This week we had a very unique experience, but I'll have to start the story at the beginning.
Of all the colorful fishes here, one stands out as a particularly beautiful example of camouflage and predation. It is the Lionfish. Unfortunately it is not endemic to these waters and has no natural enemies here. A short time after it was first seen in
Bonaire the population began to expand and it was recognized that the Lionfish was going to be a scourge rather than fill a niche in the food chain on the reef.
So the local authorities have asked for help from divers in locating them. Each diver, as he pays the
Bonaire Marine Park fees and receives his orientation instruction about protecting the coral, is issued a marker ribbon and asked to tie it off in the location of any Lionfish sighting and report the location so that designated trained volunteers can return to the spot and capture the critter.
Lionfish have venomous spines and their sting is quite toxic and affects heart rhythms as well as destroys tissue in the area of the wound. The designated divers wear thick gloves and try to net the fish and return it to the park headquarters for documentation of size and eating habits and other scientific data collection. The fish are territorial. Once they establish a "home" they don't venture very far from it so the ribbon idea allows time for the Marine Park Divers to go back and find the fish. They don't stay on the same coral head forever though, and after a time do move on.
So Berit and I were swimming along at about fifty two foot depth at the dive site "1000 Steps" when all of a sudden she goes nuts and is shouting through her regulator and waving her arms and when I look, there on the coral in front of her, with feathery arms extended in all its glory, is a Lionfish. We had nothing to use as a marker, so we turned to shore and surfaced and noted a bold scar on the cliff face to establish the location and at the end of our dive, drove to the marine park headquarters to report the find.
The person on duty that day, took down the information and told us there would be a large group of divers going out the next day on a massive Lionfish round-up and asked us if we'd like to go along too. Of course we said yes and the next morning showed up at the site "Sunset" and got a briefing and a net and a thick (left hand) glove to "herd the fish into the net" and were assigned the site "Tolo" to check the previous sightings and retrieve the markers if there was no fish present. The couple dozen divers all took their paperwork and headed off in different directions to find their assigned fish.
The problem is that the Lionfish Database is poorly maintained and has a bunch of "old" location data that needed to be culled. Joi hadn't even entered our fish in yet, so there was no team assigned to collect it. In the chaos and hub-bub of it all Berit wanted to get more information and ask additional questions but I hurried us along to the truck and we were off on the chase.
She explained as we drove along to Tolo (sometimes in a kind of loud exasperated voice) that I was always going off in a rush when there were important things to know like: What was the treatment for a sting? And how were we supposed to transport the fish? Were we supposed to try to keep it alive? Was there scientific data we were supposed to collect? She even reminded me that earlier in the week as I climbed a ladder to measure the ceiling joists in order to hang my bike, I had neglected to turn off the ceiling fan and stuck my head into the spinning fan blade; that I’m sometimes in too much of a hurry to get the job done and that this time, she had wanted to ask more questions.
You know, all that stuff that has so little to do with getting the fish. So, when we got to Tolo we made a map (also Berit's idea) of the three reported sightings (all about three weeks old) and carried it on waterproof paper with us on the dive where we knew depth, distance and colors of the marker ribbons; and with our dive plan complete, jumped in the water to go Lionfish hunting.
All three sighting were to the north at about fifty foot depth so we swam along slowly scanning the reef for a marker ribbon and one by one passed the spots without seeing any fish or even any ribbons. The visibility was fifty feet and we could see clearly, so it was certain that they had been removed and never culled from the database. We had plenty of air so continued searching beyond the range of reported sightings and finally did come upon a ribbon of an unreported color. We searched the area completely and were convinced there was no fish present when all of a sudden Berit was pointing and shouting and going nuts in typical Lionfish fashion so I turned to the reef and saw nothing. I turned back to Berit and she was furiously pointing and shouting up! Up! And when I turned back and looked up I saw an entire herd of Dolphin approaching not twenty feet above us on the crest of the reef!!
We have seen seals in the water but Holy Cow Homer, these animals were magnificent! The largest were leading the herd and as they passed, Berit was squeaking out here best Flipper impression (to no avail) while I counted thirty in the group; all sizes gracefully passing with such power and effortless swimming it made me feel that the best divers in the world could never be more than clumsy imitators of these creatures. They were spectacular; a very unique experience indeed!
After high fives and lots of goofy smiles we turned our dive, collected the ribbon at location number four and returned to the entry still searching along the way for any fish or markers we might have missed. At ninety minutes run time we had completed our search to the north and Berit exited the water while I continued to search south. While we had no reported sightings to the south, I did find another marker ribbon, but after an extensive search removed it and returned to the beach. Our accomplishment was that the five locations we searched could be eliminated as sites where Lionfish could be found.
Of course we wanted to go get our fish at 1000 Steps, but we had been instructed to meet back at our morning rendezvous for lunch and our afternoon assignments, so we returned to "Sunset" and reported the results of our search and shared our story of the Dolphin sighting. It seems that divers who've been here for many years have never seen Dolphins in the water, so we feel very lucky to have had the experience.
The Manager of Bonaire Marine Park, was going out to 1000 Steps to search for a Lionfish on a deep sighting, so it was a natural for us to volunteer to go get our fish and meet him there afterward to turn it over.
And that's exactly what we did. On our trip to Belize Berit found a (very rare) Sea Horse and after telling the boats dive instructor about it was able to lead her back to the exact spot on the reef where she had seen it and "found it again". So with her as our teams lead guide we set out to find our fish, kind of like a needle in a haystack, or in this case a Lion Fish on a certain coral head amid thousands of identical looking coral heads.
Eventually, while I was peering into every nook and cranny, I noticed that Berit was just hanging in the water watching me approach. I thought maybe she was running low on air and wanted to let me know; and then I saw it!! Holy cow!! Doesn't she see it? There's one right beside her!! But of course she had already found it and was just waiting for me to catch up with them.
Earlier, as we hammered out our plan for its capture and Berit was explaining (remember the kind of loud voiced conversation?) that since we didn't know what we were doing she wasn't getting anywhere near it, our plan was settled and I would take care of it in my normal way; I'd just go ahead and catch it. So I put on the glove and deployed the net and very very slowly inched the net near the Lionfish, then slowly reached toward it with my gloved hand and kind of herded it into the net. Easy peasy; one try, one fish in the net!
Back on shore, and the second time in two days we'd climbed up all those darned steps with our gear on, we found the manager at his truck and delivered our fish, still in the net. He just reached in and stuck a finger into the still gasping mouth and lifted our spinney treasure out of the net and placed him in a zip lock bag. We kept our net and glove and are now "official" Lionfish hunters for the
Bonaire Marine Park!
The other good thing to come out of this is that three of these fish have been seen on The Windjammer. The Windjammer is the premier wreck dive on the island in 200 plus feet of water and has been restricted from public diving for security reasons because it’s near an oil trans-shipment tank farm on the north end. But, since I'm an Official BMP Lionfish Hunter, I am authorized to do the dive in order to look for Lionfish!! Sweet.
All in all we’ve had another very enjoyable week.
