Zebra mussel:
Im considering staying at the Belmar in Bonaire and Im wondering if anyone has any experiance with the boat dives there?. Do they have an in house dive boat?. My main question is about the sites they visit. Since they are located a little bit South...do they primarily confine the dives to the Southern end of the island?. I guess Im more interested in diving Klein Bonaire and some of the more inaccesable sites on the North end. Im really not interested in boat diving some of the same sites that can be done as an easy shore dive.Does anyone have any first hand experiance with this?. How is the diving on the house reef? How did you like the resort in general. ....Thanks for any help you can give me
As mentioned, BelMar now has an arrangement with Buddy Dive. They have a satellite shop on-site so you can get air and basic supplies. Last summer, Belmar was a Toucan diveop, their other location is just up the road at the Plaza, so you could also buy a package through them or ala carte dives. There's two dive docks at Belmar and if you look at the pictures, the indication is that Buddy brings a boat in there for pickup. I think the only time that happened was for the Christmas picture. It never happened with Toucan either.
Can't speak for Buddy, but in three days of diving with Toucan, without being asked, they took us to Rappel - not shore accessible, drift diving at Hands Off(Klein) Turtle diving at Jerry's(Klein) and Black Coral diving at Forest(Klein) And a couple 2nd dives that could have been done from shore. So we hit some of the highlights w/o knowing it. They always asked where everyone wanted to go first. Klein is only a 10-15 boat ride, probably closer out from Buddy's. My feeling would be if you're going to dive with Buddy's - stay there.
The Belmar house reef is not exceptional, but it's pretty good. It's pretty indicative of a lot of the southern sites, starts shallow and a gradual drop as you roll over the edge to about 80-100'. Plenty of corals and purple tube sponges and lots of fish. I've read of people seeing dolphins there but we didn't. You'll do your BMP tag/orientation dive there most likely. It's a really nice afternoon dive after you've finished your morning dives. You can even do it as a night dive, there's a buoy out to the south, what some divers do is hang a flashing beacon off it and then stay nearby to keep from drifting too far south. Mostly because it's all private residences with no public access to get out. You can easily distinguish BelMar from the water, although there's another property just north of it built in the same style, my buddy got almost all the way there our first dive b4 he realized it was the wrong place.
They have nice facilities, two docks with broad steps leading into the water, shower and rinse tank. There's also a rinse tank and storage facilities by the diveshop located to the south end of the property, if you have an upstairs unit, your gear storage locker is in that area. The downstairs units all have their own storage closets outside the back doors. Your key gets you into your closet - for the downstairs units - and the diveshop's public area to p/u tanks 24/7 or use their Nitrox analyzer.
The condos are clean, relatively new and nicely furnished in the Dutch style. Our first floor 2br unit was 20 steps to the pool and 20 steps past that to the water. Nicely furnished, but just a 4 burner cooktop and microwave plus a fullsize refrigerator. As mentioned only the bedrooms have A/C units, that's pretty typical on Bonaire, I know it's the same at Port Bonaire. The A/C only works with the door closed and the room occupied, they have a combo I/R/motion sensor with a delay. But it's really not that big an issue, we were there last June, with the doors open, the breeze kept everything cool all night till you closed them. It must be typical, we had a little fieldmouse who made nightly treks down our hallway from the back to our patio area, he'd been doing it a while as he was fearless, I think he was mad when we closed the door early the first night.
I think the only time we locked the doors was if we left for the day, if we were diving the house reef, we just left it all open. Never a hint that anything would be taken. The electrical plugs are European, but after inspection you realize that U.S. plugs also work. So no need for adapters. The power is 127/50 though so some things run hotter, camcorder/laptop chargers are ok, but I'd charge flash batteries at the diveshop, they have transformers/charging stations setup.
"Resort" is maybe an overstatement, it's a pretty compressed property, nothing is more than 100' away. You park right behind your condo so it's easy to move your gear, you can drive 50' to the external tank p/u/diveshop and the whole property is only about 20' wider than the building itself. It's perched right on the edge of a small cliff so it's just about 10' down to the water. If you want any kind of beach, you'd have to walk to Bachelor's about 200yds. north, or drive over to the Plaza, they've got a nice one with all the water toys and a beach bar.
The staff is exceptionally nice and friendly, Erika in the diveshop is a sweetheart, the maid comes reliably and there's a night watchman. He mostly helps you park the truck as the parking is just off street and really tight, and it's pretty dark at night. They have really slow Internet access in the lobby. If you have an early departure, ask Manon for an alarm clock.
It's a really quiet, peaceful place with outstanding sunsets. Exceptional views from every patio also, every unit faces out to the water. The closest restaurant is about 100yds down the street at another property, we only had breakfast there once.
Everything else is a drive so get a truck. The Airport is 2 mins. away, the Plaza and Divi resorts are just past that and downtown Kralendijk is 2 mins. past that. I'd guess it's a 10-15 min. ride to Buddy if you buy their dive package.
Going south to the divesites, there's one just north of BelMar - Bachelors Beach and then all the good sites, the Hooker, Invisibles, Angel City etc. start about 1/4 mile south on the road Belmar is on (there's really only one main road) and extend down about 2 miles past the Salt Pier to Lighthouse. There's so many divesites in places you can see several divetrucks parked 100 yds. apart. And although we were there during DiveFest last year, there were times when we were the only divers in the vicinity.
One thing you realize about Bonaire after a couple of days is that nothing is ever really crowded since the restaurant/resort/divesite capacity exceeds the airline capacity. Except during the regatta in the fall. We only had to wait once for dinner at Casablanca about 20 min. to be seated - well worth it btw.
Personally I'd just alacarte it with Toucan, we did 4 days of 2-tank dives and it was too much, you can hit the highlights in about 5-6 dives. Unless you get the deal with BelMar - I wouldn't want to drive up to Buddy's everyday though, it's not appreciably far, maybe 15 mins. each way, but seems like a hassle. We paid $18 ea. one afternoon to do an extra dive out to Forest, on the boat was the crew(2) a dutch couple and us. No one was in a hurry so it was about an hour dive, the DM looked like he might have been napping.
If I went back, I'd stay at Belmar again.
Steve
P.S. Useful Bonaire tip: When you're leaving, pay the departure tax and get the receipt before you get in line at the airline check-in. You'll need it to check-in. It's the little window(big sign) to the south of the store at the terminal - $20 U.S. - I think it's cash only also. And if you want a "Diver's Paradise" license plate, they had a few in the airport store.
