. That was especially important for finding seahorses. Those things are extremely well camouflaged. It took me a bit to see them even when our divemasters were pointing right at them. Once you’d seen one though and knew what to look for, it got a bit easier.
We did boat dives at the following sites:
Monday, 11/18
- Klein Bonaire – Keepsake
- Andrea 1
Tuesday, 11/19
- Karpata
- Klein Bonaire – Ebo’s Special
Wednesday, 11/20
- Hilma Hooker (266 ft. wreck)
- Klein Bonaire – Joanne’s Sunchi (kiss)
Thursday, 11/21
- Jeff Davis Memorial (not Former President of the Confederate States of America)
- 1,000 Steps
Friday, 11/22
- Small Wall
- Kallie’s Reef
The Hilma Hooker
In my opinion, the wreck of the Hilma Hooker was the diving highlight for me. It’s a 266 ft. cargo vessel, laying on its side in about 100 ft. of water, with the top at about 60-70 ft. The cargo hold is open and you can safely penetrate the wreck there, as long as you don’t go any further inside. There is a fair amount of life on the wreck and Sherman found a large green moray hiding in the sand at the bottom of the hold. I really enjoyed this dive. 5 out of 5 stars.
Shore Diving in Bonaire
Bonaire has a reputation as a world-class shore diving destination, and it’s true that the reefs are very close to shore all along the west side of the island, making most dive sites easily accessible from a shore entry. Our house reef was great, day and night. However, if you venture out away from the convenient shore diving dock and handy stairs for exiting the water, be warned that Bonaire doesn’t have sandy beaches, or even the rocky beaches we’re used to; the entire shore is old coral, generally in large plate structures with sharp rocks, abrupt ledges and holes to step off of, and into, which the surge and the sand it stirred up helpfully made invisible. While we were there, the surge was actually relatively gentle vs. what we often get here at home, but combined with the treacherous footing it made for difficult entries and exits. I personally fell twice, once during an exit, where I dropped a fin and Oscar saved it from washing out to sea (Thanks Oscar, you’re my hero. I love those fins.), and once during an entry. I think I was the only one who actually went down, but everybody struggled.
Ostracod Dive
Dave Delgado alerted us to a unique thing that was happening in Bonaire when we were there. Apparently, little bioluminescent shrimps called ostracods put on a spectacular light show a few days after the full moon, as part of their mating behavior. This is a rare and special thing underwater and none of us had ever heard of it, so all credit to Dave for doing his research and discovering it. The show begins about 45 minutes after sunset. You have to be at a dive site remote from artificial lights, find a place underwater to sit and watch the show, and turn your lights off. Dave organized everything and chose The Lake dive site south of town, out towards Salt Pier, as a promising place and we loaded up three trucks and headed out.
See this video on Science.org for a nice overview of ostracods and an idea of what the light show looks like…
We planned an early dive so we could scout the site in daylight. The entry was harder than expected, with the aforementioned rocky coral shore making it dicey to get in and out of the water. The site has two parallel reef structures, with a large sand patch between them at about 70 ft. We headed out and across the first reef and the sand to the 2nd reef, looking for good places to sit and watch the show. The exit was hard. This is where I fell and Oscar rescued my fin. After we came in, some friendly locals told us that they had been out here last night and good viewing was to be had by swimming slightly south to the mooring buoy, descending, and hanging out right there at about 20 ft. That’s much easier than what we had planned, so we’ll do that then.
Benita and I decided to nope out of the 2nd dive due to the entry/exit issue, but our new local friends told us that you could see the show from the surface on snorkel. We figured we could manage the entry/exit if we weren’t carrying tanks, so we grabbed our gear and headed out. I had to borrow a snorkel from Joyce, who had borrowed it from Chris, because I rarely bring a head banging device unless I know I’ll have a long surface swim, or I plan on doing some snorkeling, or it’s required. Suzanne and Joyce stayed on shore and were mobbed by mosquitos so badly that they had to take shelter inside the truck.
