Marine Life Encounters Blog

Town Pier in Bonaire - The best night dive in the Caribbean, now closed, but hopefully not for long.

Sept 13-19, 2009 Bonaire - The week before Anna and I traveled to Bonaire on what has become our annual September stay as guests of Buddy Dive, I received a phone call from ol’ friend, David Espinosa, who had recently been appointed to the editorship of Scuba Diving – a well deserved congratulations to both David and the magazine – in my estimation a perfect fit and a coup for diving. David was inquiring about the current status of diving at Bonaire’s Town Pier and Salt Pier in the process of researching a possible article. I had heard rumors of some damage from a storm the previous year but knew little more about the situation. The web produced conflicting information, but for the most part indicated that the piers were closed and had been for some time. The news was troubling. I count the piers among the best night dives in the world, and I love night diving.

Once on the island, we discover that Town Pier is indeed closed and has been since the previous October when the surge from hurricane Omar did a number on the pier, scouring sponges off the pilings and causing significant damage making diving unsafe. However, it seemed that some folks were diving at Salt Pier making shore entries at Salt City, just south of the Cargill property.

After investigation the situation further, we find that the story behind the closure goes back to before Omar. Following 9/11, docks and other transportation facilities around the world were required by treaty to heighten security. In response, the Harbor Master at Bonaire began requiring everyone visiting the docks to be accompanied by a registered guide who was responsible for providing, via fax, names and passport numbers 24-hours in advance. The policy capped the numbers of divers per guide at four, and limited dives to one hour. No permits were issued when large vessels were in port. The policy allowed divers to dive and put a much appreciated jingle in the pockets of local dive guides. There were grumbles here and there about the procedure, but for the most part, everything went along swimmingly until Hurricane Omar raised it ugly head. After the storm, the Harbor Master, faulted dangling cables, but adding to the decision to close the structures were ongoing legitimate complaints about the extra paperwork created by the constant processing of permits. So as of last October, it was decreed that no more dock diving permits would be issued for the foreseeable future.

Anna and I gladly hopped at an invitation from Ellen Muller and Linda Baker,  to join them for a night dive under Town Pier. The pair had been granted a special permit by the Harbor Master, so they could check on the health of the marine life and survey damage prior to repairs and construction scheduled to begin in a matter of weeks. It was a rare opportunity to explore a classic dive site with two of the Caribbean’s best marine naturalists. Linda, who has been a dive guide at Bruce Bowker’s Carib Inn for nearly two decades, knows as much about the island’s fish life as anyone having contributed  well over a thousand fish surveys to REEF’s database. To understand just how good Ellen is at finding and documenting unusual marine life, view her work at www.pbase.com/imagine. Her web site brims with images of unique, often never-before-seen animals from Bonaire, photographed, mainly at night, during the past several years.  

In the 11 months since Omar, marine growth on the piling has made a strong comeback, as well it should. The thick growth, made up primarily of fouling organisms such as Golden Cup Coral, an invasive species from the Pacific, and encrusting sponges, grows like weeds. But what beautiful weeds they are, blanketing the 20- to 40-foot piling from sand to surface with a unrivaled display of dazzling colors. The great stands of tube sponges, some reaching six feet in length, vanished with the storm, however  starter colonies of the fast-growing organisms are popping up everywhere.  By the time the repairs and extension have been completed  and the pier is reopened to diving, sometime in 2010, the animals should be back to their previous state of opulence.

Video – Colonial Animals Blanket the Pilings from Sand to Surface

As impressive as animal colonies covering the pilings are, we have come to see the critters that creep out of the tangle after dark. The thick growth also attracts sea horses and frogfish – two of Bonaire’s superstars. The highlight of the night is a red, fingernail-sized longlure frogfish perched on a yellow sponge. There is always a total surprise under the pier, like a the distinctive little red mystery goby that makes an appearance for only a few seconds. But crabs, and especially decorator crabs that pick living bits from their surroundings to disguise their presence, steal the show. Another rare sight, Anna finds an arrow crab wiggling out of its molt. And the small nudibranch inhabiting the pilings and bottom debris aren’t shabby.    

Toward the end of last year’s stay Anna and I began hunting for examples of symbiosis on the reef and sand flat extending from Buddy’s to town. The discovery of a Orangespotted Goby and its symbiotic snapping shrimp got us started on the venture. The alert goby acts as a sentinel for a near-blind burrowing shrimp that builds and maintains a burrow for the pair. Anna’s discovery of an arrow shrimp hiding within gorgonian plumes quickly followed. Soon we added highly specialized shrimp living exclusively within host basket stars, sea biscuits, crinoids, and anemones. Ellen Muller put us onto a fun find; an unclassified brown and white shrimp that lives nowhere but inside Touch-Me-Not Sponges. Peering into dozens of sponge openings to locate the half-inch crustaceans, causes us to take a closer look a the white specks of worms that dot the sponges’ surface. All the exciting animals we discover, only make us even more mindful of the many wonders we are almost certainly missing. ~ Ned DeLoach

Video - Basket Star Shrimp

Coral Spawning, Sponge Spawning and Fish Spawning… A night diving bonanza in Bonaire.

