Dennis Bakhuis

Dive site · sea · Bonaire National Marine Park

🇧🇶 Red Slave

Bonaire, Bonaire

The island's southern tip, beside the salt pans and the 1850 slave huts — exposed, current-swept, and the one Bonaire shore dive that is genuinely for experienced divers only.

Dives here
1
Deepest
19.2 m
Water
salt
First · last
2012

Revision 2 · changed 18 Oct 2026

History
  1. r2 18 Oct 2026 Photo size matches the file · Dennis Bakhuis
  2. r1 10 Oct 2026 Imported from the personal log · Dennis Bakhuis

Site data © divelog-sites contributors (ODbL), descriptions and maps CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

1 map

Sandbar and shallow reef 3-12 mSoft-coral fields and sand channels 12-25 mSteep drop-off from 25 m↓40 mUsual route · 360 mEntry by the southern slave hutsSlave huts (1850)Rays over the sandbar↓8 mAnchor chain and old anchors 45-60 m↓45 mStrong, changing current; southerly sets out to seaN50 m
  • Entry / exit
  • Hazard
  • Point of interest
  • Anchor
  • House / hut
  • Shoreline
  • Depth contour
  • Dive path
  • Wall / drop-off
  • Coral / reef
  • Sand
  • Depth
Site map · 3 objects · 1 path · max 45 m

The southern tip of Bonaire: entry over the ironshore between the southernmost slave huts, a sandbar and shallow reef at 3-12 m where rays feed, soft-coral fields cut by sand channels to about 25 m and a steep drop-off to 40 m and more, with a chain leading to a field of old ship anchors from about 45 m (bonaire.com, divers-guide.com, infobonaire.com). The current is strong and changes direction within minutes; a southerly current carries divers away from the reef, so the route turns north first. Hut positions from OpenStreetMap; zone widths are approximate; the anchors are placed straight out from the entry because their exact spot is not published, and the route is illustrative. Coastline, pier and dive-site markers © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Positions are approximate.

Map © divelog-sites contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

Red Slave is at the southernmost point of Bonaire, where the leeward coast ends and the water from both sides of the island meets. That geography is the whole site: it is the only shore dive on Bonaire with serious current, it is exposed to the trade winds, and the entry and exit have to be timed. It is also the one everyone remembers, because the current brings in eagle rays, turtles and big pelagics that do not come to the sheltered west coast.

The dive in this log lasted 30 minutes — the shortest Bonaire dive by a wide margin, and the only one under 45. Current is the likely explanation.

Above the waterline

The name comes from the salt pans behind the beach. In 1837 four obelisks were raised along this coast, colour-coded red, white, blue and orange, each marking a different pan and its loading point so that salt ships could find the right one. In 1850 rows of stone huts about 1.5 m high were built beside them to house the enslaved people who worked the pans — small enough that two men shared one, and they walked back to Rincon, at the other end of the island, at the end of the week. Slavery was abolished in the Dutch Antilles in 1863, thirteen years after the huts went up. They are still standing, and you park among them.

Dived 12 August 2012 to 19.2 m.

Image: Slave huts Bonaire.jpg — V.C.Vulto, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Photos

Dived here with

Kim

Nearby sites

1 dive at Red Slave

  1. 12 Aug 2012 with Kim date12 Aug 2012 depth19.2 m time30 min water—

Sources

  • First-hand observation (Dennis Bakhuis)