Alice In Wonderland

This was the best dive of my trip to Bonaire, which included dives at, among others, 1000 Steps, The Hilma Hooker, Monte's Divi (Klein Bonaire) and Town Pier. The entry/exit was a little rocky, but fairly easy because of a complete lack of any serious waves at the entry/exit point. The swim out to the buoy was again easy. The inner reef starts soon after the buoy. There is an almost vertical drop off to about 85 feet. The drop off is predominantly covered by tightly packed stony corals that seem to grow in flatter shapes the deeper you go. On this particular day, there was a very slight current going South along the reef. Down at about 85 feet, there is a sandy plain. The sand was very clean, with no corals or algae growing on it. I knew there was supposed to be an outer reef, but looking West I could not see it. Swimming West I started seeing the outer reef after just a few seconds, but I have to admit that these seconds felt like an eternity. Visibility was about 70 feet, so I estimate that the outer reef was about 100 feet from the inner reef, at the point where my buddy and I made the crossing. Further North however, there are some coral islands, connected to the outer reef, that come very close to the inner reef. The outer reef, also comprised of predominantly stony corals, rises from the sandy plain to about 65 feet. Some of the coral formations resembled large mushrooms. Going further West over the outer reef, my buddy and I encountered a massive drop off; the bottom was nowhere in sight. Looking down I got the curious feeling that I was about to float off the end of the Earth. Looking up I realized that we were about to swim into a school of Horse Eye Jacks. By this time we had been down there for 20 minutes. Sadly, it was time to go back to the inner reef and find the rest of our group. Of course, the crossing back to the inner reef seemed much shorter than before. Swimming back South along the inner reef, we soon encountered the rest of our group. They had missed the best part of the dive; at least, that is what I hoped.