12/03/09

The first dive today was at the dive site called Corporal Meiss. Pretty uneventful. Mary got thrown around a little in the surf upon entry, but she was all right.

The second dive was Kaya Kachi. It was a wonderful dive. However, as we entered the water, Mary dropped her weight belt in five feet of water, and I had to fetch it for her. Then, after we swam the thirty yards out to the drop-off, she discovered that she failed to turn her air on. So, once again, I obliged.

We dropped down to 62 feet for 48 minutes. The wall of coral in front of us was as beautiful as always. We met our friends the French Angelfish, but we also met some GORGEOUS parrot fish, squirrel fish and on one of the biggest file fish I’ve ever seen.

I also saw my first moray eels of this vacation. They were relatively small though, compared to the average size of morays nine years ago.

(Something killed off most of the morays on Bonaire over the past decade. The Bonaire Marine Park Service is not sure what did it, but morays kept washing up on shore dead. Now, they are just starting to come back again.)

The morays that we saw today were two to three feet long. One was a green moray, snuggled well into the reef with only his head protruding. (Mary is the one who spotted him. I couldn’t see him, and she almost had to touch him for me to find him.) The other was a spotted, black and white critter who was swimming free.

Spotted moray eel

Many brown and white banded eels on this dive. (We call them sea snakes.)

Nice dive.

12/04/09
The first dive today was Wind Sock again. In my twenty years of diving, I’ve never seen a sea horse. Mother Nature gives them such great camouflage that they are extremely difficult to find. (Mary saw one on a dive without me here in Bonaire ten years ago off the little island called Klein Bonaire (Little Bonaire.)

I told Gaylene at the dive shop that I’ve never seen a sea horse, and she immediately gave me directions to one that she saw just the other day. (Sea horses, like most reef creatures, tend to hang out in the same area for extended periods of time…some for their entire lives.)

The three pictures above were taken by Gaylene. The last one has TWO seahorses in it; the pregnant male and his mate.

So, following Gaylene’s directions, we went to Wind Sock today. (Wind Sock is a popular dive with the dive boats, but most dive boats go out around nine or ten and are back at dock at noon for lunch. So, Mary and I went out 11, hoping that the boats and their crowds would be gone.

They were.

On the shore, we met with three divers from Georgia who were getting ready to dive. I told them about the sea horse, and where to find them. They were excited about it too.

So, Mary and I went in at buoy and dropped down to 55 feet. Then we swam north about 30 meters. At that point, we began looking for a bush of rope coral. We found it, but the three divers I had spoken to were there. One fellow waved us close, and, sure enough, I saw my first sea horse in the wild. He was magnificent, about five inches in length, and very pregnant. (With sea horses, the male carries the babies and gives birth.) He had his tail wrapped around the rope sponge, and he was content just bobbing around there. Gaylene said that she had seen the female there too, but we didn’t find her.

The two pictures above are of Gaylene and myself, taken by Mary Ellen in front of the dive shop. (Gaylene is the smaller, cuter one in these shots.)

Great dive. Exciting. 61 feet deep maximum for 44 minutes.