Darcey
Contributor
Alright, heres my first attempt at a trip report. I didnt do one for my last trip to Belize and I should have
I had the time of my life and would have had fun writing it up!
Anyway, we left for Bonaire on Saturday February 13th and arrived at 6am on Sunday the 14th. We (5 of us total-2 couples and one solo guy) stayed at Den Laman and thus did our diving with Bonaire Dive & Adventure. Once we finally got our rental truck (took for freaking EVER) we got to Laman, checked in and sat through the 1.5 hour long orientation. Jeesh. I could sum it up in about 10 minutes total or less. Once that was over we geared up and hit the water for our first and second dives off of Bari Reef. We didnt see much on those two dives just a few eels and a few lettuce leave nudibranch. That evening my boyfriend decided to go out on our own for a Valentines dinner. Big mistake. With the combination of it being a Sunday AND the day of Carnival you couldnt find anywhere to eat that was open and the places that were open were packed. We ended up back at Sunset bar & Grill at Den Laman. We sat at the corner table right on the ocean. Very romantic! Plus our dinner turned out to be FABULOUS! I cannot say enough good about the food at Sunset. The service however left a lot to be desired. Im fine with being on island time for dinner but how many times does one have to ask for a refill on water or another cocktail? It was the same situation at every restaurant we went to with the exception of Rum Runners at Captain Dons Resort. (Which was also a FABULOUS dinner at beautiful setting!)
Den Laman was great. I cant say enough good about our accommodations! Our 2 bedroom ocean view condo was fabulous with a great view and lots of room. Very clean and the staff in the office were very friendly. All of the reviews about the stirs are right though slippery when wet. We had no choice a few times but to go up with wet gear, especially at night, but made sure to re-trace our steps with a towel so no one would slip and fall. Very dangerous after a few drinks!
Our week of diving consisted of about 4 dives a day. 2 in the morning/early afternoon somewhere along the island and one in the late afternoon and one at night off of Bari Reef which was our house reef. We covered Windsock twice, Karpata, Webbers Joy/Witches Hut, Jeff Davis Memorial, Andrea II, Alice in Wonderland, Invisibles, Atlantis, 1000 Steps (found out that Im in better physical condition than I thought! PHEW!) and a boat dive on Mi Dushi off of Klein Bonaire. We didnt do the Hilma Hooker since every morning it was swamped with too many divers. (Everyone wanted to do the Hooker last week!)
Im probably going to get slammed for this since so many people are in very much in love with Bonaire and return year after year but as far as critter sightings go well, Im not impressed. Nor am I impressed with the reef condition. Im actually rather saddened. Granted, Im going off of one other Caribbean dive trip under my belt to Belize last year but compared to Belize (and compared to Bequia according to my boyfriend), Bonaire was pretty sad in my opinion. Maybe we were at the wrong sites at the wrong time (and I hope that's the case) but I thought that there was a great lack in fish species on every dive. Tons of eels, so that was nice as well as some turtles (YAY) and coral banded shrimp but other than that, nothing special. Just a ton of tarpon (very cool), parrot, trunk, trumpet and angel fish (all of which were very beautiful but how about something else to gawk at and photograph?) and its not like we werent looking in every nook and cranny of the reef. We even had my dive instructor with us who is a critter finding ninja with a video camera on our trip! Heck, even our night dives were sparse which was strange because I usually geek out during night dives due to all of the odd and awesome life. All in all though I still very much enjoyed our dives I just wish that the reefs were in better condition, more colorful, more variety and more species of critters. On the bright side we knocked off another specialty while there Underwater Naturalist. Whoo. That was easy. Also have one more dive left for deep specialty which Ill have to do back here in the freezing quarry thanks to me getting a head cold at the end of our trip and not being able to equalize past 60ft. *sigh*
On a critter side note: we did tag a lion fish off of Klein. I hope the little bastard is dead by now.