Sept 7-12, 2009 Bonaire It is night diving time here on Bonaire as everyone eagerly anticipates the wondrous happenings of coral spawning week. There are few places in the world better for accessing the annual event than along the island’s calm western coast where shore diving offers unfettered access to the reef. Although 7 pm to midnight during the 6^th through 8^th nights following the full moons of September and October are your best bets for observing one of sea’s most splendid spectacles, we’ve learned long ago to begin our night excursions earlier in the week – nature always has a way of dishing up surprises on her own time schedule.

It’s not just the corals that find the time period intoxicating, even the libido of fishes and other invertebrates  slips into overdrive. On a Monday afternoon dive at Klein, we find hundreds of Brown Chromis down on the reef spreading invisible gamete trails in algae, much to the culinary delight of surgeonfishes and Scrawled Filefish, which join forces to scavenge the little damselfish’s fat-filled eggs. In the middle of the action the splendid 80-foot visibility begins turning into chalk. We trace the culprits down, and discover Bonaire’s ubiquitous Touch-Me-Not Sponges releasing clouds of smoky gametes.

Video of scrawled filefish and surgeonfish

Late that afternoon, just before sunset, Anna watches a brawny Peacock Flounder over-dosed on testosterone blazing around the sand flat in an attempt to cajole his harem of three coy females. His efforts pay big dividends, within the half hour he completes a successful high-flying spawning rise with each partner. Down on the reef slope I find Spanish Hogfish engaged in similar goings-on.

Video of flounder spawning

No coral spawning the first night, but we did find another treasure – a Princess Parrotfish sleeping inside a translucent cocoon. Although conventional wisdom holds that the bubble cloaks the slumbering fish’s scent from moray eels, the hypothesis has yet to be proven. Topping the evening off, on our way back to Buddy’s dock, a Caribbean Reef Squid, attracted and entranced by our lights, performs an enchanting eight-arm dance of undecipherable meaning.

The following evening a night diver’s nemesis settles around us in the form of a swirling cloud of planktonic life. Most distracting are the writhing worms that create buzzing halos around our lights and dodge in and out of our ears. Anna, whose dazzling video beams attract the most attention, is forced to switch them off to save her sanity. Experience has taught us to periodically expect these onslaughts and that the nuisance will soon pass. Such disquieting  events occur most often on moonless nights when banks of plankton are swept toward shore on the backs of current gyres and tides. It makes it easier for us to tolerate the madness knowing that the happening is nature’s way of refreshing the reef with a new wave of life. After the worms retreat, we turn Anna’s lights to our advantage,  attracting tiny post-larval fishes and crustaceans into their bright glow.

Two nights later sea cucumbers rise off the bottom like swaying cobras, releasing thick streams  of opaque spawn. Later we observe  a writhing cluster of Sponge Brittle Stars erupt in a shower of tiny specks. And not to be out done, another species of brittle star crawls out form crevices, rise on tiptoes, and liberates their stash of gleaming yellow eggs.

On night six following the full moon several heads of Giant Star Corals go into action. Male colonies spew dense jets of milky spawn, while the females eject golden globs. Finally, at 10 pm on the seventh night the long awaited mother load. We watch  wide eyed as the thousands of individual corallites encasing a four-foot mound of Lobed Star Coral begin to swell with packets. Each pinkish orb contains a mixture of male and female gametes that will rise to the surface and break apart creating a thick genetic stew. The strategy has allowed the stationary colonies to mix and remix reproductive material over the eons. After ten minutes or so, a simultaneous puff of BB-sized bundles lift free and linger briefly as one before drifting apart and ascending into the night. No matter how many times Anna and I have witnessed the spectacle, it retains an abiding sense of mystery and majesty pregnant with hope.  ~~Ned DeLoach

 

Spawning Christmas Tree Worms and a Gaudy Clown Crab top the list our first week in Bonaire

Back to Bonaire – Week One 

We’re back in Bonaire for our sixth consecutive September,  as guests of the good folks at Buddy Dive Resort. What a deal, for leading a couple of boat dive excursions, showing underwater slides of the wonderful marine wildlife there is to see right off the dock, and talking fish and critters with delightfully enthusiastic guests from around the world, we spend the month diving our hearts out in what today remains the Home of Diving Freedom. As is traditional, Eric Riesch, manager of New World Publications, makes the annual trek south with us, unfortunately only staying for the fist week. Oh, but what a week it has been!

