Bonaire May June 2018 - Brush With Diving Fame

Our Go To book on fish

June 2018 - sorry for the fuzzy pics.  Poor cell phone camera.

Ned's slide show

Ned Deloach is one of the guys that wrote four key reference books used by divers all over the world to id the sea life they see when diving.  Actually, I think he has more than three books (7 others + EBooks ) at this point.  But for this part of the water world - three that matter: "Reef Fish",  "Reef Creatures", and "Reef Coral."  Check Fishid.com for more info.

Ned Deloach on the right

As new divers, we would reference these books after each dive, trying to figure out exactly what we saw.  I usually looked through the book just ahead of a dive to get my mind thinking on what I might see.  Even seasoned divers use these books.

Anna in pink

Well, one of the dive resorts brought Ned and his lovely wife Anna in for a week.  The opening night talk by Ned was open to the public so we went.  Ned gave an hour long interesting and fun talk with slides.  Quiet Anna was there for support.  However, it turns out she is quite an aficionado on Blennies, the small, elongated bottom dweller that take up pages 312 to 367 in the Reef Fish book because there are so many different kinds.  In fact, the resort bar is named Blennies in her honor.   

sv Stargazer and sv Casa Blanca with their Blenny eyes.

sv Blue Blaze and sv Honey Ryder with their Blenny eyes.

The resort had a week of scheduled dives with this famous couple (for a fee, of course).  We chose to continue on our own.  At the first nights talk, Ned and Anna challenged us all to look closer as we were diving.  As part of that challenge, they handed out a check sheet of 80 fishes and sea creatures to ID during the week - honor system, one sighting each, multiple parrot fish don't count.  At the end of the week party, if we had 50 of the 80, we would get a pocket guide of one of Ned's books.   

Ned autographing his books

Challenge on!  I kept a close eye out and check off the fish/sea creatures as I saw them.  I ended up with 75 of the 80.  Not bad!  Ned chatted briefly with each person when he signed our books, asking about a specific fish we saw and congratulating us on the number we saw.  Such a nice guy.  And his wife was just too lovely.  She is the one that told me that diving behind the yachts in the mooring field is her favorite dive spot in Bonaire.  It was fun meeting them and working the challenge.  Our two books (Reef Fish and Coral) have really gotten a work out.  

At the end of the week party with Ned and Anna, there were several people running around with matching shirts.  I figured a dive club until I noticed the age spread.  It was obvious that it was a family reunion of some sort.

Finally, I had a chance to read one of the T-Shirts, it seems Grace and Phil hold the world record for "World's Oldest Married Scuba Diving Couple".  And have for several years.  Each year various family members fly in to witness them retain this Guinness World Record and help them celebrate.  I asked one of their daughters if she could share their specific ages as the t-shirt from last year only had the cumulative age of 171.   "Dad will be 87 this summer and mom will be 87 later this fall."  

WOW!  How kewl is that!  We felt honored to be in their presence and to be able to meet Ned and Anna.  BTW - Ned and Anna travel the world and are often at various dive resorts around the world speaking.  Maybe they will be on island someday while you are on dive holiday.