More from Bonaire...

I must say that it really was more fun cleaning the bottom of the boat here than at other places we have done it…there were so many Sergeant Majors and Blue Tangs helping us…there were even two Angelfish and a few Parrotfish that came over to see what the fuss was about – I just couldn’t have my camera in my hand…I had the scraper! After chores we went into the internet…which is a chore in itself in Bonaire! Monday morning…FINALLY our first FUN dive AND right off the back of the boat! We had decided “splash down” was to be 10 o’clockish…and down we went! Paul’s mask was leaking and we thought that going down would help keep pressure on it and the leaking would stop…only a little…so as we went along the reef he kept clearing (remember he wears contacts so he either needs to keep his mask clear or keep his eyes closed). After my Los Roques experience I kept watching him to be sure he was okay!Brain Coral....Mountainous Star Coral.... Lot’s of fishSmooth Trunkfish…Intermediate French Angelfish...and then one of my favorites…a turtle! It was a little one and swimming quite a ways away from us…then another little one swimming toward us…he/she had its’ eye on something under some coral…bee-lined for it, as you can see was stirring up some sand, and was fairly persistent in getting it! So much so that I was able to have the time to get the flash adjusted AND get some pictures! Then it either got what it was after or decided that I had taken enough pictures (yeah right) and off it went! Coral was in pretty good shape here…Giant Sea Anemone...some bleaching on Brain Coral…my one note…there was human waste i.e. some plastic…some metal stuff…some bottles…and I was not happy to have seen that. Then, as we got to the back of Lady H…Paul all of the sudden couldn’t stay down…so he grabbed onto me and we slowed his ascent. We went a few more feet and I could not stay down or keep him down anymore…as we were slowly ascending I looked around and found one of my weight pouches was missing…looked down and saw it. So up we both went and when we surfaced I found that Paul had lost one of his weight pouches as well! I took his last weight pouch, gave him the camera, he went back to the boat, and back down I went to retrieve the one I had seen (turns out it was mine). Now here is something interesting about fish behavior…really fish behavior is one of the things I enjoy about diving…watching the fish interact with each other…and believe me they do…I’ve seen Grunts hold each others mouth’s open (not sure what kind of discussion they were having)…Angelfish and Butterflyfish swimming together and it looks like for a purpose…sometimes it looks like one type of fish actually protecting another type of fish…and of course there are always the more obvious…one type of fish chasing another type of fish out of it’s territory and, now maybe I’m imagining it…but it seems that with Spotted Morays…fish gather around to look…perhaps protect…I’m really not sure. In fact I have a Spotted Moray story…for another day. So anyway the purpose of this tangent is that when my weight pouch dropped and I looked down for it…I could tell where it went by the flurry of fish activity coming around it to check it out! So after picking up mine…I went back to the area around where Paul had first had buoyancy issues…and sure enough there was another flurry of fish although they had gotten a little more bored with it…the newness had worn off? So there I was at about 35 feet with my weight back and ALL of Paul’s 14 pounds! I surfaced slowly and hung around at 15 feet or so watching a Peacock Flounder. When I got to the surface Paul and I got the weights onto the back of the boat and started laughing at our predicament! First thing after showering we went to one of the local dive shops in town and got Paul a new mask!! Then after dropping all four of the tanks off at WannaDive by dingy…one of the cruiser friendly dive shops we had heard about…we went to the cruisers happy hour. I mentioned to Fred about the “stuff” on the reef…and she said…”it was Omar”. Before Omar the reef had been pristine…Omar’s surge brought junk down. The great news is that the diving cruisers have been getting some of the worst junk (tires etc) off of the reef with the help of the Park and locals! Also at the cruiser happy hour Paul ran into a couple he had met a few years ago in Margarita…he had been around the world in a Pearson 38…and in this area he has stayed. It was fun to listen to him…and to hear his input on our Juan Greigo experience! Perhaps a tale for Paul to tell!