Fishhy
Contributor
Just got back from Bonaire for the first time. We stayed at Captain Don’s Habitat.
Here’s my trip report:
We booked via Maduro Dive Travel for 4 people with a truck and 6 days unlimited nitrox for shore dives, breakfast buffet, and 6 single tank boat dives. Cost: ~$1100 each plus entry tax and marine fee.
While we did have to present the entry tax at the airport, no one ever asked to see our marine park pass (honor system?). Though, if you wanted a collectable medallion for your park tag, you could present your QR code at the local STINAPA office (the staff here seemed really put-out to help us here unfortunately).
Getting there– We left through Miami and found a deal on AA for 10k points round trip plus about $85. The times were decent (we went Wed - Wed).
The room– Adequate. Tile floors that they cleaned daily and good water pressure and hot water in the shower. The AC was able to get the room cold but all the power turns off when you take your key from near the front door. So many times we’d leave one key in the room to allow us to finish charging batteries and keep the room cold.
WIFI was good, there was an access point in one of our two adjoining rooms.
Food– We ate at RumRunners a couple nights. The food here was decent but the service was painfully slow. I did really enjoy the Tuna and Salmon Poke entree. We also tried the Monday night AYCE BBQ which I’d pass on next time (dry and pricey for what it was). In all, we didn’t find the food on the island to be spectacular or a good value. We ended up getting lunch foods from the grocery store about 200 yards from the front gate.
Staff– The staff was friendly but they didn’t seem to talk to each other much (didn’t seem like anyone was on the same page or willing to take ownership. There were about 8 dive staff members that were willing to give you tips to find creatures during your trip.
Boat Dives– They boat dives were nice in that you could go places that were difficult or impossible to get to by car (1000 steps, “Welcome Home”, and Klein Bonaire). They did boat dives at 8:30, 11, and 2pm each day but you could not sign up until about noon the day before. They did take requests which was nice. But multiple times we were not able to go to the scheduled location because another boat was already at the mooring.
Shore Dives– That’s the biggest reason we chose Bonaire. You will definitely want to rent a truck for this island, but they also have a great reef right behind the resort. They had plenty of YOKE ONLY tanks available and lockers and rinse bins near the water/dock. Just be sure to bring a lock if you want to use one.
Bonaire is a great value for diving; we did 23 dives over the 6 days with about 24 hours total underwater. I had Google Gemini’s “Deep Research” plan an itinerary based on the tides, weather, and moon phase while we were there. We stuck to it pretty closely with a few shuffles and changes. Overall, I think most of our favorite sites were the ones we took by boat (less pressure from other divers?)
I can only imagine how the reefs looked here about 20-30 years ago. There were brain coral skeletons in some places the size of a small car! Sad to see a lot of death on the reefs and not a ton of bio diversity with the corals. Still, some of the sites had large staghorn forests which were great to see! We didn’t see any frogfish, but our guide (Marco), was able to find a seahorse for us on one of the dives. We do a lot of Florida diving and one thing we all noticed is we didn’t see one shark the entire trip. It seems like their version of sharks are 6-7ft tarpon that follow you and graze right by your face (especially at night).
Favorite Dive– For me, our timing was perfect with the full moon and we opted to time our night dive at “the lake” for an Ostacod dive. It was incredible (unfortunately not something you can get on camera), it was like being surrounded by thousands of icicle lights dancing. If you plan to go and can make it so the full moon happens during the front half of your stay I’d HIGHLY recommend this dive!
Other impressions–
The people on the island, and other divers, in general were very friendly. We stayed out of “downtown” since there were cruise ships in multiple days. Driving the island was pretty easy, as long as you know how to drive stick shift. If we were to go back, I’d probably push for us to spend the $100 per person more to get the “ultimate dive truck” instead. Our pickup had enough space, but organizing the tanks and gear did take a little effort. The ultimate dive trucks had better organization and the added fresh water washdown would have been nice.
My cheap housing for my Osmo 5 pro kept leaking/fogging up so I didn’t get nearly as much footage as I would have liked, but here’s a short video from the trip.
