Castine Current
By Kara Wood
Spring break 2013 brought an exceptional experience to students who have been through the MMA
SCUBA diving courses. Timothy Schroder, MMA's resident diving instructor, and Alan Verde,
professor in MMA's Corning School of Ocean Studies, spearheaded a trip to the Dutch Antilles.
The purpose was so students who had their PADI rescue diver certifications could take a Master
Diver course to receive a number of specialties such as: peak performance buoyancy, deep diver,
wreck diver, night diver, drift diver, boat diver, and nitrox diver. 13 students in majors ranging
from marine transportation, marine and power engineering as well as marine biology seized the
opportunity.
"Bon Bini Bonaire" (Welcome to Bonaire)! These were the first words I heard when I stepped off the
plane into an experience full of adventure, education, and culture. Bonaire is a Caribbean island
that, along with Curaçao and Aruba, makes up the ABC Islands. On the 113 square mile island, we
quickly moved from the busy city to the slums on the outskirts, and to the desert, where our only
companions were the mountains, cacti, iguanas, and wild donkeys.
Bonaire is described as a diver's paradise, and with good reason. The entire underwater world in
Bonaire is a marine sanctuary, so each dive felt as if I were the first person to visit that site. As many
of us in the diving course have only experienced diving in Maine, our senses went wild as we became
part of the schools of fish and saw organisms that we had only seen in TV shows, books, or in jars
in the lab. For me, a marine biology major, this was incredible, because I could see physiological,
behavioral, and ecological processes that, in the classroom, I could only imagine. Thankfully, we
had two masterful instructors (Professors Schroder and Verde) who guided us, and kept us from
reaching our dive limits in the deceptively deep waters with visibilities in excess of 100 ft.
Above the water, the people of Bonaire were just as intriguing. As our friend Norman at LE-MA-SE
(a restaurant in Rincon) said, "Good people come from everywhere," and in Bonaire this is especially
true. The entire island was one of the most accepting communities I have ever experienced.
Unfortunately, not everything on the island was beautiful. The eastern shore of Bonaire is the
unfortunate victim of washed up plastic garbage. To fill a 36" x 18" x 13" mesh bag took several
minutes. To fill the 50 mesh bags provided to our group by Dive Friends Bonaire (the dive shop we
used) as part of their "Debris Free Bonaire" program, took less than 2 hours. We left the east shore
with three pick-up trucks, all overloaded with piles of bags and garbage that was too big to fit into
a bag. As a group of 15, we helped the "Debris Free Bonaire" program reach its goal of filling its
collection trailer to capacity.
The lines between being tourists, vacationers and students blurred as we simultaneously shared
laughs, new experiences, and learned the rich history of the island both above and below the water.
Bonaire people treated our group so amazingly that I feel an undisputed commitment to Bonaire,
its terrestrial and underwater conservation programs, and its people. I hope to return to see what
other underwater voyages I can make, revisit Norman, and to help make the east shore a little bit
cleaner. On behalf of the entire group of divers, I thank the Academy for approving this course, and
both Tim and Alan for creating this opportunity.
9 MARINER 2013 - Issue 2

---