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08:45 - Friday, May 9, 2008
Welcome To The Bonaire WebCams!
This
Web site is the home of the world's first permanent underwater
ReefCam, giving you a peek
at reef life in the Bonaire Marine Park!
Bonaire
is a small Caribbean island located 80 miles (130 km) east
of Aruba and 50 miles (80 km) north of Venezuela. Bonaire
features the easiest scuba diving and snorkeling in the
Caribbean, thanks to the fringing reef which surrounds the
island, and allows for shore access over most of Bonaire's
leeward side.
Using
the menu at left or the one at the bottom of this page,
you can explore all of the WebCams
installed on Bonaire,
the new Bonaire Pier ReefCam (the offspring of the world's first ReefCam),
two BeachCams (positioned at the north and south
ends of the beach), and even a BeachBarCam.
We also now have a DonkeyCam, a WindsurfCam,
a DowntownCam, and a Yellow Sub Pier WebCam
overlooking the pier at the Dive Friends Bonaire Yellow Submarine dive shop. You
can even look at what's on all
the WebCams at once.
If
you want to discuss or share what you've seen on the Bonaire WebCams,
the best place to do this is on BonaireTalk,
especially in the dedicated BonaireTalk
WebCams section.
Our
shopping section offers merchandise
and vendors we've selected specifically for visitors to
this site. Our first shopping area includes links to various
books, videos, and other educational
materials which will help Bonaire WebCams visitors learn
more about Bonaire, nature, diving, fish identification,
and perhaps even assembling a basic WebCam kit of their
own.
Learn
about us, get some technical
and historical information about the Bonaire WebCams
project, or check out our list of Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQ). Of course, we can't afford to
do this all for free, which is why there's an advertising
banner on each page - help support this Web site, and get
your message in front of thousands of visitors a month by
advertising on this site.
Finally,
our main business is the design and installation of customized
all-climate WebCam systems for Caribbean-based resorts,
hotels, and destinations. If you want to tease and tantalize
your potential and existing clients with a real-time peek
at what you have to offer, visit our main Caribbean
WebCams, LLC corporate site.
Bonaire
WebCams Updates
October 2, 2007 - We're disappointed to report that the on-going problems with the cabling for the Wreck ReefCam have forced us to permanently pull the plug on that WebCam. We'll be evaluating and redesigning the cable system for greater stability, and hope to install some new ReefCams on Bonaire in 2008. Also in the works for the first part of 2008 are two more top-side WebCams.
September 26, 2007 - The Wreck ReefCam went off-line mysteriously on September 21st, after just one week in operation. Land-based testing after returning from travel indicates a short in the system somewhere. We'll be investigating further in the coming days. In the meantime, a problem with Flamingo TV Internet started on the evening of September 23rd, and is presently preventing images from all the Eden Beach cameras from being transmitted up to this server for viewing. As best we can tell, all images are still being archived on our local server at Eden Beach, but they just can't make it off island. FTV is working on the problem, or so they say.
September 14, 2007 - The Wreck ReefCam is back on-line thanks to both a replacement cable, and to the hard work of five volunteers from BonaireTalk! Thanks to Patrick, Timmy, Angela, Seb, and Mare for their efforts!
July 3, 2007 - The Wreck ReefCam is on the blink due to a bad cable. We are working on getting the replacement cable we should have had in the first place, but it was defective and too short. That's being remedied. Will install it, hopefully, in early August when one of us is back on-island.
May 31 , 2007 - Just installed the new Yellow
Sub PierCam at Dive Friends Bonaire' Yellow Submarine
location. This makes our ninth live WebCam on Bonaire. We
now probably have more public WebCams per capita on Bonaire
than any other Caribbean island. We have also added links
to new composite pages to make it easier to view various combinations
of WebCams. There's the new Bonaire
ReefCams page which shows
both ReefCams only, the Eden
Beach WebCams page showing the
five WebCams located at Eden Beach Resort, and the Other
WebCams page showing the four WebCams not located at Eden Beach.
May 23 , 2007 - All three top-side cameras at Eden Beach have been reinstalled with new equipment in new locations to provide a better beach view. Additionally we have now named the under-the-pier WebCam the Bonaire Pier ReefCam and after reinstalling the original Bonaire ReefCam on the wreck of the Bakanal, named it the Bonaire Wreck ReefCam. Links to these cameras are in the left side and bottom menus on every page. Note that we are still having cabling issues with the Wreck ReefCam, so some images from the camera may appear distorted by electrical noise. We need to get a replacement for the replacement cable we ordered (and which was disfunctional on arrival, so we're using an older repaired cable, which apparently wasn't as well repaired as we had hoped).
May 22 , 2007 - We have successfully installed
the as yet unnamed under-the-pier-with-garden-hose-cabling
WebCam. It currently appears in the ReefCam slot. The ReefCam
should be reinstalled tomorrow, and all topside cameras will
be rearranged too.
April 19, 2007 - Update on the ReefCam. The final parts needed to install a replacement ReefCam will be on-island the beginning of May. Once received we will be installing the new ReefCam on the wreck of the Bakanal off Eden Beach. During May we will also be upgrading one of the BeachCams and we hope to try an install a second shallow ReefCam too.
March 17, 2007 - The DonkeyCam is back and running thanks to toilet bowl stain remover, which got rid of the water stains on the filter glass. Kudos to Linda Richter for thinking of this solution.
March 15, 2007 - The DonkeyCam is down for service while we replace a water damaged optical filter. As far as the ReefCam goes, we have decided to upgrade to a new camera and hope to be installing in the latter half of April. See here for details.
February 9, 2007 - Well, the ReefCam appears to be off-line for a few weeks as the cable repairs we attempted did not seem to be what was needed. See here for details.
February 5, 2007 - The Bonaire ReefCam is
out of commission, and we're not sure why, but suspect it
is a cable problem. We're putting together volunteers to help
us on Friday afternoon (February 9th) to pull up the cable
at Eden Beach and see if we can see the cause of the problem
and then fix it - drop us a note if you can help.
