Bonaire 2013

---

Great day today! First let me say congratulations to our friends Dave and Donna, today they passed their Nitrox certification training and are now certified Nitrox divers!!! Using Nitrox vs- air allows for longer bottom times and shorter surface intervals, and Jim and I both think the Nitrox helps us recover quicker and we are not so tired at the end of the day. So way to go Dave and Donna!

Our first dive today was an easy out and a tough swim back in. A couple of divers that were just coming in as we were going out said they had struggled coming in from their dive swimming south, and said they were diving against the current coming back. So we started our first dive against the current (like your suppose to) and headed in a southerly direction. It was way too easy and we ended up swimming against the current coming back. It was a tough return. Lesson here, never listen to other divers, figure it out for yourself. Other than a couple big groupers there was nothing fantastic to report about the first dive, except that we all made it back safely with air to spare.

So we loaded tanks in the truck and headed to our next dive site on the other side of the island. We found an easy beach entry and had a great dive. Beautiful soft and hard corals, colorful sponges, and best of all no current! We also spotted a couple of black and white spotted eels on the dive.

Jim and I did a third dive while Dave and Donna were taking their class. We dove a site we have done before called Andrea I, and saw the biggest Midnight Parrot Fish we have ever seen. The pictures do not do it justice, because it was at least 45-50 lbs, and probably 40" long. It swam right along with us or just in front of us for almost the entire dive. We also spotted a scorpion fish which is hard to do since they blend in with their surroundings and a big beautiful queen angel fish. It was a great dive.

Tonight Jim and Dave did a night dive, which is exactly what it is called. You dive at night with only a high powered flashlight. You only see what is in the beam of your flashlight. I don't night dive because the large tarpon (60-80" long and approximately 60-80#) use your flashlight beam to feed. So they swim very close to your arm, close enough to touch, in the hope you'll spot their next meal for them. Tarpon are bright silver and very reflective. I tried to upload the video but the blog won't take an MP4, so I'll post the video on Facebook for now.

---

Photos

Scorpion Fish
They blend in perfectly to their surroundings. His tail gave him away.

Queen Angel
My favorite fish, I love the colors. If she was facing the camera, you would see a little dark mark like a crown just above her eyes.

Midnight Parrot Fish
This guy was so big it was unbelievable. He wasn't afraid of us at all, but swam right along beside or in front of almost through the whole dive.