In this column you will find stories of things that happen at our Bonaire Dive and Adventure dive shop, told by our dive masters and instructors. 

To be a dive master or an instructor you really have to love your job, if not you better find something else to do. Of course this is true for any job, but in my experience it is even more true for dive masters. It is a physically heavy job with fierce responsibilities and low pay, but for those of us who are hooked, it is also a lot of fun and a source of pleasure and satisfaction. I think the combination of this produces the highly motivated colleagues that I found here at Bonaire Dive and Adventure.

Most of the dive master stories are about this fun part, and on this website we will share some of them.

April 2007...

The Bonairian Double

Here at Bonaire Dive & Adventure we always like to brag about our house reef. As the REEF figures show, Bari Reef is the #1 in the Caribbean on fish diversity: more than 350 species have been identified here.

Unfortunately, as a dive master I hardly get a chance to dive Bari Reef because I usually dive from the boats. But every once in a while I get lucky and last Thursday was one of these days. The divers for the two o'clock boat had cancelled, and Jerry offered to show me the Bonairian Double on Bari. For those of you who are not lucky enough to have attended Jerry's Dive with the Naturalist course I will explain what a Bonairian Double is. When you see a frogfish and a Seahorse on one dive, you have seen a Bonairian Double. On my previous dives on Bari Reef I did find a Seahorse, but the Frogfish had been too hard to find. You can imagine that I was very happy with Jerry's offer.

Now there happened to be two Dutch diver friends of Andre that day. They know Andre from the old days when men were still men and diving was for tough guys only. The Dutch had told us some juicy stories of the ice diving they did with Andre in Holland. You know, drilling a hole in the ice and get in to dive with your 7 mil wetsuit! Brrrr, I am starting to shiver when only thinking of it.  The Dutch friends joined us on the dive, as did one of my colleagues.

As soon as we jumped in the water we were in for our first surprise: a huge school of Round Scad clouded the water around us. And I remembered: each spring we have spectacular underwater shows in the shallows, starring Bar Jacks, Horse Eye Jacks and sometimes Barracuda and/or Tarpon chasing the big schools of Scad and Silversides. I can watch the tactics of the predators and the evasive behavior of the polarized schools for hours and not be bored for one second. But we did not linger too long. On this dive we were on a mission!

On our way to the frogfishes, Jerry showed us Marge’s Sponge. By the looks of it, a sponge like any other, but Marge (see her article on Armina nudibranchs in the Bubbles from the naturalist tank) found some rare species in that sponge. Jerry looked for a minute in the sponges and showed us what he found: I was very excited to see a juvenile Harlequin Pipefish, the first one I ever saw. After that Jerry swam south and a couple of minutes later he stopped to look around. A reddish brownish sponge was growing right next to a golden yellow one. And between the sponges we saw … two frogfishes. One reddish and one gold colored frogfish sitting side by side. What a fantastic sight that was! And it was not over yet. We went up 20 feet and on the sandy terrace Jerry showed us a large metal bar and on that bar another couple of frogfishes. I looked at Jerry's slate: “ they are all over the place” he wrote smiling widely. After that he casually showed us some Rusty Gobies, Sailfin Blennies, a Saddled Blenny, you know, the ordinary stuff you see on Bari Reef. And we came to the rope sponge were I knew the seahorse would be. Jerry found it in a minute, where I usually take at least five.

Well, that's the difference between an experienced naturalist and a humble dive master.  But it was not over yet… Jerry went on and showed us a second Longsnout Seahorse hiding in a gorgonian! A double Bonairian double! And on our way back to the dock he stopped at what I recognized to be a corkscrew anemone. Now I know from previous dives with Jerry what to expect in there, a Red Snapping Shrimp, also known as Pistol Shrimp. This one was really ready for us. As soon as Jerry pointed his finger the shrimp jumped out to attack! I could hear the claw snapping and Jerry retreated. Every time Jerry would get his finger too close to the anemone, the pistol shrimp attacked. This was a worthy final for this dive, and completely satisfied we got out of the water to rinse our gear. Our Dutch guests were thoroughly impressed: “We should have started diving Bari Reef on our first day here!”, they said to Andre. “Next time you come to Bonaire you dive with us, wherever you are staying on the island.” Andre told them. “We certainly will come back!” his friends told him. “We are not done with Bonaire yet.”

Photo credit two photos: Peter Forster

December 2006...

The Farewell Party

Saying goodbye to colleagues is one of the things us dive masters get used to. People who work in the dive industry are travelers, who want to see the world. Now Bonaire is an island that gets a hold on people, and that is why dive masters and instructors stay longer than the worldwide islands average. But they do leave every once in a while. Like Marko, our sailor dive instructor. Two years ago he arrived on Bonaire on his 40 ft sailing yacht and now the traveler’s itch hit him. In December 2006 he will raise his sails again and set a course for Cuba.

On his goodbye party we surprised him with an assignment: with his vision limited he had to walk a compass guided track through “the Caribbean”. Of course there were some obstacles when he deviated from the right track. Cheered and laughed at by the rest of us, Marko only managed to avoid one out of four of those obstacles. But he reached “Cuba” in the end and with that accomplishment he got permission from his, now former, colleagues to set sail.

After his trip Marko is planning to come back to Bonaire. Rumors are this is related to a certain KLM stewardess who frequently flies to our island (hence the hats). Who knows, we will welcome him back to Bonaire Dive and Adventure some time next year.

The Dive Master Baptism

A couple of months ago, Waldo joined our team to take care of our Adventure activities (kayaking, cave trips, mountain biking etc.). Now Waldo already was a diver, but to widen his scope he started his Dive Master training right away. Last week he got certified. Some of our readers may know that a Dive Master does not get certified without being baptized as such. Coincidentally the baptism was on the same day we said goodbye to Marko. On the pictures you see what happens when your colleagues celebrate. First Waldo had to get on his knees to solemnly promise to obey and serve all instructors, and then all instructors present baptized him by pouring beer in his snorkel. It is no surprise that after a promise like that Waldo immediately started the Instructor Development Training.