Salt Pier is another one of the more popular dive sites at Bonaire. You are only allowed to dive this site providing that a boat is not docked.
It’s an easy, shallow dive that at least while navigating the Pier itself keeps you within novice depths. The main attraction is the reef that is underneath the boat dock (at the very end of the pier) and has thrived among the pillars and objects that are on the sea bed. The reef slopes off into the depths beyond.
Take a look at our video on our Youtube channel (Warning : turtles).
Salt Pier Site Location
Driving along the road you won’t miss the Salt Pier.
Entry
Entry is very very easy here. The big recommendation is not to follow the people who just follow everyone else. These people just park where they see other divers north of the pier – monkey see, monkey do. Drive under the pier and park south of the yellow ‘High Voltage’ marked building, but not as far as the ’60’ speed limit signs on the road. There you will see a place to park and almost the perfect beach entry…a sandy beach just wide enough for a boat between two rocks
Entry is easy everywhere at Salt Pier but few people are aware of this best location.
Routing
Salt Pier represents a fairly straight forward dive site as far as navigation goes. The best way of making it easy is to observe and plan from the surface before entry, taking a mental note of the pier supports/pillars and visualizing a route out/back.
Out where the ships dock there are so many pillars it can be vaguely confusing as to where you are actually are when embarking for your shore return. If you followed the pier pillars out from the shore to the site, then you may want to return the same route which will see your route back begin at the central cluster of pillars. Here lies the challenge – it’s very easy to believe you are at the central pillar cluster when you are somewhere else – just look at the map above. If this happens to you, you’ll realize quickly and correct it, potentially by surfacing so there’s no real danger of getting lost. As an alternative it’s not a bad idea to swim to the most Southernmost pillar (if you went from the easy beach entry south of the pier) for your return and head back via a predetermined compass bearing or rough direction, which you can determine from the slope of the reef.