East Coast Diving = lots of turtles!!

 If you don't like turtles, don't read this post and don't go diving on the east side. It is full of turtles. In fact, the second dive site is called turtle city where the turtles go to nap after eating. The first dive was at Funchi. Either way, the dives are right outside of Lac Bay off the barrier reef separating the east side of Bonaire from the Atlantic Ocean. The turtles love to visit the bay to have their fill of sea grass and then they head out to nap in Turtle City where there's a cleaning station for them to get brightened up for the road. The dives are drift dives in fairly strong current so you basically just float along and see tons of stuff. The coral is also a lot of healthy on this side.

We dive with East Coast Diving and they are great: https://www.bonaireeastcoastdiving.com/ 

huge lobster!

eagle ray

Jimmy - he likes to sleep in the coral

moray eel

nurse shark

nurse shark close up

sandy drumfish

another huge lobster

large turtle with 2 remora (sucker fish)

pufferfish from above

remora swimming

After diving on the East side, we had lunch at Sebastian's Beach - the sister restaurant of our favorite place in Bonaire - Sebastian's. We had a lovely view of the bay with the windsurfers

We drove back along the south side passing the salt pans

Dinner at Sebastian's

This is our favorite restaurant on the island. The food is great. It's right on the water. There's a pier where you can sit over the water. Now, this used to be for a single table offering a magical private experience. But this year we found that it was expanded to host 10+ tables. Not quite so private. But food was still great. Although service was a bit slow - likely due to it being Valentine's day.

Diving Bonaire is amazing, as usual

On our first diving day, we did 2 dives from our dive company Dive Friends Yellow Submarine which is a 2 minute walk from our condo. This was super convenient.

Yesterday, we did Angel City and Salt Pier. Angel city had surprisingly few angelfish but was still an amazing dive. We saw 5+ pufferfish which are so cute! and a very large drumfish.

Salt Pier is always beautiful with large schools of fish. It was on and off raining today and we were able to time it just right that we dove here when the clouds parted and it was sunny the whole dive. This makes for beautiful rays of light through the salt pier beams. We saw so many baracudas! And more angelfish than at Angle city. The schools of fish were there of course and it was a shame I couldn't figure out the video function in time.

Here are some pictures from yesterday.

giant pufferfish

pretty christmas tree worms

finally - a French Angelfish

stoplight parrotfish

French Angelfish

schools of fish

schooling

drumfish

baracudas

butterflyfish

Today, we went up to one of our favorite sites - Karpata. We didn't do this last time because of the rough seas. Today was a respite from the high winds so it was a good chance to dive this site. It's always a tough entry and exit so extra hard with extra wind.

I was sad to see how much bleaching of the coral was at this site. But there were tons of small fish so hopefully they will rebuild the coral soon. 

banded coral shtrimp

tiger baracuda

cowfish

drumfish

A cool iguana hanging out by the dive site.

Our second dive was at another favorite - Something Special. It did not disappoint. There's always fun finds in the nooks and crannies. I saw a very large scorpionfish and lots of shrimp.

trumpetfish

moray eel

lionfish

butterflyfish

drumfish

blenny

sunfish in the blue

    queen angelfish

snake

Pederson cleaner shrimp

burrfish

Pederson cleaner shrimp

Bonaire - we are finally back!!

After an unprecidented 5 year hiatus, we are finally back in Bonaire! Due to location limitations on reasonable air routes and pandemic bans of travelers, Bonaire is finally an option again. Just as beautiful as ever - above and below the water.

We went for 2 dives today from dive friends yellow submarine house reef. We saw such awesome things - hawksbill turtle, eagle ray, green turtle, 7! squids, moray eel, sea snakes, lionfish, pufferfish and burrfish. What a great first day! Of course I didn't bring my underwater camera on my first day as I usually do so no photo evidence :(

saw a guy catching a fish

that attracted some big birds

last bit of the sunset