With our boat dives completed, today was planned to be a day for shore diving. We got up as usual at 6:30 AM, and I went to have breakfast just before 7 AM with my parents. The original plan was for Todd, Dad and I to go shore diving after breakfast, however at breakfast I learned that Dad’s sinuses were acting up, so we ended up deciding that just Todd and I would be diving. I was hoping that we could visit the Salt Pier for one of our dives, however that was contingent on the pier not being occupied, so I had some backup options ready as well.
After breakfast Todd and I retrieved our gear from the lockers, and then went to the car and got our gear and some air tanks loaded into the truck. At 8 AM Mom and Dad joined us at the truck, and we started the drive down through Kralendijk to the Salt Pier. Salt is still commercially mined in Bonaire, and once the salt is collected it is off of the island by ship. There is a dedicated pier for the salt boats to dock at, and there is typically a ship there for a few days every couple of months. When a ship isn’t docked at the pier, it’s a popular place to dive. The dive site is popular for a few reasons: there is a beach with easy access to the water, the current is mild, and a lot of wildlife and coral can be found around the pier. When we arrived at the pier we saw that it was empty, which meant we could dive. There were multiple other pickups parked at the site, and we could see divers both getting into and coming out of the water. We got our gear setup in the back of the truck, and after completing our safety checks we walked into the water. The entry wasn’t too bad - the waves were pretty mild and it wasn’t difficult to get out into the water and get our fins on. We swam out to the end of the pier on the surface, and once we reached the end of the pier we descended and started the dive.
As I was descending one of my weight pouches fell out of my BCD, thankfully Todd saw it happen and retrieved it for me. After re-inserting the weight pouch we continued with the dive. It was a really cool dive site to explore - there were many large schools of fish hanging out around the pillars of the pier, and there were a few times when large porcupinefish swam right by us. We saw a few pairs of barracuda on the dive - they got closer than on any other dives and I made sure to cover up my rings to avoid showing something shiny to attract them. We also found a couple of octopi in the shallower parts of the reef. I really enjoyed the dive - it was an easy dive site to explore and there was minimal current to contend with. The dive lasted almost 70 minutes, and even with the dive lasting so long I surfaced with 900 PSI left in the tank.
After getting out of the water we met up with my parents at the truck, while we were underwater they had been exploring around the pier. We got our gear disassembled and into the truck, and drove back to the resort. On the way back to the resort we made a quick detour to stop at the Van Den Twell grocery store to pick up a few things for lunch for our remaining days. Todd and I waited with our equipment at the truck while my parents went in to the store. After they returned we continued on to the resort where we rinsed our gear and returned our air tanks.
I had leftover pizza and some raw vegetables for lunch. It was a pretty quick break for lunch, once we’d eaten we went back down and loaded up the truck with our gear and air tanks again. Mom decided to stay back for the second dive, so it was Todd, Dad and I who left to head to the second shore dive site which I’d chosen. It was called Bachelor’s Beach, and it was located a little bit south of the Bonaire airport. Pulling into the parking lot there was a nice view of the ocean, and there were some free parking spots. The entrance to this dive site required descending a metal staircase to a large rock, where we had to navigate down to the sandy beach and then in to the water. While we were getting our gear setup we saw another pair of divers getting ready to go, and we watched how they navigated the steps before following them. Once we were at the beach the entry into the water was quite straightforward, and we swam out to a marker buoy on the surface. Once we reached the buoy we caught our breath before descending, and then swam north to head into the current. The dive wasn’t bad, we saw a few schools of blue tang and some coral. Right before we turned the dive I found a small eel on the ground, which I was happy with. As we returned to the start of the dive we didn’t see a ton - overall it was an alright dive site but nothing fantastic. We had no issues making it back to the buoy with air to spare - we spent just over 60 minutes on this dive before ascending and swimming back to shore.
After getting out of the water we climbed the steps and got our gear disassembled without issue, and then drove back to the resort. After we rinsed our gear and returned the air tanks we also returned all our rental equipment. By the time it was all wrapped up and our own gear was drying in the room it was 4 PM. All of us went down to the beach and read for an hour, and at 5 PM Todd and I went up to get cleaned up and ready for dinner.
This evening we had decided it would be nice to watch the sun set, which had been happening at roughly 6:30 PM. Our room had a great view of the west, so we decided to do takeaway for dinner and eat it on our balcony. At 5:45 PM we walked to Donair Station Hato, which was a short walk. We had walked past it several times as we had been getting ice cream, and it always smelled tasty, so we decided to get donair for dinner. It was a popular place, there were multiple orders ahead of ours, but we managed to get our dinner and make it back to our patio by 6:20 PM. We had a great view of the sun as it set, and we got to enjoy a delicious meal while it happened. After dinner we stayed sitting on the balcony and chatted until around 7:45 PM, when my parents headed back to their room. Afterwards Todd and I did our dive logs, and then we read before heading to bed at 9:30 PM.