The ostracod light show was special! The little buggers came out right on time, and lit up the reef with flashes of light and glowing spirals. I could see some of it from where I was, but it turns out that Benita might have gotten the best view of anybody. The ostracods started in the reef but came up to the surface all around her. When the show was over for me and the divers, and they surfaced, we were looking for Benita and calling out. She finally replied, “GO AWAY! I’m not lost and quit blinding me with your lights! The show is still happening for me!”
When we all came back in we were immediately attacked by swarms of mosquitos that can apparently bite through a dive skin, as we frantically threw our gear in the back of the trucks to get out of there.
Again, many thanks to Dave for learning about this special phenomenon and organizing our excursion to see it. I would even say that if you’re going to Bonaire, it’s worth your while to plan your visit around the ostracods.
Salt Pier
Whenever you hear of Bonaire you inevitably hear about Salt Pier. It’s the must-see dive site on the island, and an above-water landmark with historic significance. It’s a working facility where they load ships with salt for export from Bonaire’s salt ponds, so dive boats are not allowed; it has to be a shore dive. You can only dive it if there isn’t a ship moored at the pier. Every guidebook says to do it at night, that it’s magical. A world top-ten dive site. SPOILER: Not so much.
We loaded up a couple of trucks to go out. Since we were only doing one dive, we set up our gear at the resort before we loaded it, to spend the minimum amount of time out of the water with our mosquito friends. When we arrived at Salt Pier, we found the same kind of rocky shore entry/exit we faced at The Lake, plus the swarms of mosquitos. I fell this time going out. I had made it out to about 2 ft. of water before I fell, so after a couple of tries I gave up trying to stand back up and just scooted out until I could float.
We did a surface swim out to the first piling and descended and swam out. It was pretty much 15-20 ft. deep with sand, plus scattered little coral outcrops. It was pretty barren. It was a long swim to the actual reef, which is at the end of the pier, so we had limited time to explore since we had reached our agreed upon turn-around time. We found a few critters, but in my opinion, our house reef was far better, with fewer mosquitos. Dave said that if we were to do it again, it would be much better to surface swim out to near the end of the pier. I agree, so keep that in mind if any of you visit Bonaire in the future. Had we known more about the site in advance, it probably would have been more magical.
Navigating back in was something of a challenge. The bottom was flat and it all looked the same, so you couldn’t navigate by landmarks or the slope of the bottom. The pilings were too far apart to be reliable navigation aids, so we had to rely exclusively on compass navigation. It was only 20-ish feet deep most of the way back, with no current and we weren’t that far out, so we could have easily surfaced and swam in if we were really lost, but Dave had a good headings back. He led the way and somewhat surprisingly, we came out pretty much right at our entry point, where we were immediately viciously attacked by voracious mosquitos again. We quickly threw our gear in the trucks and escaped with our lives.
Benita and I did another night dive on the house reef when we got back, as something of a pallet cleanser. It was nice and relaxing, and Benita spotted a big red crab we hadn’t seen before.
Above Water Activities
Our group included 5 non-divers, who had fun and explored the island while we were submerged. Suzanne provided much of the transportation in their rental truck. Here’s what they had to say about their time on Bonaire…
From Elliott
We went on an island tour with HopiBonaire tour. We got to see a beautiful sunrise and lots of wild donkeys and even making friends with a couple of them. Also seeing lots of flamingos. We also went on a kayaking trip in the mangroves. One of my Favorite part of the trip was getting to hang with the other non-divers and eventually become friends with them then Hanging by the pool together and talking. And going to the animal shelter was my favorite part of this whole Bonaire trip! Oh and learning the word “DUSHI”!
From Chris
I enjoyed my Sunday Walk to explore Kralendijk. It was quiet as most of the businesses were closed.
