Belnem, International

Today started with a dive on the reef off our condo. I promptly flooded my dive camera and returned to the condo, but Paul, Emily, and the girls staying with us proceeded with the dive. They saw a baitball, lionfish (dang), a porcupine fish, honeycomb cowfish, and all the normal reef life.

In the afternoon the girls were in their marine ecology class learning about coral restoration on Bonaire. They actually got to work on maintenance of the coral farm trees.

While the class was working, Paul and I went out to some sites that weren’t as feasible with our large group.

Our first afternoon dive was Bari reef, the #1 dive site in the Caribbean for marine life diversity. It didn’t disappoint (although we still prefer Tori’s Reef). Like at Tori’s, you spend your dive here surrounded by fish. The reef does come to a sudden stop at the south end, but it was at a good turn-around time. I came upon a peacock flounder that was trying to blend in with a pipe, which was new to me.

After that, we went to Cliff. This was also a nice reef, healthy with lots of fish and corals. Nice dive, but a narrow entry next to a big rock makes it a bit tricky.

After dinner, Emily and I went on a night dive at Belmar. The dive was for her advanced certification and was pretty shallow over the sand and soft corals. There were lots of tiny critters (maybe larval fish) that loved our lights…along with some small jellyfish. None of my pictures from this dive were worthwhile.