Bonaire Dive and Adventure is well a nice operation once you get the hang of their hours of operation. The unlimited enriched air was very nice and for the most part the employees were okay to deal with but I wouldnt want to have to deal with them anymore than we did. I would have liked to see them keep up with their rinse tanks more though because by mid afternoon they were pretty nasty and didnt rinse anything off at all. It was nice that they had a separate one for cameras and regulators though, especially knowing what people do in their wetsuits. Granted, Im guilty of a few offenses when super hydrated but damn. Ewww.
We had lunch usually in our condo or down at Sunset Bar and Grill and did dinner out every evening. We didnt have a single bad meal. We hit up Cactus Blue, Rum Runners, Paradise Moon, Pasa Bon Pizza, Zeezicht and Sunset Bar and Grill twice for dinner. All were very good, but as said before island time is nice but service is lacking.
On our off gas day (Saturday) we decided to head north to the famous National Park. We decided that it must be some joke on tourists. The drive there was nice but the drive through the park was painfully bumpy and rather dull. The highlight was an occasional flamingo and lizard or goat crossing. Other than that it was just cactus, brush and lots of rough road. After getting the crap beat out of us we drove to the southern part of the island which was very pretty and then messed around down town and had dinner at Zeezicht.
We flew out this past Sunday on the 21st. We arrived more than 2 hours early and thank God we did because we were still in line at 7:45 waiting to get our tickets and through security for our 8:30 flight. As I said before in another post, the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing there and they take island time a bit too seriously there. Ah well. We still made it to our plane on time barely. We returned home to a blizzard. A normal easy 2 hour drive from OHare Airport in Chicago turned into a 4 hour crawl at 40mph back to the Quad Cities thanks to the dumping and drifting of snow. Welcome home. *rolls eyes*
:cold:
All in all we had a VERY nice time. All of the locals were very nice and unlimited shore diving is awesome. However while I loved Bonaire am not jumping to go back anytime soon. Maybe in a few years. Im very glad I finally got to dive the famous divers paradise of Bonaire but I guess I just prefer a more quaint island dive getaway with actual beaches to walk along at night without so much Americanized crap like seeing a KFC, Napa Auto Parts store and a Subway. Im thinking an Aggressor Fleet liveaboard or back to Belize again next year since I think that Belize may just be my Bonaire. :daydreaming:
Anyway, we left for Bonaire on Saturday February 13th and arrived at 6am on Sunday the 14th. We (5 of us total-2 couples and one solo guy) stayed at Den Laman and thus did our diving with Bonaire Dive & Adventure. Once we finally got our rental truck (took for freaking EVER) we got to Laman, checked in and sat through the 1.5 hour long orientation. Jeesh. I could sum it up in about 10 minutes total or less. Once that was over we geared up and hit the water for our first and second dives off of Bari Reef. We didnt see much on those two dives just a few eels and a few lettuce leave nudibranch. That evening my boyfriend decided to go out on our own for a Valentines dinner. Big mistake. With the combination of it being a Sunday AND the day of Carnival you couldnt find anywhere to eat that was open and the places that were open were packed. We ended up back at Sunset bar & Grill at Den Laman. We sat at the corner table right on the ocean. Very romantic! Plus our dinner turned out to be FABULOUS! I cannot say enough good about the food at Sunset. The service however left a lot to be desired. Im fine with being on island time for dinner but how many times does one have to ask for a refill on water or another cocktail? It was the same situation at every restaurant we went to with the exception of Rum Runners at Captain Dons Resort. (Which was also a FABULOUS dinner at beautiful setting!)
Den Laman was great. I cant say enough good about our accommodations! Our 2 bedroom ocean view condo was fabulous with a great view and lots of room. Very clean and the staff in the office were very friendly. All of the reviews about the stirs are right though slippery when wet. We had no choice a few times but to go up with wet gear, especially at night, but made sure to re-trace our steps with a towel so no one would slip and fall. Very dangerous after a few drinks!
Our week of diving consisted of about 4 dives a day. 2 in the morning/early afternoon somewhere along the island and one in the late afternoon and one at night off of Bari Reef which was our house reef. We covered Windsock twice, Karpata, Webbers Joy/Witches Hut, Jeff Davis Memorial, Andrea II, Alice in Wonderland, Invisibles, Atlantis, 1000 Steps (found out that Im in better physical condition than I thought! PHEW!) and a boat dive on Mi Dushi off of Klein Bonaire. We didnt do the Hilma Hooker since every morning it was swamped with too many divers. (Everyone wanted to do the Hooker last week!)
