Bonaire 2008 - Day 6 - Thursday, 11/27/08

10:30p
Happy Thanksgiving!

Today was the last "long Day" of diving. We completed four dives again today, two morning, one late afternoon, and one early night dive. We didn't have the camera today, but Rich had his and shared his photos with us, capturing some ciritical items, such as an Octopus (sleeping) and a Longlure Frogfish.

Our morning dives were south today with Dawn and Richard. We attempted to dive the lighthouse at the southern tip of the island but it was too rough. We abandoned a few other sites on the way back north due to swarming mosquitoes before settling on Pink Beach. We saw another Hawksbill turtle and abundant fish life on this site. If you saw one of any species, you pretty much saw countless, and often they were larger than typically seen.

After a short surface interval we decided to dive the Hilma Hooker site again, but not see the wreck and just stay on the reef. We crossed the channel at 80' to the second section of reef, a submerged ridge that parallels the shore. There really wasn't much to see other than a large Channel Clinging Crab that Kara spotted, but when we headed back across the channel Dawn

spotted another Hawksbill Turtle which provided a wonderful experience. This turtle was completely indifferent to our prescence and went about feeding on algea covered coral heads. We were able to swim with the turtle and what it feed for at least 5 minutes!

While heading back to town, our rental truck got a flat. We think it was low on air and broke the seal when we hit a bump. Almost immediately after pulling over, 2 men from a nearby construction site came over to offer assistance. We were on our way quickly; very nice guys! We ate a ate lunch and then headed down to the dock to do 2 dives on Bari Reef. The first was a dive with a mission: find the Frogfish. We had good directions and were able to locate it. We also saw a large sleeping octopus in a coral head. We completed an hour surface interval on the dock while the sun set, then went back out on Bari for a night dive. We saw a number of interesting things, including the largest lobster we have ever seen in the wild! We also saw another octopus, but this little guy was out hunting. Good night dive! Other Highlights from our dives today:

Pink Beach:
Hawksbill Turtle
lots of Whitespotted Filefish
lots of Rock Beauty

Hilma Hooker:
Hawksbill Turtle feeding
Channel Clinging Crab
10 Carribean Reef Squid in a school


Bari Reef:
Longlure Frogfish
Large Octopus
Juvenile Smooth Trunkfish
Tiny Juvenile French Angelfish
Small Black Durgon
Caribbean Reef Squid



Bari Reef Night Dive:
Small free-swimming Caribbean Reef Octopus
Spotted Spiny Lobster
Caribbean Spiny Lobster
Large Tarpon
Sharptail Eel
Spotted Moray