Let’s start this post about diving around Klein Bonaire off with a little disclaimer. I cannot edit underwater photos. When I tried Adobe Lightroom my photos turned into unrealistic looking sci-fi scenes, which would be nice if I would be writing about a trip to another planet. When I try editing photos my usual way with Windows Photo Gallery they stay completely blue. To mix things up I chucked some black & white photos in there, but it’s far from perfect. Such is life, just picture some colour in these pictures and maybe in a few months I’ll learn how to really edit underwater photography!

(Or to take underwater selfies. I took around five and none of them have my friend in them)

Diving Klein Bonaire

Let’s cherish this one colourful photo in this post and let’s then move on to the beautifully blue underwater scenes at Klein Bonaire.

Bonaire is known as a diver’s paradise. Divers with experience can rent their gear, put it in pick-up trucks and drive anywhere along the coast to walk right into the sea for a dive. Bonaire is essentially a coral reef that has been pushed up and out of the sea. This why the coral formations are hugging the shorelines of the island.

Wannadive

My friend and I booked our refresher dive with Wannadive, because they were recommended to us by Ankie from Goood Resort. For some reason I put off diving for such a long time after getting my Open Water PADI in Bocas Del Toro, Panama six years ago. I’ve been snorkelling at place where I should’ve been diving (I’m looking at you Musandam), and the reason was that I put the bar for the refresher so high in my mind.

I’m happy I got back into it at Wannadive though. Mark, a Dutchie divemaster at Wannadive, instructed us to gear up to the best of our knowledge. We managed to put on our suit and we set the tank upright; when we held our BCD’s in our hands we had not idea how to proceed. Mark demonstrated it to us and with a lot of stressed giggling we managed to follow suit. That was all, the next step was to re-learn a few of the skills we had learned during the Open Water course in a swimming pool. And immediately after we made our way to the beach to dive at the house coral.

Front Porch

Our first dive location was Front Porch on Bonaire.

We dived for 32 minutes and we only we only reached 12 metres (40 feet) depth. You’ll see this more often in my future dive posts because the camera I have at the moment only reaches 15 metres (50 feet).

The coral wasn’t spectacular and there weren’t that many fish, but it felt so good to be fully emerged in the sea again. I hadn’t realized how much I missed diving until this holiday on Bonaire.

Mark showing off a flat fish.

Pretty corals.

Parrotfish! This is one of my faves since I spotted it snorkelling in Egypt! I like the sound they make when they’re scraping the sand and stones from the ocean floor with their beaks.

My first octopus.

My first underwater dive selfie.

Scorpion fish, which is the just as poisonous equivalent of the stone fish in places like Egypt. So if you see it, don’t step on it.

Klein Bonaire

We wanted to only book guided dives with Wannadive, because we felt we weren’t ready to do it by yourselves yet. The dive school offered mostly dives at Klein Bonaire (and one really special one at Salt Pier, but I’ll dedicate my next post to that subject), so that’s where we went.

Captain Don, Klein Bonaire

The day after the refresher we booked our first guided dive at 9am. Upon arrival, we were asked if we would be able to gear up ourselves after the refresher. Well uh, no. So of course they helped. What was great was that all our diving gear was hanging in the storage room. We wouldn’t need to pick out new stuff everyday.

The guided dive would only be a small group; two other divers and Mark. It didn’t take us more than 15 minutes to reach the island. We received our instructions (I had to leave my camera onboard because we would be diving more than 15 metres (50 feet)) and we flipped backwards into the water.

The dive was gorgeous in terms of coral. We didn’t spot many special fishes. I saw a lion fish which is remarkably rare because they are hunted down and eaten, and that was it. My friend’s tank ran low so we turned back and swam around the shallows for a long time where we saw Captain Don’s reef plaque. All in all this dive was 45 minutes and we reached 18,2 metres (60 feet) depth.

Sharon’s Serenity, Klein Bonaire

The third day of diving was a day with two dives. One at Klein Bonaire in the morning and one at Salt Pier in the afternoon. Similar to the day before we headed to Wannadive at 9am to gear up for our trip to Klein Bonaire to Sharon’s Serenity.

This time around I was told I could bring my camera as long as I would keep track of the depth myself. Having this camera is a bit of a hassle, but taking underwater photos is becoming a hobby of mine – I noticed the photos kept getting better as time progressed – unfortunately (as you can see for yourself now) I need to learn to edit them.

This dive was mostly corals again. The day was overcast and windy, which affected our visibility. Also we had some people on our tour who continued to appear below us. One lady in particular was very skilled at that, even if I would move out of the way, the lady would find her way below me again.

That’s probably her behind us as well, during yet another failed selfie attempt.

Let’s enjoy the corals a bit more though, shall we.

There was seagrass, but no turtles unfortunately.

At one point during the dive Simon, the divemaster, apparently tried to point out a stingray. Many people saw it, I completely missed it. I did get caught in a school of fish though.

After 46 minutes of diving, we called it a day at Sharon’s Serenity.

Conclusion

I loved being back in the water! These three dives were really special, even though visibility wasn’t great and there weren’t that many fish. It was more about getting back into this hobby that got me excited. Klein Bonaire is a beautiful place to dive. However, the only place I can compare it with is Bocas del Toro and that was much worse on all fronts (visibility, fish, corals). Klein Bonaire would soon be outdone by an incredibly special sight. I wonder if there’s any dive site in the world that’s comparable to Salt Pier, you’ll see what I mean in my next post.