Another Bari good dive!

The Bari Reef dive site is one of our all time favorite sites.  Bari, the house reef for the DenLamen and Sand Dollar is located close to downtown Kralendijk right off the main oceanfront road Kaya Grandi.  You drive right up to the water's edge, park, gear up and seconds later you enter the water over a narrow sand beach.  Nothing could be easier.  And from the looks above water, you might think not much is going on at this site, but you would be wrong.  The experts say more species of marine life have been sighted at Bari than any other dive site on Bonaire.  The variety always makes this an interesting dive and keeps us coming back multiple times each visit here.

Park next to the water and walk in, what could be easier?

 Normally we just kick out to the edge of the reef, ignoring the sand flats, to drop on to the top of the reef, but not at Bari.  You never know what you will see in the shallows.  On this day, Charles quickly spotted an octopus and other lurking fish.

First octopus we've seen here is surprising for being so out in the open.  Normally shy, he quickly hid under this rock as we approached.

More Bari in-shore sightings...

    Needlefish

Peacock Flounder

                                                      Great Barracuda

Donkey Dung Sea Slug

Once on the reef turning to the right (north) in front of the seaside  condos takes you to what is commonly meant as the Bari dive site.  If you turn left or(south) you find a very different section of reef, an area damaged a number of years ago by the surge of a passing huricane.  It was also the dumping ground for the town's trash.  In fact Bari is papimiento for barrel and if you look closely, you will see shreds of old rusting oil drums.  Maybe it is because it is host to a variety of reef structure, part hard corals, part sand chutes that it attracts twice as many groups of marine animals.

Today, we turned left and in the next forty minutes Charles captured a number of good shots of the junkyard part of Bari's residents.

Rod with school of Wrasse.

   Grapes of wrasse.

Queen angelfish.

Graysby (small member of grouper family) with cleaner shrimp. 

  Scorpion fish.

Blue tube sponge.

 

Junk tire with encrusting rope sponge.

Spotted moray eel looks mean but is merely a mouth breather.

Susan says she was meant to spend her life hanging out with fish.

 Schooling Small Mouthed Grunts.

Banded Butterfly Fish

 This spider looking creature is an Arrow Crab.

The appropriately named Rock Beauty.

At first glance, I thought this Sharptail Eel was a snake.

Spanish Hogfish dancing with Sharptail Eel.

Mahogany snappers are plentiful on Bari.

With so many fish swarming this one site, it is easy to understand why multiple dives are required to get the Bari best experience.