Dennis Bakhuis

Dive site · sea · Bonaire National Marine Park

🇧🇶 The Forest, Klein Bonaire

Kralendijk, Bonaire, Bonaire

On the far side of Klein Bonaire, named for a dense stand of black coral on a steep drop-off.

Dives here
1
Deepest
22.9 m
Water
salt
First · last
2012
Also known as
Forrest (Klein Bonaire)

Revision 1 · changed 10 Oct 2026

History
  1. 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

Reef top 0-9 mDrop-off ~9 m, reef to 20 mUsual route · 411 mMooring↓8 mBlack coral forest↓20 mGorgonians in the shallows↓6 mN20 m
  • Buoy
  • Point of interest
  • Shoreline
  • Dive path
  • Wall / drop-off
  • Shallows
  • Depth
Site map · 2 objects · 1 path · max 20 m

Boat dive off the south-west point of Klein Bonaire (BNMP site N): the mooring sits in about 8 m next to a steep drop-off, the reef runs from about 9 m to 20 m and then slopes to a sandbank at about 50 m, with black coral from about 8 m to 30 m that gives the site its name, gorgonians in the shallows and a cave at about 23 m (infobonaire.com, divers-guide.com, scubadiving.com). The site point is from divers-guide.com and the drop-off follows the outer edge of the OpenStreetMap reef outline; the mooring is placed on the reef edge at that point, the cave's position is not published, and the route is illustrative. The site file gives this site the island-centre coordinates it shares with Carl's Reef; this map is centred on the real site. Coastline and the reef outline © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Positions are approximate.

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

Klein Bonaire is an uninhabited limestone islet three-quarters of a mile off the west coast, protected as a nature reserve since 2001. It is boat-only, which means it gets a fraction of the traffic of the mainland shore sites and the coral shows it.

The Forest is on the south-west side — the far side, exposed enough that it needs a calm day — and it is named for a thick stand of black coral on the drop-off. Black coral is slow-growing and was stripped out of most of the Caribbean for jewellery; a forest of it is a sign of a reef nobody has worked.

Dived 18 August 2012 to 22.9 m.

Dived here with

Kim

Nearby sites

1 dive at The Forest, Klein Bonaire

  1. 18 Aug 2012 with Kim boat date18 Aug 2012 depth22.9 m time69 min water—

Sources

  • First-hand observation (Dennis Bakhuis)