Tag Archives: ocean life

Salt Pier dive

Diving the Salt Pier

Another day out on Ad Astra for a diving adventure under the Salt Pier also known as “Waf di Salina”.  The Salt Pier, one of the best dive sites on Bonaire, is also one of the most photographed sites on the island.

Cargil currently operates the Salt Pans which cover one tenth of the island’s surface and produces 360,000 to 500,000 tons of Bonaire salt every year.  The varying colors of the ponds reflect the various stages of production.  It starts with crystal clear seawater which then turns to green, then brown, and then the salt crystallizes turn pink.  The unique pink color us caused by bacteria which are enjoyed by flamingos.  Did you know, baby flamingos are born white until they eat the brine shrimp and bacteria?

Aerial view Salt Pier and Salt Pans

Overlooking the Salt Pier and Salt Pans. Photo courtesy of We Share Bonaire

Diving the Salt Pier takes you to depths between 5 to 15 meters, where you’ll explore a maze of pillars fully encrusted with sponges and corals shooting up, hanging down, and jutting out.  These sponge and coral covered pillars are in vibrant shades of purple, yellow, and pink.  Each pillar provides you with a unique sea community filled with sea life large and small.  Large schools of fish congregate in the shadows created by the salt terminal overhead.

Our first dive of the day was to get the “lay of the land” and give us Salt Pier newbies a quick glance of what the Salt Pier looks like during in the light.  We anchored at Jeannie’s Glory and decided to swim to the Salt Pier.  It was a pretty big distance, but we were able to mark our path by a large cargo ship mooring which indicated the half way point to the pier.  It also had a distinct “clink, clink” sound as the chain links bobbed up and down off the sea floor.

It was absolutely amazing to see the corals and sea life hanging precariously from each pillar which offered new and surprising communities.  We moved on to the 2nd and 3rd set of pillars to get a quick glance of everything before our night dive.  We were surprised to see the large amount of trash and tires, but I guess that is to be expected below a pier??

Salt Pier Dive

Salt Pier looking up from the sea bed.

Salt Pier Dive

Salt Pier Pillar with coral growth

At dusk, we jumped in the water in small groups as there were a lot of us diving (12 divers), we followed our dive plan and headed toward the Salt Pier with torches in hand eagerly anticipating what we might see.  Our goal was to swim slowly to the huge mooring, then over the reef to the first set of pillars.

New and surprising creatures appear during night dives that were not there during the day.  Flowers bloom, sea anemones pop up, eels and shrimp come out and so much more. It is an exchange of sea life where the day fish go into hiding and the night fish come out to play.

Large tarpon surrounded us checking us out – some as large as our bodies.  They have no fear and will often swim very close to you which is unsettling when you don’t see them in the dark until they are in your peripheral vision or right in front of your face.

A delightful slipper lobster was cruising around the bottom of the sea bed in between the pillars.  You can’t tell from the photo below, but at night his eyes glow and his tentacles reflect the light from your torch.  He moves slowly and methodical – pretty spectacular.

Slipper Lobster dive

Slipper Lobster photo courtesy of Info Bonaire.

Salt Pier dive

Salt Pier Pillar coral growth

Dive Bonaire

Dive Adventures in Bonaire

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In an earlier post we posted a list of several exciting dive spots we explored and since then we have had the pleasure of visiting a few more that are worthy of sharing:

  • “Small Wall” is a site we had been to a few times, but Jane on Cheetah II had spotted a sea horse that we wanted to meet.  Jane expertly navigated us to the soft coral and even after pointing several times, I still had a hard time finding the little guy.  But, Matt was able to point him out, get a few great shots and even a video of him moving from one branch to another.  The photo below is him in motion moving from the lower branch to the upper branch where he is easier to spot. This is a male sea horse and he is pregnant.  We watched and admired him for close to 15 minutes before tearing ourselves away.  This is absolutely the coolest thing I have seen in my entire life – such a beautiful, delicate, creature and yet so majestic!
Sea horse, male, pregnant

Sea horse floating at Small Wall

  • “Salt Pier” is a spectacular dive that you can only access when there are no boats on the large pier (cruise ships, cargo, fuel or otherwise).  This is such a special dive site that we will dedicate an entire post on it in a few weeks.
Salt Pier

Salt Pier dive site. Cruising around and exploring.

