Dive your Brains!

Southeastern Divers, Inc.

2720 Governors Drive SW, Huntsville Alabama 35805 - Phone: 256-536-8404

"Training the best divers in North Alabama since 1980."

Max Gilbert PADI IDC Staff Instructor

How to dive your brains out in Bonaire…

My dive buddy, Abbott, and I go to Bonaire for one reason, and one reason only - to DIVE, DIVE, DIVE!!! We don’t waste time sitting in restaurants, going to the local grocery store, shopping in local shops, or sleeping all that much. Until our last dive of the week is done, we even stay out of the Deco Stop Bar at Captain Don’s Habitat (well, mostly). Our approach is that Bonaire has one thing in abundance that we can’t get at home, beautiful coral reefs!

Abbott is not only my dive buddy, he’s my workout buddy, my number one drinking buddy and best friend. We were combining the workouts and drinks on a regular basis back in 2004 – workout first, drinks after, not at the same time! We would go play racquetball at the gym on Redstone Arsenal, and then adjourn to the Redstone Lanes out the back door of the gym to watch the bowlers, have junk food for dinner, and swig a few choice beverages. As the time for our second-ever trip to Bonaire was approaching, we developed our strategy for an all-out underwater assault on the island’s reefs. Our goal: Do as many dives as we safely could in six days.

All of our dives would be 50 to 60 minutes long, and we planned to never exceed a no-decompression limit. Our mantra would be “Keep the dive computer happy.” During our planning sessions we planned to take our own food with us so we could have lunches and snacks on the beach between shore dives. We took bread, peanut butter, jelly, fruit cups, microwaveable soup, sardines, Beanie Weenies, powdered lemonade, snack crackers, breakfast bars, and so forth. To keep from having to slow down for dinner, we even took our own microwave oven, which turned out to be a bad idea. Bonaire electricity is 120 volts/50 hertz. Our microwave, designed for 120 volts/60 hertz, lasted long enough to heat one bowl of soup before it went up in huge billows of smoke!

Each night, we’d make lemonade in a Gatorade bottle and freeze it along with some fruit cups (frozen mandarin orange slices after a dive are the BEST). Sometime before going to sleep, we would always load the truck with all the tanks needed for the next day’s diving. When we finally hit the sack, I could still feel the water moving around me, and when I closed my eyes, I could see the water moving toward my face.

Each morning, we’d make sandwiches, grab some snacks, and pack it all in a soft cooler, using the frozen fruit cups and lemonade for ice. The SDI Bonaire trip includes breakfast each morning in the hotel restaurant, so we started every day with a good breakfast of eggs, bacon, cereal, pancakes and fruit. After breakfast, we went on a boat dive. We could have done more dives by skipping the boat dives, but the boat usually goes places that are inaccessible as shore dives, so missing them was out of the question.

As soon as the boat docked, we’d be off for our first shore dive of the day. Our surface interval was always pretty close to an hour. During that time, we’d get our gear together, and drive to a dive site, snacking on the way. You don’t need a spoon to eat a frozen fruit cup. You can just gnaw it out of the cup. Depending on the expected surface swim to the reef, we’d be in the water paddling into the surf after 50 minutes of surface interval. As soon as we’d racked up an hour… five-step descent… Signal! Orient! Regulator in! Time! Descend! (Remember S-O-R-T-D from your OW class?)

When our dives were around lunch time, we had a system that allowed us to eat a hot (well, hot enough) lunch. The bed of our rental truck was painted black and it got really toasty, so we put our microwaveable soup back there and it would get warm enough to eat while we were diving. Abbott is in the Army Reserves, so he brought along some Meals Ready to Eat (MREs). Each meal has its own water-powered heater (sea water works just fine). One MRE is designed to sustain a soldier for an entire day, so they did us just fine for lunch. In fact, I’ve never been able to eat everything that comes in an MRE pouch in a single sitting. MREs are also designed so that the soldiers who eat them don’t need much toilet paper, if you get my meaning. It’s something to consider carefully before you try to go Gonzo Diving like Abbott and me. Nobody said it would be easy.

