Bonaire is a Caribbean island in the Leeward Antilles, and is a special municipality of the Netherlands. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west (leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC islands, 80 km off the coast of Venezuela. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, the ABC islands lie outside Hurricane Alley. The islands have an arid climate that attracts visitors seeking warm, sunny weather all year round. Bonaire is a popular snorkeling and scuba diving destination because of its multiple shore diving sites and easy access to the island's fringing reefs.
Klein Bonaire is a small uninhabited islet off the west coast of the Caribbean island of Bonaire, and is part of the Dutch special municipality of Bonaire.
The Federal Dependencies of Venezuela encompass most of Venezuela's offshore islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Venezuela, excluding those islands that form the State of Nueva Esparta and some Caribbean coastal islands that are integrated with nearby states. These islands, with a total area of 342 square kilometres, are sparsely populated – according to the preliminary results of the 2011 Census only 2,155 people live there permanently, with another hundred from Margarita Island who live there seasonally to engage in fishing. Local government is officially under the authority of Central government in Caracas, although de facto power is often held by the heads of the sparse and somewhat isolated communities that decorate the territories.
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is a Florida State Park located on Key Largo in Florida. It includes approximately 70 nautical square miles (240 km²) of adjacent Atlantic Ocean waters. The park is approximately 25 miles in length and extends 3 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first underwater park in the United States. The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 14, 1972. The primary attractions of the park are the coral reefs and their associated marine life.
The Los Roques Archipelago is a federal dependency of Venezuela consisting of approximately 350 islands, cays, and islets in a total area of 40.61 square kilometers. The archipelago is located 128 kilometers (80 mi) directly north of the port of La Guaira, in the Caribbean Sea.
The Tobago Cays are an archipelago located in the Southern Grenadines of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines comprising five small islands and extensive coral reefs. The cays – Petit Rameau, Petit Bateau, Baradal, Petit Tabac and Jamesby – are a popular tourism destination.
Hol Chan Marine Reserve is a marine reserve close to Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker, off the coast of Belize. It covers approximately 18 km² (4,448 acres) of coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangrove forest. Hol Chan is Mayan for "little channel".
Pescador Island is a small limestone island located in the Tañon Strait, a few kilometres from the western coast of the island of Cebu in the Philippines. It is under the jurisdiction of the municipality of Moalboal.
The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, is a small archipelagic state in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean southwest of Sri Lanka and India, about 700 kilometres (430 mi) from the Asian continent's mainland. The chain of 26 atolls stretches across the Equator from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to Addu Atoll in the south. The land area is roughly 298 square kilometres. Malé is the capital.
Bunaken National Park is a marine park in the north of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. The park is located near the centre of the Coral Triangle, providing habitat to 390 species of coral as well as many fish, mollusks, reptiles and marine mammal species. The park is representative of Indonesian tropical water ecosystems, consisting of seagrass plains, coral reefs and coastal ecosystems.
The Arrecifes de Cozumel National Park is off the coast of the island of Cozumel in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. The Cozumel reef system is part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, the second largest coral reef system in the world. Even though almost the entire island of Cozumel is surrounded by coral reefs, the park only encompasses the reefs on the south side of the island. It begins just south of the International Pier and continues down and around Punta Sur and up just a small portion of the east side of the island. The park contains both shallow and mesophotic coral reefs and extends to the 100 m depth isobar.
The Cancún Underwater Museum is a non-profit organization based in Cancún, Mexico devoted to the art of conservation. The museum has a total of 500 sculptures, by a series of international and local sculptors, with three different galleries submerged between three and six meters deep in the ocean at the Cancún National Marine Park. The museum was thought up by Marine Park Director Jaime González Cano, with the objective of saving the nearby coral reefs by providing an alternative destination for divers. It was started in 2009 and officially opened in November 2010.
The Rosario and San Bernardo Corals National Natural Park is a natural park located in the Sucre and Bolívar Departments on the coast of the Caribbean Region of Colombia, 45 km from the Bay of Cartagena. It was the most visited national park in Colombia in 2009, with 318,473 visitors.
Morrocoy National Park is located in the easternmost coast of Falcón State and northwestern of Golfo Triste, in the west central Venezuelan coast, near the towns of Boca de Aroa, Tucacas, Sanare, Chichiriviche, and Tocuyo de la Costa, and consisting of 79,300 acres. It was declared a national park on May 26, 1974.
Plaza Beach Resort Bonaire is the largest diving resort in the southern Caribbean Island of Bonaire, located at 80 Julio A. Abraham Boulevard, south of Kralendijk, just north of Flamingo International Airport. It is operated by the Van der Valk family of hoteliers and is also known as the Plaza Resort Van der Valk. American divers have reportedly voted it one of the top 10 dive resorts in the world. The resort, which claims to be five-star, although this is disputed by several independent publications, is situated on a peninsula, at the mouth of a man-made lagoon with turquoise blue waters. Plaza Beach Resort Bonaire Its beach measures 500 metres (1,600 ft) long and 50–100 metres (160–330 ft) deep and is a notable scuba diving location, known as Toucan Diving.
Bob Halstead, has made significant contributions to the sport of scuba diving in a multitude of capacities: photographer, author of eight diving books, early innovator in the development of dive tourism, pioneer in the dive liveaboard industry, diving instructor and educator, marine-life explorer and influential diving industry commentator. An ardent diver since 1968, Halstead has over 10,000 logged dives.
Caribbean Research and Management of Biodiversity Foundation is a research organization in Curaçao, former Netherlands Antilles. It is situated in Piscadera Bay, 25 metres (82 ft) from the Caribbean Sea. Its education and research programs include the ecological aspects of fisheries and coral reef sciences.
The St. Croix East End Marine Park (STXEEMP) was established to "protect territorially significant marine resources, and promote sustainability of marine ecosystems, including coral reefs, sea grass beds, wildlife habitats and other resources, and to conserve and preserve significant natural areas for the use and benefit of future generations." It is the U.S. Virgin Islands’ first territorially designated and managed marine protected area (MPA).
The island of Tobago has multiple coral reef ecosystems. The Buccoo Reef, the Culloden Reed and Speyside Reef are the three largest coral reef marine ecosystems in Tobago. The Buccoo Reef is a coralline reef ecosystem that is located on the southwestern region of Tobago. It is a popular ecotourism attraction where tourists can snorkel and see the coral reefs and schools of fish without diving equipment. The Trinidad and Tobago Tourism Ministry estimates that 90% of its tourists visit the Buccoo Reef while exploring Tobago. The Buccoo Reef, also known as the Buccoo Reef Complex, spans 7 km2 and has five reef flats that can reach up to 25 metres in depth. The reef complex has been designated as part of a protected Ramsar site since 2005.
Piti Bomb Holes Marine Preserve is a marine protected area comprising all of Piti Bay on the western coast of Guam, located off of the village of Piti in the Philippine Sea. The defining "bomb hole" features, named because they look like bomb craters in the reef flat, are actually natural percolation pits where fresh water filters into the shallow lagoon at a depth of 25 to 30 feet. The largest pit houses the commercial Fish Eye Marine Park tourist attraction, which includes a wooden pier to a underwater observatory and a Seawalker tour of the lagoon bottom. It is visited by more than 200,000 people annually. The Piti preserve is the most ecologically diverse of Guam's five marine preserves. The pit around Fish Eye is a popular snorkeling and recreational diving site.