Joined the private tour, The Gems of the East https://hopibonaire.com/en/offroad-tours/our-tours/gems-of-the-east/ It included the sunrise on the kunuku, seeing the blowholes, a little hike, seeing cave painting, wild animals. I highly recommend the tour company.
Did a guided kayak tour in the mangrove of Lac Bay, https://www.mangrovecenter.com/tours/1-hour-guided-kayak-tour/
Explored the north loop island drive. We stopped at the beautiful view point of Gotomeer, with the flocks of flamingoes. We took a guided tour of Bonaire Botanical Garden with an excellent guide Manuel. We sampled the bounty of edible leaves and flowers, they either used as medicine, anti-aging or cleansed the soul. Emoji The guide cleansed my aura, that I did not know I had.
Hiked Mt Brandaris, supposed to be the highest point of the Bonaire. Visited the Slagbaai National Park Museum.
Did snorkel a few times by the resort. I tagged along with Joyce snorkeling at night. That was my first nighttime snorkeling, I would do it again when I get a chance.
All these above are possible thru the kindness of our fellow non-divers, and big thanks to Suzanne for giving us rides everywhere and safely.
Final Night Party
On Friday night, Joyce and her family hosted a final night group party in their bungalow. It was fun to get everybody together one last time. It was supposed to be a “bring your leftovers” potluck where people would bring all the leftover food and drinks we’d acquired during out stay and couldn’t finish, but of course people went shopping and brought more food and alcohol, so we ended up having a feast.
Heading Home
On Saturday, it was time to head home. Check-out time was 11 AM, and the van to the airport left promptly at 11 AM, which was way too soon for our afternoon flights. The front desk staff assured us that the airport got really busy so it was important to leave at 11:00 and get there early since pretty much all the flights left at about the same time and the check-in and security lines could be long. Maybe so, but for us, not so much. When we got there the check-in counter wasn’t even open. There was a small line but once the counter did open we breezed through check-in and security and had a nice LONG wait in the airport restaurant, which was the only air-conditioned space available.
Everybody made it home safely. The most frequent question I’ve gotten since we’ve been back is, “Where are we going next year?”
Acknowledgements
First, I’d like to acknowledge the people in our group, who were again, awesome. Everybody got along and helped each other and were good divers and buddies and friends. I’d travel with you again anytime.
I want to acknowledge Dave Wakeley, our club acting Treasurer who handled all the money for the trip, which was a huge chore, making multiple trips to BECU for deposits and other stuff and making sure the numbers all added up. He was my partner in making this trip happen and he deserves a lot of the credit.
I also want to acknowledge my wife, Benita Buchanan, who kept me sane during the process of putting the trip together, and supported us in other critical ways. Without her this trip might not have happened.
I’d also like to acknowledge Maduro Dive, who is the US representative for Captain Don’s for working with us for months and making the trip possible. They went the extra mile to see that it was successful. And especially our representative from Maduro, Shanon Maddux, who put our package together and helped us tremendously during the whole process.
Finally, I’d like to give a shout out to our divemasters, Ludson and Sherman, who took such good care of us out on the water, and the whole staff at Captain Don’s for making our stay there enjoyable.
Where Are We Going Next (and when)?
We don’t know. We’re taking a breather to enjoy the holidays and decompress after this trip. We’ll start thinking about the next one next year. Where would you like to go? When? There’s no rule that says we can only go on one trip per year. If you have ideas, send an email to travel@seahorsediveclub.com.
Or if you want to find out about leading a trip yourself, send a note to travel@seahorsediveclub.com. Trip leaders get extra discounts and we’ll help you put it together.
Look for trip announcements on the website, our calendar and newsletter. Remember, club members and returning travelers get an exclusive early registration period.
We’ll talk about our trip during the January Club Meeting, on January 23rd (4th Thursday). You’ll be able to meet some of our travelers and ask questions. Location is currently TBD. Watch the calendar.
Hope to see you on our next trip!
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