Bonaire 2008 - Day 2 - Sunday, 11/23/08

12:30p
We just completed our first dive!

Dive 1 - Bari Reef
After completing the orientation, you are required to do a checkout dive on the reef just off the dock at the resort to ensure you gear and weights are correct. This sounds like it could be a bad thing, but Bari reef has a tremendous variety of fish life, so it is a great place to dive. Notable sightings:
Adult and Juvenile French Angelfish
Queen Angelfish
Greater Soapfish
Whitespotted Filefish
Scrawled Filefish
Ocean Triggerfish
Honeycomb Cowfish, Smooth Trunkfish, Spotted Trunkfish
Sharpnose Pufferfish
Banded Coral Shrimp
Yellowline Arrow Crab
Fireworm
Spotted Moray
Tarpon
Mahogany Snapper
Peacock Flounder
Longsnout, Banded, and Foureye Butterflyfish
Large Coney, Schoolmaster, Trumpetfish, Sand Diver

6:00p
After some lunch in the room we headed north with Rich and Dawn for a couple afternoon dives. The weather became more overcast and it started to rain as we headed down to the water for our first dive. However, the rain was gone by the time we surfaced. Both dives were around an hour and were very relaxing.

Dive 2 - Jeff Davis Memorial
Took some photos on this dive, but the camera battery dies near the end... hope that is not a recurring theme. I am still learning this setup, so bear with me on pic quality...
Notable Sightings:
Two Queen Angels
small crabs
Scallop/Rough file clam
Large queen anglefish
Cleaner shrimp on a parrot fish
Flamingo Tounge
Honeycomb Cowfish

Dive 3 - Oil Slick Leap
This is always a good sight, but today it was better! There was a lot of fish life, and the reef was in great shape below 35ft. We saw lots of different fish and creatures, and typically multiples of each:
Sharptail eels
Goldenspotted eels
Lettuce leaf slugs
Flamingo Tounge
Many Yellowline Arrow Crab and Banded Coral Shrimp
Many Spotted Drum
Parrotfish in Supermale phase (huge)

10:15p
We just returned from dinner, Casablanca Argentinian Grill. Kara had a seafood pasta and I had some ribs. This is a place where we have eaten on previous trips and really enjoy, so we will probably hit Casablanca a second time on this trip. We are sitting around unwinding now, but bedtime is probably not too far away. Everyone is tired and we will want to be ready for two morning dives. Tomorrow will start with the Hilma Hooker (ship wreck). Ad yes, they do actually have t-shirts that say "I went down on the hooker in Bonaire".