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Supposing you had to design the perfect photographic dive
site - what would your specifications include? Well, your
hotel might be situated on a sandy beach, which would of course
provide superb shore diving, with a reef dropping down a wall
to 80 feet to an eel garden below. Other dive sites would
be reached in only ten minutes by boat, providing a huge variety
of fish life and corals, with visibility. over a hundred feet
and water so warm that wet suits would be a thing of the past.
When you got back to the jetty, your film would be processed
while you planned the next dive.
All
too good to be true? That's what I thought when reading the
rave reviews in Skin Diver and the travel brochures. However,
having just returned from Bonaire, 50 miles north of Venezuela
in the Caribbean, let me tell you it's all true! For years
now I have been diving in the Red Sea, and good as it is,
I've been looking for an alternative site with better access
(wouldn't it be nice to step off your plane and be in your
hotel in five minutes, instead of five hours?), better photographic
backup (sand-free E6 processing), real food to eat (instead
of the usual camel), and above all, superb diving.
The
reef in front of the hotel I stayed in started about twenty
feet out and twenty feet down. It then dropped to one hundred
feet, where there is an eel garden. Anyone who has tried to
photograph these creatures will know how difficult it can
be, but from behind a specially constructed screen the eels
can be photographed at leisure.
What
about fish life? Well, on our first dive we were greeted by
Yellow-tails, Spanish Hog fish, Trumpet fish, Spotted and
Green Morays, Damsels, File fish, Mutton Snappers . . . the
list goes on. But it is the close-up life on the reef which
makes it so outstanding. Hundreds of Christmas Tree Worms,
finger sponges, purple tube sponges, arrow crabs, and flamingo
tongues abound. A close-up photographers dream come true.
Remember
this is just in front of the hotel, on what is aptly called
'Doorstep Reef'. What about the other dive sites? Most of
them are within a five to fifteen minute boat ride away. Bonaire
is about 20 miles long and 5 miles wide, and roughly boomerang-shaped.
The Bonaire Beach Hotel, where we stayed, is on the inside
curve. This is the leeward side of the island, so most of
the dive sites are quickly accessible and safe.
About
a mile offshore from the hotel is a small uninhabited island
called 'Klein Bonaire'. This has about 17 dive sites all around
it, with all the above marine life and more (I won't bore
you with a list). These sites are reached by one of three
'flat top' dive boats. Kitting up on one of these, with so
much room for yourself and all your gear, is pure bliss. The
boat leaves the jetty at about 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. with time
in the evening for a night dive. It would be easier to forget
the tables and grow gills!
Certainly
from my point of view one of the most exciting facilities
was the photographers dive shop inside the dive centre. Run
by Dave Venslavsky, it boasts a range of equipment which seemed
greater than the stock of our largest photographic outlet,
and all of it could be hired at very reasonable rates. Dave
also runs E6 processing, with fresh chemicals on each run.
Cost of one 36-exposure film is about 08. Well worth it when
you calculate the cost of returning because of duff exposures
or an equipment fault. He is also equipped to service and
repair your Nikonos or flash gun, even saving a flooded Nikonos
IVA while we were there.
During
our stay we witnessed the sinking of two ships. The first
was a 230' freighter, which had been impounded by the authorities
for carrying marijuana, 25,000 lbs of the stuff. This was
subsequently burnt in a huge bonfire! (What a party!!!). The
ship was then sunk in 80 - 100' of water, for the benefit
of divers visiting the island. We dived the wreck the next
day, to find it lying on its side at the bottom of a reef
slope, not having damaged the reef at all. A spectacular site
by any standard. It will be interesting to see the rate of
coral growth over the years to come. The second wreck was
sunk in front of the hotel in 70' of water. Once a small tug,
it too is now on its way to becoming a man-made reef.
This
trip also gave me the opportunity to put the new Nikonos flash
gun, the SB102, through its paces. Using the principle of
through the lens (TTL) metering with the Nikonos V, this system
provides perfect exposures all of the time. Starting with
a 1 : I extension tube and a standard 35 mm lens, I found
that with any f-stop setting, the exposures were all the same.
Switching to a 15 mm lens (no, not underwater) it was the
same story, with the added facility for using flash for fill
in light, or as a main source, merely by altering the aperture
of the lens. Anything that makes picture taking easier must
be a bonus. There are a couple of faults however, the case
could be much sturdier and the 'target light' beam is far
too narrow but all in all it is a major step forward in underwater
flash photography.
The
only thing wrong with Bonaire, which offers 360 days diving
a year, is it eats all of your film!
Reproduced
from in focus 6. Mar. 1984
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