The Hilma Hooker

The fuzzy gray line

One of my favorite dives in Bonaire is a shipwreck called the Hilma Hooker. The ship was used to smuggle marijuana in the 1980s, and it sank after being captured by drug enforcement authorities. It sits between two coral reefs in Bonaire and is really fun to explore. 

As you swim up to the Hilma Hooker, a fuzzy gray line appears in the water. It kind of looks like a thermocline - the interface of two water masses with different temperatures. If you dare to swim closer, the hull of the ship comes into view, and you realize the fuzzy gray line is the top of the wreck. You see the ship from the bottom side first. The hull rises like a solid gray wall. It has a turf of leafy green algae, and corals and sponges are spread across it like polka dots. 

Sponges on the Hilma Hooker

If you swim around the wreck to the right, you'll first pass the stern. Wiry, forest green sea whips dangle from the wreckage, some of which are covered in bulbous purple sponges. Continue your counter-clockwise trajectory, and you will find the ship's superstructure on the seaward side of the wreck. Fat, yellow tube sponges and broad, gray vase sponges inhabit the protruding arms of steel. More sea whips stick out and tangle in your gear if you don't keep constant watch. 

Those who wish to venture farther can enter the shipwreck and explore the interior. Artificially-enlarged openings allow even relatively new wreck divers to venture inside. Most of the biology quickly disappears in the dark, cavernous hold, but one species remains: a serpulid polychaete. Thin, white worm tubes cover every imaginable surface and are especially dense on the edges of the openings. It's easy to scrape your hands on the calcium carbonate tubes when grabbing hold of a wall.

Sergeant majors (Abudefduf saxatilis, the fish with the three 
black stripes) feeding on gray mats of something.

Back outside the wreck, you can survey the invertebrates on the gnarled steel or admire the community of fish that swarms in the surrounding waters. A dark gray mat covers portions of the wreck - an ambiguous patch of fuzz on the otherwise rusted surface. If you watch closely, you'll notice sergeant major fish nipping at the mats with their lips. Sergeant majors are an omnivorous species of damselfish, so the mats are probably algae that they like to eat. 

If you keep swimming, you'll reach the bow of the ship, where a long rope is tied to a buoy at the surface. A swim up the reef slope will take you back to the beach after a great dive on the Hilma Hooker.