We begin our diving with a welcoming committee of gray snapper, palometas, and other assorted freeloaders that linger under the shadows of Buddy’s dock waiting for food scraps to shower down from the heavenly restaurant above. As an added bonus, this year a seemingly endless school of silversides, attempting to take refuge along the seawall, split, swirl and reform as contented, overfed bar jacks and the occasional four-foot tarpon half-heartedly cut through their shimmering ranks.

Shortly after returning to our room to finish unpacking, we receive a welcomed phone call from Marge Lawson, one of Bonaire’s numerous underwater naturalists,  inviting us to an early afternoon gathering of fishwatching friends at her Sand Dollar condominium just down the shoreline from Buddy’s. What a treat, to meet up with ol’ friends who share our passion for sea life and know the local reefs intimately. There is nothing like a few insider tips about where the newest and most exciting critters can be found to get our first week off to a quick start. Along with Marge and her husband Jim, we’re greeted by two of REEF’s most active fish surveyors, Franklin and Cassandra Neil, and Bonaire’s celebrated underwater and topside naturalist, Jerry Ligon, who has been working for Bonaire Dive Adventures since the early 90s, and probably knows more about local fish lore than anyone. Together with another half dozen Sand Dollar residents, the group has been instrumental in keeping Bari Reef, the two-hundred meter sand flat and coral slope fronting Sand Dollar, the best documented stretch of ocean in the Caribbean. Franklin alone has contributed more than 800 surveys to the REEF’s database, many recording Bari’s prolific fish population. Cassandra a converted snorkeler, who has only been diving since moving to Bonaire three years ago, has already garnered a reputation as one of the best cryptic critter hunters on the island. Just the week before she documented the first sighting of a Gulf Pipefish from southern Caribbean waters. And while other accomplished fishwatchers only dream of ever catching a glimpse of the tiny and elusive Red Faced Moray, Cassandra boast six sightings. Before leaving, the group has us giddy with fishy tales, and lined us up the following day for an early afternoon dive to locate a juvenile Flying Gurnard, a rare visitor to local waters.

The following morning we drive south with Bonaire resident and underwater photographer, Bruce Zavon, who along with wife Karen and their dog Buddy recently settled on the island. Eric, Anna and I follow him south to Windsock where he has a stunning orange frogfish holed up at 38 feet.

 Tuesday is mangrove snorkeling with guests at Buddy, a special afternoon we always look forward to. Lac Bay located on the island’s southern shore provides a rare opportunity to explore a mangrove forest and seagrass meadow bathed in clear water. Eric has his camera in tow to take some shots of animals seldom seen along the ocean shore, including tiny, toothpick-thin, juvenile barracudas wearing camouflage suits, and dramatic Upsidedown Jelly, that make their home in the grass bed. Rather than dragging a mop of deadly stinging tentacles like other jellies, the pacifist members of genus Cassiopea, rest on shallow sea floors farming algae in their cauliflower-like tentacles.

Our streak continues that evening when Houston REEF Surveyor Madison Lee, Eric and I, leave exhausted Anna back at the room to catch up on e-mails, while we  head for a night dive at Front Porch. We find a dandy little cluster of decorator crabs hanging out on a frayed end of a abandoned mooring rope, but the show begins on the way back in when I notice a puff of smoke rising from the side of a concrete piling, which stops me dead in mid fin stoke. The smoke turns out to be male gametes rising from a set of four Christmas Tree Worms. Seconds later a plume of eggs spiral up the core of an adjacent female and drift off into the night.

On the night of the full moon Anna, Eric and I caravan south with Buddy Dive Manager Augusto Montbrun, his wife Wendy and son Eduardo to Salt Pier. The moon rising over the salt pans is so bright that we hardly need a light to navigate our way through a vast gorgonian field leading to the pier. The criss-crossed metal pilings hold a dense growth of sponges and Orange Cup Coral, perfect hiding places for cryptic crabs. I was proud of the sponge decorator I found, until near the end of the dive when I spot the most beautiful little crab in the Caribbean, if not anywhere, a rare Gaudy Clown Crab tucked in a sponge near the top of a piling. On my way back to shore I see Anna’s blast-furnace video lights off in the distance holding motionless, a sure sign something good is afoot. When I arrive on the scene, her dual thruster beams are lighting up a snow storm of gamete bundles slowly drifting from a huge stand of Black Sea Rods – a spectacular sight and a good omen for the annual week of coral spawning yet a week away. ~Ned DeLoach