Traveling by plane is kind of like to the GYN doctor.
It's dreadful, painful and degrading, and yet I do it.
Every single time I get off the dirty plane clutching my overflowing air-sickness bag I mutter to myself, "I'm NEVER putting myself through this again!".
So why do I do it, you ask?
Because once I splash down into the waters of Bonaire I am in another world.
Nobody is bugging me now.
It's so easy to dive in Bonaire and very inexpensive.
I do the unlimited shore dive package. It cost me a mere $127.50 to dive six days to dive as much as I want and when I want.
It's great.
No dewlapping dive masters herding me around nor annoying scubas you have to wait for or to watch out for.
Over the years, I dived as all the shore dive access areas. Some are a pain-in-the-ass as far as entry. I found just a few sites at this stage in the game that I am happy to dive over and over again.And every time, I see the same familiar cast of characters as well as new stuff to keep things interesting.
One of my favorite sites is "windsock". It has an easy entrance. Not many people dive this spot for some reason. I think it is because it has an easy entrance that people dismiss it. (I think people think the harder the entry the better the dive site.Go have your rocky "Andrea II" climb) As usual , by the loading dock, I was greeted by a trio of squid. This year, I also found lionfish.
Another favorite spot is "front porch" were the tug-boat lays in about 100 feet deep.I'm sure people don't like diving here because there is a lot of debris from the old sunset hotel underwater. However, this "debris" is home to lots of critters.
I found two large octopus free swimming around. There a tons of those funny looking sea cucumbers. I find lots of morays. Even "Charlie" the tarpon made his appearance along with some "friends".Under the tug-boat at 95 feet I found at least five large lionfish. Two of them were HUGE! They were at least two feet long. I also saw two giant spiny lobsters there as well.
What I found interesting, is that despite the increase in the number of lionfish the rest of the fish population seemed healthy and unaffected by their presence
.I found this interesting because they were " the source to blame" in the serious decline of fish life in the Bahamas. Two years ago, when I went to the Bahamas the only fish I saw there were lionfish. In 1992, the Bahamian waters were teeming with fish along with giant groupers. This gives me cause to believe the problem is overfishing, not the lionfish. Did I see lionfish eating small fish?Yes. That is because that was the only fish left over. I did not see a single grouper, never mind those big beautiful giant groupers I did years ago.
This year in Bonaire "the salt pier" was open to dive again. For a few years it was closed due to "security reasons'. This site has an easy access entry. It's a nice shallow dive that you can follow the pilings so you don't get lost. I found a large group of tarpon cruising the area, plus lots of barracudas, squids and an octopus. Someone claimed they found a seahorse here as well but I couldn't find it.
Yeah, diving here is really great. We did three (close to an hour long) dives a day. We were in bed by 7:30pm dead to the world.
Will I endure another plane ride to go back down there?
Right now, I say, "no" but I've said that the last eight times I've been there. :-)
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