Best Bonaire Boat DIves

[bethie]

Hi all, I will be in Bonaire for a week in early Nov, and my buddies want to include 6 boat dives. I have been to Bonaire many times, and have never done a boat dive. Does anyone have suggestions on boat dives that cannot be done from shore, or are better as boat dives? Obviously Klein Bonaire, but are there specific sites there that are better than others? Thanks!
PS I'll be going back in January for 2 weeks, shore diving only.

 

[NDL_Diver]

I would do any site not accesable by shore. There will be people that suggest shore dive sites since they don't shore dive.

So Bonaire sites like:
La Dania's Leap
Rappel
Bloodlet
Country Garden
Bon Bini Na Kas
Barcadera
Small Wall

I would consider 1000 steps because the climb up is more difficult once you are over 55.

And any Klein sites

al

 

[mbs]

+1 for Bloodlet and Country Garden!! Great sites

 

[Fat Daddy]

+1 for Small Wall. Had a great night dive there.

Jason

 

[LimitedSlip7]

Turtle City! Probably some of the other East coast dives too.

On Klein, we did a wall dive that was decent. Think it was Carl's Hill. The other boat dive we did at Klein wasn't very impressive compared to the shore.

 

[Doctorfish]

Forest on Klein has never let me down either. The East Coast boat dives are excellent but that's a whole other topic.

 

[tkaelin]

Rappel and Karl's Vision.

 

[scubadada]

My wife and I just got back from 2 weeks on Bonaire, the northern sites off Bonaire, not reachable from shore, were all very good. They were less affected by red algae than the sites off Klein Bonaire. We did Bon Bini Na Cas, Kalli's Reef, La Dania's Leap, Rappel, Small Wall, Country Garden, Barcadera, and Bloodlet. The best sites off Klein Bonaire on this visit were Forest and Carl's Hill. Sampler was a past favorite, looked kind of sad on this visit. We had two seahorses off Bon Bini Na Cas and two seahorses at Carl's Hill.

 

[diversteve]

Rappel and Forest.

 

[rmorgan]

Bethie, Doctorfish's mention of East Coast Divers should not go unnoticed. They have a purpose-built Zodiac and go out to a vast seascape of fans, turtles, and larger fish (including a flock of tarpon on a big sand field at White Hole) The difference from the leeward sites is substantial. That aside, the sites mentioned here are all good. Our experience has been that the resort boats tend to go to the near-north sites (La Dania's, Country Garden, Bloodlet, Rappel, even Small Wall), all of which are good and for obvious reasons less crowded that the shore dives. We did several trips with Sea Donkey Diving the last time we were down, and in addition to being a funky, friendly (and very professionally-run) refitted Maine lobster boat, they will happily go to any site conditions allow, from Vista Blue on up.