Bonaire National Marine Park - MOORINGS

Bonaire is the world leader in marine preservation. Very early on it was noted that anchoring is very damaging to the coral reef. One of the first actions during the establishment of the Bonaire Marine Park was to place moorings. The initiative came from the dive industry in cooperation with the newly established Marine Park.

In 1978 and 1980 a worldwide first took place in the Bonaire Marine Park: at least 40 permanent moorings were placed on dive sites, specifically for dive boat use. Each of those first moorings was made with two 55-gallon drums (donated by WEB, Bonaire’s power and water company), connected to each other with re-bar (scrounged by Marine Park staff, personally, from a failed construction project), and filled with concrete. The moorings were taken to the sites on a crane barge, whose use was donated by BOPEC, (Bonaire’s oil transshipment company), and their precise placement was guided by Tom van ‘t Hof, initial Manager of the Bonaire Marine Park, Assistant Marine Park Manager Eric Newton, Ranger Franklin Winklaar, and volunteer divers including Rik Lina, a resident artist, and Captain Don Stewart.

Fishing boats and yachts have traditionally used the harbour area of Bonaire, which lies between the marina and the Customs Pier. The fishing boats have used permanent moorings here for years. During the mid-1990’s, the Bonaire Marine Park was able to place moorings in the area for the use of yachts. The yachts pay $10 per day for the use of the moorings and the moorings are maintained by Harbour Village Marina through a contract with STINAPA Bonaire/BNMP.

While the original 55-gallon drums served well, dive boats became larger and other moorings were needed. Concrete cubes were developed to be used for moorings. Each mooring consists of three one-meter concrete cubes. Many were molded with a piece of PVC pipe through them – a line through the pipe could be attached extremely securely – but re-bar at the top of the blocks is what is actually being used by the boats to tie to the moorings.

The moorings serve a vital function, that of protecting the coral reef while providing a secure way for boats to stay in place. The moorings eliminate the need for anchors and the chains that attach them to the boats. Anchors damage any coral they may land upon, and their chains transform swaths of reef into rocky sand with every swing of the vessel.

Something else has happened with the moorings, too: they have become mini artificial reefs. The pipes make great habitats for tunicates (sea squirts), crabs, damselfish, and the occasional moray. Blackbar Soldier fish gather in great numbers around some of the moorings, squeezing into the spaces between the blocks. Sergeant majors use many of the mooring blocks for their nests: the females deposit eggs, which look like purple dots on the block; the males guard the eggs until they hatch.

Most significantly, larval corals have settled on mooring blocks near the drop-off, and have grown into coral heads. We know the maximum age of those corals because we know when the moorings were placed.

The Bonaire National Marine Park is always interested in improving its mooring systems. The price was right, as all the materials were recycled or donated, for our original double-barrel moorings, but they were difficult to produce and to put in place. The triple-concrete-block moorings were a simpler but more time-consuming proposition: they were made on Bonaire, trucked to the Pier, and dropped into the water, where Marine Park Rangers attached them to lift bags and towed them into position.

Since then, a new type of mooring system is being evaluated for use in the Bonaire National Marine Park. The Helix moorings we are currently using are specifically designed for Bonaire’s mixed substrate. The mooring itself is like a large screw with gaps in its spiral, and is literally screwed into the bottom. Helix moorings are much easier than the others to transport, but require some special machinery to install.

It is our intention to replace most of the two-barrel moorings with Helix moorings. This is because the dive industry has grown and the dive centers today use boats as large as 42 feet. These boats cause the barrel drum moorings to drag. The Helix moorings are rather expensive though, so it may take some years before we are able to replace them all.

Use of the buoys is at your own risk.