    • We visited a dive site with no name by car which was recommended by a local diving instructor – which meant a shore dive.  It was located on the north point of the island.  I’m not a fan of shore dives and this one had a dead coral beach, challenging entry around reefs, and a current.  But once you got past the entry, the dive was really pretty with a lot of unusual and large coral formations.
    • “Barcadera” was a random pick with our friends on Ad Astra.  We did not know what to expect and it turned out to be surprisingly amazing.  The topography was varied with a splendid array of soft and hard coral forming these majestic mushroom cap hills across the sea floor.  We spotted several lion fish, a couple of huge lobsters and many other beautiful fish.
Beautiful variety of soft coral.

Beautiful variety of soft coral.

  • “Sampler” is so appropriately named as it has a sample of a large variety of hard and soft coral.  It was a beautiful display of colors and shapes across the seascape.  We discovered a Spiny Box Puffer (also known as a Web Burrfish) which we had never seen before.  He is so amazing cute that I wanted to touch him – but alas we just admired from afar.
Dive discovery of spiny box puffer

Photo courtesy of RockNCritters.com

Spiny Box Fish

Spiny Box Fish blends in with the coral

Spiny Box Puffer

Spiny Box Puffer (Web Burrfish) trying to get away from our camera.

  • “Wayaka II” is in the National Park and Matt and I had the pleasure of snorkeling it during Wayne’s visit in June.  We had such an amazing time that we decided to dive it with Ad Astra.  We arrived by car, had a fairly easy shore entry, but a fairly long swim to the mooring.  As we were trying to descend, I realized I forgot my weights so Matt and I had to swim back to get them, against the current.  It was incredibly hard and tiring so by the time we returned to the mooring I was very fatigued.  Unfortunately, the dive site was not all that we had hoped.  The prettiest fish and corals are close to shore at snorkeling level and the dive area is littered with dead coral covered in red algae.
  • “Alice in Wonderland” is a double reef dive site which was a bit murky when we arrived, but still exquisite. A beautiful variety of friendly fish willing to swim and play with you.
  • “Red Slave”  This dive site is on the southern most tip of Bonaire. It is more of an advanced dive due to its proximity to the point and strong currents.  We had a fairly large group with us (same group from Vista Blue) but we were jumping in late morning so it was pretty clear.  The current was really strong which we noticed the minute we jumped in water.  We swam against the current to start out which was challenging and even though it was a pretty dive site with some big lobsters, it was hard to enjoy while you are fighting the current.  We overshot the boat, but were able to swim back (most of us at least).  We did have to “rescue” three people who tired fighting the current.
  • “Vista Blue“ we did this dive a few weeks ago as a shore dive which was very challenging for me, but this time we came back on the big boat with Ad Astra.  We were with a pretty large group and did not hop in the water in until late in the afternoon so it was not as clear as it was the last time, but it was still amazingly beautiful with a huge variety of soft and hard corals.  This site is absolutely one of my favorite dive spots!

Favorite Things

  • Flowing fauna
  • Fish
  • Diving with Matt

A Day out with Ad Astra

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What do you get when you mix Germans, Norwegians, Canadians, American and Dutch folks?  A fantastic day of exploration, diving, laughing and celebrating.  Our new friends on Ad Astra (a 45′ Lagoon whose name means “to the stars”) invited 25 people on to their boat for a dive trip to Klein Bonaire.

The islet, which sits within the rough crescent formed by the main island, is 6 square kilometers (1,483 acres) and extremely flat, rising no more than two meters above the sea. The only structures on the island are some ruins of slave huts (small, single-room structures dating to the region’s period of slavery), and a small open shelter on the beach facing Bonaire.  During the period from 1868 to 1999, when Klein Bonaire was in private hands, it was stripped of its native trees resulting in a scrub growth across the island.  Several attempts were made to develop the island but where never successful.  Concerned locals formed The Foundation for the Preservation of Klein Bonaire (FPKB) and then they partnered with other concerned parties and government to successfully purchase it for 9 million Netherlands Antillean guilder (US$5 million). Klein Bonaire is now part of the Bonaire National Marine Park.[1] Long-term plans include reintroduction of the native vegetation.

From the mooring field, you can take your dinghy to Klein Bonaire but you will almost always encounter a bumpy, wet, and uncomfortable ride back to the mother ship.  So, having a large boat to travel in comfort among friends was a huge treat!  Eric, Kate and their two boys Kyle and Max were the perfect hosts providing a wide array of snacks, food, and beverages throughout the day.  There well equipped boat has an air compressor on it so we were even able to fill up our dive tanks to do my first two tank dive in Bonaire!

