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Bonaire: a Caribbean diving holiday

A yellow frogfish stalks prey at Bonaire

I visited the island of Bonaire, located in the Dutch Caribbean (along with Aruba and Curacao), with Rémy Lafon for a few days early in March of 1998. Generally good visibility and a protected western coastline offer pleasant easy diving. An unfortunate incident with the airline baggage transfers resulted in very few dives with underwater
photographic equipment. The images here are only a hint of the site’s potential, particularly for macro photo subjects. That said, the diversity of fish species a diver might encounter in the Caribbean is only about 1/6th of that in an Indo-Pacific site such as Sipadan. What is surprising in the Caribbean is the large number of fish and invertebrates totally specific to the region. The averted diver will find his rewards in the discovery of contrasts and parallels between the two different ecosystems. Subject to considerable tourism, conservation has been an early concern at Bonaire leading to the esablishment, in 1979 of the Bonaire Marine Park with fixed moorings on dive sites. It became a National Park of the Netherlands Antilles in 1999.

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