This week we celebrated the world famous Bonaire Marine Park with the Bonaire Dive Week! With a wide variety of activities, such as free dip-dives with Ocean Reef IDM Systems and a Clean Up Dive, divers and snorkelers got the chance to enjoy our world famous reefs and contribute to a debris free ocean at the same time!

The Bonaire Dive Week started off with a grand opening at our Dive Inn location, followed by an Aria Snorkel Excursion at Te Amo Beach. In addition to being a dive site within Bonaire National Marine Park, Te Amo Beach is also very popular amongst snorkelers. Not only is the reef at Te Amo located very close to shore, the sandy beach also makes for a super easy entrance! Not suprisingly, Te Amo is an all time favourite for first time and experienced snorkelers alike! Moreover, the Ocean Reef Aria Full Face Snorkel Mask makes snorkeling fun for everyone!

Besides snorkel tours and free dip-dives, we also celebrated Bonaire diving with festivals, lectures, workshops and a Clean Up Dive. On Sunday, May 22, 2016, 15 Bonaire Dive Week participants joined a Clean Up Dive, organized by Dive Friends Bonaire, at Cha Cha Cha Beach. After collecting tanks at Dive Inn and learning more about what items should be collected, the divers entered the water at the beautiful sand beach in front of Dive Inn. An hour - and a very successful dive - later, the divers returned with no less than 80 items of marine debris!

The debris collected by the volunteers mainly consisted of plastic and rubber fragments. The most significant items removed were fishing line, cups and plates (12 in total!), food wrappers, strapping bands, bottles, jars, rubber bands and metal caps and lids. The divers furthermore found a number of towels, cloth fragments, books and newspapers, and last but not least, flip flops!

Discarded fishing line poses a serious threat of entanglement and drowning to endangered sea turtles, as well as other marine life. Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire is targeting the issue with additional “line clean up dives” with tanks supplied by Dive Friends, but it requires constant vigilance around all of the piers of Bonaire.

The next quarterly Dive Friends Bonaire underwater cleanup is scheduled for Saturday, July 9th, 2016.