Im probably going to get slammed for this since so many people are in very much in love with Bonaire and return year after year but as far as critter sightings go well, Im not impressed. Nor am I impressed with the reef condition. Im actually rather saddened. Granted, Im going off of one other Caribbean dive trip under my belt to Belize last year but compared to Belize (and compared to Bequia according to my boyfriend), Bonaire was pretty sad in my opinion. Maybe we were at the wrong sites at the wrong time (and I hope that's the case) but I thought that there was a great lack in fish species on every dive. Tons of eels, so that was nice as well as some turtles (YAY) and coral banded shrimp but other than that, nothing special. Just a ton of tarpon (very cool), parrot, trunk, trumpet and angel fish (all of which were very beautiful but how about something else to gawk at and photograph?) and its not like we werent looking in every nook and cranny of the reef. We even had my dive instructor with us who is a critter finding ninja with a video camera on our trip! Heck, even our night dives were sparse which was strange because I usually geek out during night dives due to all of the odd and awesome life. All in all though I still very much enjoyed our dives I just wish that the reefs were in better condition, more colorful, more variety and more species of critters. On the bright side we knocked off another specialty while there Underwater Naturalist. Whoo. That was easy. Also have one more dive left for deep specialty which Ill have to do back here in the freezing quarry thanks to me getting a head cold at the end of our trip and not being able to equalize past 60ft. *sigh*
On a critter side note: we did tag a lion fish off of Klein. I hope the little bastard is dead by now.
Bonaire Dive and Adventure is well a nice operation once you get the hang of their hours of operation. The unlimited enriched air was very nice and for the most part the employees were okay to deal with but I wouldnt want to have to deal with them anymore than we did. I would have liked to see them keep up with their rinse tanks more though because by mid afternoon they were pretty nasty and didnt rinse anything off at all. It was nice that they had a separate one for cameras and regulators though, especially knowing what people do in their wetsuits. Granted, Im guilty of a few offenses when super hydrated but damn. Ewww.
We had lunch usually in our condo or down at Sunset Bar and Grill and did dinner out every evening. We didnt have a single bad meal. We hit up Cactus Blue, Rum Runners, Paradise Moon, Pasa Bon Pizza, Zeezicht and Sunset Bar and Grill twice for dinner. All were very good, but as said before island time is nice but service is lacking.
On our off gas day (Saturday) we decided to head north to the famous National Park. We decided that it must be some joke on tourists. The drive there was nice but the drive through the park was painfully bumpy and rather dull. The highlight was an occasional flamingo and lizard or goat crossing. Other than that it was just cactus, brush and lots of rough road. After getting the crap beat out of us we drove to the southern part of the island which was very pretty and then messed around down town and had dinner at Zeezicht.
We flew out this past Sunday on the 21st. We arrived more than 2 hours early and thank God we did because we were still in line at 7:45 waiting to get our tickets and through security for our 8:30 flight. As I said before in another post, the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing there and they take island time a bit too seriously there. Ah well. We still made it to our plane on time barely. We returned home to a blizzard. A normal easy 2 hour drive from OHare Airport in Chicago turned into a 4 hour crawl at 40mph back to the Quad Cities thanks to the dumping and drifting of snow. Welcome home. *rolls eyes*
:cold:All in all we had a VERY nice time. All of the locals were very nice and unlimited shore diving is awesome. However while I loved Bonaire am not jumping to go back anytime soon. Maybe in a few years. Im very glad I finally got to dive the famous divers paradise of Bonaire but I guess I just prefer a more quaint island dive getaway with actual beaches to walk along at night without so much Americanized crap like seeing a KFC, Napa Auto Parts store and a Subway. Im thinking an Aggressor Fleet liveaboard or back to Belize again next year since I think that Belize may just be my Bonaire. :daydreaming:
