Bonaire Day 6: Salt Pier, Split Shots, and Moonlit Tarpon

ByHailey Springer

Boats are heading to the infamous salt pier today! One of Bonaire’s biggest exports is salt, and there is a big conveyor belt connected to the pier that brings the salt to large ships. Ever since we have been here there has been a large ship docked so nobody was allowed to dive underneath the pier. But… today is the day that the ship finally left! Before we went there though, we headed to Angel City in search of squid and spotted eagle rays. We found squid, but no rays today. We then headed to the salt pier and got a very important briefing. Instead of the boat grabbing a mooring and staying stationary when we entered the water, we were entering the water while the boat was still moving so that we could start our dive as close to the pier as possible. It was a really fast paced entrance and super fun. Once underwater, we had to travel through the pier pilings at a fairly fast rate as the boat was also picking us up at a different location. The pilings were so tall and ominous, it was quite beautiful. When we made it to the end of the pier, we had a long swim to the boat which tired me out!

In the afternoon I went to the split photography workshop with Berkley White. There were a bit more difficult with the lens I had because it was smaller and also was a wet mount so the water would drain quickly and mess with the photo. I practiced for a bit and also got my photo taken too. Heres one below that isn’t a split shot necessarily but shows me with my camera so I liked it!

Photo taken by Ryan Morrissey

We had our nightly critique and there were a ton of great images that inspired me to get back to shooting macro.

After the critique, I helped Jim and Karin Laurel on their video idea. They made a fake moon out of four strobes and had me dive down into the ‘moonlight’. It was so fun and cool because the tarpon was attracted to the light. I felt like a movie star. To the left is a few screenshots from the video that Jim shot. We got out of the water around 11pm, which was super late since we get up at 6am every day, but it was so worth it!

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