I’ll also post some of my photos soon to my instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/fishhy/
Thanks!
-Scott
Here’s my trip report:
We booked via Maduro Dive Travel for 4 people with a truck and 6 days unlimited nitrox for shore dives, breakfast buffet, and 6 single tank boat dives. Cost: ~$1100 each plus entry tax and marine fee.
While we did have to present the entry tax at the airport, no one ever asked to see our marine park pass (honor system?). Though, if you wanted a collectable medallion for your park tag, you could present your QR code at the local STINAPA office (the staff here seemed really put-out to help us here unfortunately).
Getting there– We left through Miami and found a deal on AA for 10k points round trip plus about $85. The times were decent (we went Wed - Wed).
The room– Adequate. Tile floors that they cleaned daily and good water pressure and hot water in the shower. The AC was able to get the room cold but all the power turns off when you take your key from near the front door. So many times we’d leave one key in the room to allow us to finish charging batteries and keep the room cold.
WIFI was good, there was an access point in one of our two adjoining rooms.
Food– We ate at RumRunners a couple nights. The food here was decent but the service was painfully slow. I did really enjoy the Tuna and Salmon Poke entree. We also tried the Monday night AYCE BBQ which I’d pass on next time (dry and pricey for what it was). In all, we didn’t find the food on the island to be spectacular or a good value. We ended up getting lunch foods from the grocery store about 200 yards from the front gate.
Staff– The staff was friendly but they didn’t seem to talk to each other much (didn’t seem like anyone was on the same page or willing to take ownership. There were about 8 dive staff members that were willing to give you tips to find creatures during your trip.
Boat Dives– They boat dives were nice in that you could go places that were difficult or impossible to get to by car (1000 steps, “Welcome Home”, and Klein Bonaire). They did boat dives at 8:30, 11, and 2pm each day but you could not sign up until about noon the day before. They did take requests which was nice. But multiple times we were not able to go to the scheduled location because another boat was already at the mooring.
Shore Dives– That’s the biggest reason we chose Bonaire. You will definitely want to rent a truck for this island, but they also have a great reef right behind the resort. They had plenty of YOKE ONLY tanks available and lockers and rinse bins near the water/dock. Just be sure to bring a lock if you want to use one.
Bonaire is a great value for diving; we did 23 dives over the 6 days with about 24 hours total underwater. I had Google Gemini’s “Deep Research” plan an itinerary based on the tides, weather, and moon phase while we were there. We stuck to it pretty closely with a few shuffles and changes. Overall, I think most of our favorite sites were the ones we took by boat (less pressure from other divers?)
I can only imagine how the reefs looked here about 20-30 years ago. There were brain coral skeletons in some places the size of a small car! Sad to see a lot of death on the reefs and not a ton of bio diversity with the corals. Still, some of the sites had large staghorn forests which were great to see! We didn’t see any frogfish, but our guide (Marco), was able to find a seahorse for us on one of the dives. We do a lot of Florida diving and one thing we all noticed is we didn’t see one shark the entire trip. It seems like their version of sharks are 6-7ft tarpon that follow you and graze right by your face (especially at night).
Favorite Dive– For me, our timing was perfect with the full moon and we opted to time our night dive at “the lake” for an Ostacod dive. It was incredible (unfortunately not something you can get on camera), it was like being surrounded by thousands of icicle lights dancing. If you plan to go and can make it so the full moon happens during the front half of your stay I’d HIGHLY recommend this dive!
Other impressions–
The people on the island, and other divers, in general were very friendly. We stayed out of “downtown” since there were cruise ships in multiple days. Driving the island was pretty easy, as long as you know how to drive stick shift. If we were to go back, I’d probably push for us to spend the $100 per person more to get the “ultimate dive truck” instead. Our pickup had enough space, but organizing the tanks and gear did take a little effort. The ultimate dive trucks had better organization and the added fresh water washdown would have been nice.
My cheap housing for my Osmo 5 pro kept leaking/fogging up so I didn’t get nearly as much footage as I would have liked, but here’s a short video from the trip.
I’ll also post some of my photos soon to my instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/fishhy/
Thanks!
-Scott
