Diving Jeff Davis Memorial Bonaire | The Shore Dive Collection | TropicLens - 4K

To date, this is the most challenging entry on Bonaire we’ve done; but then again, we haven’t attempted Cai just yet. While the entry may not be for everyone, Jeff Davis Memorial is definitely worth the effort both from a coral and sponge perspective as well as a fish and animal perspective…although the night dives proved much more interesting for creatures.

Check out the list below for a sampling of the uncommon things we saw or, better yet, check out the video and see for yourself! If you dive Jeff Davis Memorial, please add a comment and let us know what you saw there.

We want to encourage more shore diving, so this video provides some guidance where the site is, how to dive it and what you may see there. If you want to skip to or review specific topics, the section timings are below.

UNCOMMON SEA LIFE AND FIRST TIME CAPTURE IDENTIFICATION

We primarily use two sources to validate sea life we don’t recognize. The first is Florent's Guide To TheTropical Reefs which can be found at https://reefguide.org. Its free and has lots of pictures, but is not comprehensive. The second is “The Reef Set: Reef Fish, Reef Creature and Reef Coral (3 Volumes)”. The box set can be found on Amazon; however with all our travels, we also purchased the eBooks (http://fishid.com/store/product-categ...) so we don’t have to carry an extra five pounds of paper in our luggage. :-) We also reference other sources from time to time as well.

Here are some links to more information/images about animals from this video.

Manytooth Conger - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manytoo...
Matchless Cone - https://inaturalist.ca/taxa/431900-Co...
Salp - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salp
Cyanobacterial Mat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbi...
Overgrowing Mat Tunicate - https://www.reefguide.org/overgrowing...
Moon Jelly - https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/a...
King Helmet - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassis_...
Redeye Sponge Crab - https://reefguide.org/pixhtml/redeyes...
Speck-Claw Decorator Crab - https://www.sealifebase.se/summary/Mi...
Six-Keyhole Sand Dollar - https://inaturalist.ca/taxa/255617-Le...


And if you want a bit more information about the site’s namesake Jefferson C. Davis, here is where you can find that: https://hyperbaricmedicine.com/jeffer... .

CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro
0:38 Site Background/Description
3:57 Site Logistics
7:52 Dive Profile
11:38 Sea Life - Night
14:58 Sea Life - Day


CAMERA EQUIPMENT

Underwater Camera - iPhone 14 Pro Max
Underwater Housing - Hot Dive H2 (without the depth sensor)
Underwater Lights - Kraken Hydra 8000 WRGBU
Camera App - Deep Photo
Land Camera - iPhone 13 Pro Max
Driving Camera - GoPro Hero 9 Black (using the GoPro suction cup mount)