Our routine underwater got to be a well-rehearsed operation. As we made the last few kicks to the edge of the reef, we’d take a look at the soft corals and determine which way the current was running. Turning into the current, we would explore the reef for half a tank and then head back. Abbott would take pictures, while I scouted for cool stuff for him to shoot at.

Thanks to Robert and Brad Tuten for showing us a technique that makes Bonaire navigation a snap. Abbott and I added a few touches of our own to make it work just right for us. Immediately prior to our descent, we take a compass heading to our pickup truck parked on the beach. Once at the drop-off, we tie a safety sausage to a two-pound weight and leave it there so we know where to turn when we are near the end of the dive. The first time we used this trick, we didn’t have a safety sausage. Instead we filled a soda bottle with air and used it for a marker. Using a soda bottle was an OK idea, but using a clear soda bottle was a lousy idea. We couldn’t find it when we went back at the end of the dive! We had to go back to the same reef the next day to search for it, so we wouldn’t be polluting the marine environment.

Some mornings, Abbott and I would do a sunrise dive. On those morning dives, it’s easy to imagine that the reef is a city coming to life. Every little fish seems to be headed to work, and the traffic is mayhem! Almost every afternoon, there would be a sunset dive and we could see the fish heading home after a busy day. Every night had at least two night dives, and sometimes even a third night dive at midnight or later. Abbott can manage on teensy amounts of sleep (he does get a tad cantankerous), but I need my beauty rest, so we worked out a compromise. If we do a sunrise dive, then there will be no midnight dive that day. If there is a midnight dive, then there is no sunrise dive for the next morning. Most of the time we stick to it, but occasionally we break our own rules.

Although we were on a mission, we had some unavoidable diversions. Jack Pounders, owner of SDI, was on this trip with a couple of buddies. One of them was Boyd, who was 75 years young at the time. Boyd managed to stub his toe in the parking lot, and nearly tore one of his big toenails off. I assisted (nearly fainted) while Abbott whipped out a surgical pack, numbed the toe, took the nail the rest of the way off, and then applied a dressing. One of our other traveling companions was Pierre, who managed to lock himself out of his dive locker. While he was breaking into it, the door opened suddenly and split his upper lip. Once again, Abbott went to work. I held the light (nearly fainted) while Abbott sutured Pierre’s lip. Each of those surgeries probably cost us at least a dive or two.

Our plane was to take off at 3pm on Saturday, so we planned our last dive to start at 2pm on Friday. We wanted to surface exactly 24 hours before take off. The last dive of the trip was at the Salt Pier, which has some huge schools of fish, and is always a fun dive. On our way up, we high-fived and shook hands to congratulate ourselves on a fantastic and tiring trip! Now, it was finally time to rinse and dry gear and then head o the Deco Stop!

When I’ve told this story over the years, the questions that follow usually go like so…

How many dives?

39!

Would we do it again?

Nope.

Why not?

Been there, done that. Time for a new goal.

Goal for the next trip?

40 hours of total bottom time for the week.

Did you make that one?

Yep, on Nitrox.

Are you crazy?

Probably!

Do you still set goals for your trips?

Yes.

Such as?

Complete lots of training dives... We went back a few years later, and Abbott’s wife and two older children finished the dives they needed for Master Scuba Diver. His two younger children finished the dives for three specialties.

What is your goal for the November 2009 Bonaire trip?

To eat as much Pasa Bon Pizza as possible…

As Mark Twain said, “You can't reach old age by another man's road. My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you.” Translation: When you go to Bonaire, you don’t have to dive your brains out if you don’t want to, and you don’t have to even try to keep up with Gonzo Divers like Abbott and me in order to have fun. It doesn’t matter if you do one dive a day or seven, you can’t help but have the time of your life!

‘Sea’ you soon ~ underwater!

max

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