December 2017 Scubaboard Microsurge

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Long time reader, rare poster here.

My wife Tammy and I (I'm Dick btw), will be on Bonaire the same week (2 Dec to 10 Dec)....flying the Delta route thru ATL. Not sure we'll be able to make the Bari dive on Wed but will try. I do ask everywhere we dive "you post on SB?" and haven't met anyone yet, so this will be awesome to run into some SB'ers. I'll be the one wearing the Vibram toe shoes...in the airport and diving, so I shouldn't be hard to miss.

We're staying at Kings Beach Resort this time...right next to Lighthouse Beach Resort and Delfins.

This is the hardest part of the trip for me...the 2 days before, anticpation kills me...only 3181 minutes until scheduled landing....

Dick.
 
Long time reader, rare poster here.

My wife Tammy and I (I'm Dick btw), will be on Bonaire the same week (2 Dec to 10 Dec)....flying the Delta route thru ATL. Not sure we'll be able to make the Bari dive on Wed but will try. I do ask everywhere we dive "you post on SB?" and haven't met anyone yet, so this will be awesome to run into some SB'ers. I'll be the one wearing the Vibram toe shoes...in the airport and diving, so I shouldn't be hard to miss.

We're staying at Kings Beach Resort this time...right next to Lighthouse Beach Resort and Delfins.

This is the hardest part of the trip for me...the 2 days before, anticpation kills me...only 3181 minutes until scheduled landing....

Dick.
I hope you and Tammy can join us Dick! Since we are not leaving until Sunday I have an extra day of waiting. Good news though, just got upgraded to Economy Comfort for both legs on the way there. Not as sweet as first class but I will take extra room anyway I can get it.
 
Made to the island today with a very nice though long travel day. Up and at 'em early for the 5:20 am flight out of MSP. Got into ATL early and had just enough time to grab some Buttermilk Fried Chicken tacos at El Taco to enjoy on the plane. They really started boarding early. With the upgrade the little lady and I had our own three seats in Economy Comfort. Nice. I got some good naps on both flights. After we got our bags we were taken over to AB Carrental to get our handsome steed for the week. Though the truck was included in out package the usual full coverage and extra driver cost me another $8 a day which while annoying is less than I have see elsewhere on the island.

We got into our unit at Bamboo Bali and it is spectacular! It is the "in the Summertime" cottage and was recently completely redone. Very happy. Check in here is always an non-event which I really appreciate. We ran over to the Van Den Tweel for food and then the Zhung Kong for some adult beverages. I grilled out some burgers which were delicious and much needed after only having a couple of tacos in ATL. Tomorrow morning we will go do our orientation at Wannadive which will take about 3 minutes then the welcome dive at Front Porch. I think I will score some points if we do our next dive at Something Special so we will likely go there next. I'm leaving the camera in the villa until after lunch I think.
 
Today we did our "orientation" at Wannadive. They are really cool there, "you know what you need to know, how much weight do you need?" We did our first dive there at Front Porch which is very moon like until you get north a ways. That said, it was nice and saw all the crazy fish activity that I missed on our last trip in Roatan. Lots of swimmers at Coco Beach above us as we dove. Next dive was Something Special, all the usual suspects minus any special treats like frog fish or sea horses. One thing that I have never done before is that on the way in there were several small needle fish that we followed. That was the closest I ever got to those. After that we had lunch and a serious siesta! We headed up to Tolo and while we had a very nice dive the bleaching there was significant. We had not seen any in the morning but that place looked in rough shape. Fish life at all sights was awesome as usual. The plan for tomorrow is to start with Cliff then head south to Vista Blue and maybe Salt Pier.
 
Today we did our "orientation" at Wannadive. They are really cool there, "you know what you need to know, how much weight do you need?" We did our first dive there at Front Porch which is very moon like until you get north a ways. That said, it was nice and saw all the crazy fish activity that I missed on our last trip in Roatan. Lots of swimmers at Coco Beach above us as we dove. Next dive was Something Special, all the usual suspects minus any special treats like frog fish or sea horses. One thing that I have never done before is that on the way in there were several small needle fish that we followed. That was the closest I ever got to those. After that we had lunch and a serious siesta! We headed up to Tolo and while we had a very nice dive the bleaching there was significant. We had not seen any in the morning but that place looked in rough shape. Fish life at all sights was awesome as usual. The plan for tomorrow is to start with Cliff then head south to Vista Blue and maybe Salt Pier.

Sorry to hear about Tolo. Its one of our favorites and was planning on doing it as part of a three tank north trip tomorrow. We will have to rethink that. Thanks for the info.

As of this evening there is a ship in at Salt Pier. It was there yesterday as well, so no diving until it moves. Anyone know how long they usually stay anchored?

All our dives so far have been south. Mild winds until this afternoon then it kicked up pretty good. Viz a bit hazy.
 
As of this evening there is a ship in at Salt Pier. It was there yesterday as well, so no diving until it moves. Anyone know how long they usually stay anchored?

Depends of course, but my experience is normally 3 days once they start loading. Factor in mechanical issues (conveyor blew out), arrival time, etc. I've often gotten good intel from the guards in the hut. There have been some language issues as my Papiamentu is non-existent, but we figured it out.

Just booked March 2018. Cannot come soon enough.
 
Question. How are you guys handling a change of cloths for lunch? Something old and risk loss? I imagine Bari should not be too much of a risk.

Lisa
 
Question. How are you guys handling a change of cloths for lunch? Something old and risk loss? I imagine Bari should not be too much of a risk.

Lisa
We will probably zip over to BBB and swap quick. We are only a couple of blocks away from Bari. I don't think Bari represents much risk though. We haven't had anyone go through our truck this week. I'm leaving a few coins and an old pair of Oakleys in it and nothing has gone amiss.
 
Started the day at Cliff as it is the closest site and we were not getting an early start. Nice dive as usual but bleaching was fairly prevalent. I have to say it seems to be one species that is showing stress. I don't know the name but it is greenish. After getting a new mask for my wife as her brand new Rx mask was leaking we had lunch at B2B just to make sure it was still tasty. Tastiness confirmed. We dived Red Beryl after lunch. Nicest site of the trip so far. First time we have done it. We were going to do Vista Blue but it was pretty rough there so stopped at RB. We might be doing that site daily. The ship is still at the Salt Pier but it looked like they were done loading. Maybe it will sail tonight. We finished off the day at Something Special. Now we are going to grab some dinner and get more groceries at the Van Den Tweel.
 
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