Just returned from a week in Bonaire, N.A. and it was by far the best diving I've seen in the Caribbean yet. And that bold statement includes previous trips to the Cayman Islands, Cozumel, Curacao, St. Martin, FL Keys, and Yucatan peninsula.
We arrived Saturday, May 6th, at 2.30p but being seated in the back of the plane we were slowed in line for both Immigration and later Hertz. We stayed at Buddy Dive Resort, actually on the newly acquired Lions Dive side of the resort since this was an RCI timeshare trade. It was a nice 2 bedroom room with modern A/C units, full kitchen, tv (out of NY oddly), and a private balcony. The second bedroom A/C had a minor hick-up midweek and we managed to pop a fuse cooking dinner one night. They were old school fuses which required one of their on-call guys to come fix it, not just a simple breaker to flip.
Buddy only ran the required BNMP orientation Sunday at 11a but after a delayed start to diving, I still managed 20 logged dives over 5 days for a total of almost 16hrs underwater. In retrospect, I doubt anyone would have lifted an eyebrow had I just grabbed some tanks and started diving Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. Buddys is wonderfully setup for divers between their dock facilities, showers, rinse tanks, gear locker room, and drive through tank pickup. We didnt do any boat diving this trip but their boats did seem to run like clock-work. Their only fault all week was their nitrox membrane was only producing 31% so no 36% tanks were available. They also managed to double both our room and hotel taxes but they correctly fixed it when asked. Taxation does still seem a bit steep in Bonaire.
Jill brought an ABC islands guide book with her which seemed to over user the word current in my opinion. She was apprehensive about diving some of the Southern sites early in the week because of the current descriptions in the book. However, White Slave, and Alice in Wonderland had very little current when we did them later in the week. Oil Slick Leap, White Slave, and Invisibles were probably some of my favorite dives on the island last week. We saw a number of turtles, a few eagle rays, spiny & Spanish lobsters, and the obligatory slew of tarpon, eels, and other tropicals. An octopus was also very entertaining on one of the night dives. We never did find a sea horse, those critters seem to elude me for some reason. Other divers at the resort managed a dive with a pod of dolphins at Windsock, and saw a huge jewfish at Salt Pier on one of the guided dives. The night dives were great, the 10W HID that I took made the resident Tarpon my best friend each night as hed cruise right under me and nail a illuminated meal where-ever he could. Even after grabbing on to him a couple times for a ride he still swam right under us ever minute or two following the light out. We also had a big snapper tag along one night which cleaned up on some unfortunate Sergeant Majors.
Our typical dive profiles were multi-level, with the first dive dropping right down to 75-100ft for several minutes and then working our way up the reef. Most of our time underwater was probably spent between 40 and 60fsw. There really wasnt much purpose in doing deep dives as the reef didnt change much by depth. The water was clear with guess from 50 to 110 viz on every dive. It was a warm 83F and I wore only a 2mm vest & hood. Being a bit cold-natured, Jill chose a full 3mm jumpsuit.
One thing that stood out was the abundance of high dollar photo and video gear everywhere. Housed D200s and high-end Canons were everywhere. The only sad part was watching a lot, if not most, of these well-heeled diver take $4k of camera into the water with $600 of dive gear and then go walk all over reef, bracing themselves against coral to get snaps of grouper and other things. One might hope that if you enjoy the sport enough to travel and drop several thousands on photo gear they might spend the time to get a decent handle on buoyancy.
Theft on the island is still alive and well. We didnt lose anything short of a bottle of defog but we did give a lift to a Dutch kid parked next to us at 1000 Steps after some goblin stole the battery from their rental truck. A week earlier they had 2 of 4 empty tanks stolen. As small as Bonaire is, and as big a part as tourism plays on their economy, youd think theyd clean up the problem already. Overall the people were as friendly as anywhere and prices on the island were very reasonable.
We tried City Café, Wattaburger, Cocos, and Casa Blanca all were priced very reasonably from $5 burger specials to the $36 Mixed Grill which was an absolutely ridiculous amount of meat for two at Casa Blanca. We cooked in a lot and went by both the Cultimara and Warehouse supermarkets. Neither were supermarkets by American standards but they did offer what we needed at prices not too far above our local US prices. Soda and beer was a little pricier but beef and gouda was cheap.
Travel was uneventful despite an overnight layover in ATL on the way back. I got both our backplates, neoprene, and a set of fins in the dive bag still under the 50lbs weight cap. Regs and my HID light were carried on and they only earned me a security shake down at RDU. I expected the canister light might concern the airport screeners but Bonaire, Montego, and Atlanta didnt even hand check it. I only charged the light once while there and the 127V/50hz power was no problem. The stainless steel backplates did earn a TSA inspection both ways but nothing was lost. Our Chevy S10 from Hertz was decent and a bit bigger than most of the Toyota and Mazda trucks on the island. A fill-up of Premium at the end of the week was only $50US.
In retrospect, we should have spent two weeks on island. I wish we had the time to have done La Cai and Red Slave as the dives seemed to get more interesting the further south we went. More night dives would also have been nice. But we are looking forward to another trip sometime and will definitely do Bonaire again since we liked it so much more than the other islands weve been to before. Jill and I would typically take off and do two morning dives, then another one or two with my family, and usually a night dive later on. Diving on your own schedule, at your own pace worked out great since my family also met us in Bonaire and preferred to get breakfast in morning before diving. I cant wait to get back.
