Divi Resort Bonaire Hosts Coral Spawning Events later this year

Coral spawning is a spectacular event, rarely viewed by divers. It occurs during the day, but mostly at night, and happens only two to three times a year a few days after a full moon. The predicted 2009 full moon will be on Aug 6th, Sept 4th & Oct 4th.

If you are planning a ‘spawning dive’, most spawning activity is to be expected between 4 to 8 nights after the full moon, so this means that you best plan your dives from Tuesday September 8^th until the 12^th, with its climax on September 10^th and 11^th. 

For August and October it basically works the same (August 10^th until the 14^th and October 8^th until the 12^th), but September is usually considered the time of year to experience a more massive coral spawning.

Divers can expect to witness coral reproduction of the Boulder Star corals, Brain Corals, Great Star Corals, Sea Rods and Branching Corals.

Also a lot of other critters will spawn during this period, such as brittle stars, cucumbers, sea-urchins, sponges (e.g. Touch-Me-Not), fireworms and christmas tree worms and feather duster worms, can release either eggs or sperm. Some during the night, others during day-time, such as the Touch-Me-Not sponges.

It may require some patience to watch the coral spawning, but you will definitely not be disappointed when it happens! Sadly enough, we can give no guarantees, since we can’t force nature to act when we’re looking! One simply has to be in the right place on the reef and be on time. 

Divi Resorts – Divi Dive Bonaire will offer a special dive package during those weeks. Contact our 1-800 number, website or favorite dive travel specialist for bookings.

Sign up in time since space is limited!

Extra package incentives :

-          All dives and lectures will be conducted by Dénise and Ruud Janssen, two full time dive instructors of Divi Dive Bonaire. Both Dénise and Ruud are seasoned “spawners”, who started to observe this phenomenon back in 2000 and meanwhile can call themselves quite the experts on telling whether a coralhead will start to spawn any minute or not.They have shot some interesting footage over the years that even got the attention of the BBC. Being such enthusiastic “spawners”, they’ve agreed to shorten their trip to Canada this year where they will be trained to become HSA-instructors. Both born and raised in Amsterdam, they decided to move to Bonaire in 2007 and have been living there ever since, working with Divi Dive Bonaire.

Participants receive:
FREE attendance at scheduled presentations/lectures/slide shows, given by Dénise and Ruud, before the spawning dives.
One FREE DVD/photo CD with footage of the spawning events shot during these weeks and stock footage of the resort

-       FFREE “spawning” BOAT night dive during one of the peak evenings for each period
FREE“warm up-refresher” night dive on the house reef, guided by one of our instructors

-          discounts on night dive specialty and camera rentals

For more details, go to www.DiviFlamingo.com