Ad Astra at her mooring

We had everyone bring their dinghy to Sugar Shack since we are moored right next to Ad Astra.  It sure looked like we were having a huge party with 6 dinks and a kayak tied off our stern – except the lights were out and nobody was home.

Our crew consisted of our friends from Kattami (Thea, Ragnar, Veslemay, & Hedda from Norway), Element (Shawn, Sherri, Paige, & Jordan from Canada), Kokopelli (Mizzy & Brian, U.S.), Manado (Manuel & Nadja from Germany), Always Sunday (Ricky & Robin, U.S.), Ad Astra crew (Erik, Kate, Kyle, & Max, U.S.), new friends on Cape Grace (Howard, Andrea, & Brian, U.S.) and of course the Sugar Shack crew.

It was a quick motor over to Klein Bonaire where we found a mooring on our desired dive spot, Mi Dushi.  Seventeen of the 25 people were planning on diving, so Matt and I decided to wait until most had hopped in the water.  With so much gear on board, we stowed ours at the bow with everyone else.  So, Matt was kind enough to set up my tank and drop it in the water for me so I could easily put it on (with the weight of the tank, extra 8 lbs of weight in my BC and the BC I have a really hard time putting it on outside of the water).

Unfortunately, we did not bring the GoPro since we had so much stuff already, so I cannot share any of the sightings with you, but it was a beautiful reef populated with many beautiful sea creatures.   We had heard that it is a good site to spot sea horses, but they eluded all of us.

After we all emerged from our underwater trip, we enjoyed some hearty snacks before heading to our next stop which is the furthest dive spot on Bonaire called Karpata just east of the no dive zone.  We motored around the south side of Klein Bonaire to reach Karpata.  As we were heading that way, we all marveled how it felt like a wonderful charter expedition as it was so nice being on someone else’s boat!  As Matt said to our new friends, “the only thing missing are the dolphins” and low and behold they appeared!  It was a spectacular showing with even a baby dolphin.  It was a sight to behold for sure.

We arrived happily to our dive spot, which appeared radically shallow, but we were able to expertly tie off to our mooring with no incident.  Fewer divers were going for the second tank dive so Matt, Brian (our new dive friend on Cape Grace) and I were the 2nd group to jump in the water.   Brian is a very experienced diver and had all the latest technology and gear.  It was pretty amazing to see how minimal his BC was compared to our bulky ones.   The topography was unbelievable offering what I would describe as a wall wave where you can swim in and out of crevices along the huge sea wall.  Lots of beautiful coral, fish, and sites to behold.  As we were swimming by, Matt made a confusing hand signal between a turtle and a lion fish and after I deciphered  it, I realized he was pointing to a beautiful, mid-sized turtle sleeping on a rock on the side of the wall covered by a beautiful, vibrant elk horn coral (not sure if that was the real identification of the coral but that is what it looked like to me).  As we were admiring this turtle, 8 others divers from our boat came by to admire this pretty turtle.

Matt also found this beautiful spotted drum fish under a piece of coral – this is not my photo, but courtesy of Google


I have to admit that it gave me fright every time we came to an Inlet as there was no end in sight – just a giant abyss down below.  It is so deep you cannot even see the bottom, it seems endless and dark and foreboding.    During these moments, I just kept my eyes on the wall and tried to find my sea horse.  Matt and I do not have a dive computer (yet) so we were not sure how long we were down, but it had been awhile.  And at one point, I turned around and realized our group was no longer following us, so we decided to turn around at half tank.  There was a bit of a current so we knew it would not take us as long to get back to the boat as it did to swim out to where we were.  We headed back, slowly allowing the current to take our bodies along the wall – it was magic being transported effortlessly once you gave in to it and stopped fighting the urge to control your movement.  We quickly emerged and realized we had been under for over an hour – long dive for me.  Our deepest moment was 20 meters (60′).

After more snacks and cold beverages, we headed back to the mooring so we could clean up and head to Taste of Bonaire.   Many of our friends attended this fun event and had even secured a great sitting area by the shore.  Matt and I headed to the Indonesian place he ate at last time and settled in for a long wait in line.  Luckily, it was not as bad as the last time, only took about 30-35 minutes to get our scrumptious food.

Tired and well fed, we chatted for a bit and headed back to the boat – well past sailor’s midnight!  It was actually 11pm.