Luck is a funny thing. Sometimes it works against you (especially when airlines are involved!). Other times it works in your favor…like when you get to dive one of your favorite sites, in spite of it being closed for repairs. Salt Pier is a must for any Bonaire diving agenda. Located on the southern end of the island, Salt Pier is a privately owned facility used for loading the “mountains” of salt harvested from the nearby flats. If you do a Google image search for “Bonaire Salt Pier” you’ll see numerous pictures of it from above water.
Under normal circumstances diving the site is only restricted when a ship is in…easy enough. But we learned shortly before our trip that the Salt Pier was closed for several weeks for repairs, starting just days before our arrival. As Andrew put it…DAMMIT! The situation was confirmed earlier in the week when we noticed guards stationed near the parking lot as we drove towards another dive site.
Then Julie had a flash of brilliance! Like our previous trip, just about everything in Bonaire shuts down for Easter…including on Good Friday. So we headed down, and sure enough, no guards and divers already hitting the water. What a wonderful surprise, and what a great way to end another fantastic week of diving in Bonaire!
