Dive #32 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

Linda, Myron, and Mercedes celebrating another day of great diving.
Photograph by Rich Torkington in Bonaire 1998

Dive Journal: We return to Prisca's (found it first try) for another round of coconut and pina colada ice cream. Again delicious. We then take the back road (eastern side) south into Kralendijk, and emerge on the other side of town near the airport to a dive site called North Belnam. It's dusk, around 6:00PM, and Myron points out that twilight dives can be interesting, a chance to watch the night creatures take the place of day creatures.

The waning light seems to make the dive especially calm and tranquil. We see several pairs of fairy basslets, and a rather dusky looking critter called a black margate. Another goldentail moray is discovered. Midway down the reef slope, Myron detects an odd shaped shell and motions us around to investigate. It is a lobster, but a very unusual shape. We learn later that it is called a Spanish lobster, a member of the slipper lobster family. He has strange armor plates covering a beetle-like shape, and he thrusts away backwards when we bother him too much.