scubaaaronh
Contributor
Getting there:
I know this is a little late but a little late is better then never. We flew the continental red eye supposedly from Houston till the storms came through and we were delayed. We had a gate attendant the said he could see about putting us through Newark the next day but he had to check with his supervisor. This guy was the biggest jerk I have ever met and we ended up in a screaming match over getting me to Bonaire. When I demanded his supervisor and security showed up they all of a sudden came up with two seats on the Newark flight. So off we went finally. We arrived on Bonaire Sunday and were picked up and taken to the GRI, golden reef inn. When we got there Gibi was preparing breakfast, so we were able to eat as soon as we got there. He also got our keys to our room and truck. Shortly after Liz showed up and got all the paper work done. We went for our check out dive at Eden Beach through Wannadive. Bart and the guys there are great, a real first class operation. We also signed up for a nitrox class there for 75 bucks. We did the dive and we were off. The Inn was a very nice small place off the main road by about a block. Liz and Ed were great. I would recommend them to anyone. We stayed there for two weeks for the price of one week on the water, and thought it was a very nice place. It was very quiet in the evenings and really nice to sit near the pool and have a few polars and amstel brights while downloading pics and talking about the days dives.
Diving:
I had been pming Scubaotter and Walldiver before we left and were able to dive with both groups while there. We averaged three dives per day with the last day of diving cramming in six dives. We dove all over the island from shore no boat dives. Some of the sights were karpata, invisible,s alice in wonderland, bachelors beach, plaza, andrea 1 and 2, cliff oil slick leap.Ol Blue, Bari reef, windsock, the lake, hilma hooker, angel city, toris reef, margate bay and others that I cant remember at this time. I would have to say that one of my favorite sights this time is one that Scubaotter told us to go to Ol Blue. Nice entry and exit and a place to sit in the shade and off gas. The diving was great but vis was a little lower than last time we were there. Still in the 60 – 70 foot range. Some of the neater things we saw were a frogfish green in a green sponge thanks to Bud and Shannon. A few turtle that just hung around with us for about ten to twenty minutes at a time. A bell jelly fish the size of a basketball all by itself. Lots of squid. A midnight parrotfish that was huge. One of the biggest grouper I have ever seen at Bari and a couple octopus. We dove the Hooker the first time with Walldiver and family and angel city. My wife fell getting into the water at the hooker and she dropped her camera sp-350 and pt housing (second time in the water) Crack. She reacted quickly and got the camera out of the water to save her Christmas gift. I got out to her made sure she was all right and then checked out the camera. It bent the power button down and cracked the plastic. The button wouldn’t work. It didn’t however break past the oring. After we got back out of the water she decided she didn’t want to dive after getting banged around. I took the camera out of the housing and took the housing down to depth. No leaks just couldn’t use the power button. The thing work for the rest of the trip we got lucky. The last day of diving Bud Shannon(scubaotter) my wife Lyn and I decided to do four dives during the day and a night dive. After the third dive Bud says we can squeeze one more in, so we ended our two weeks with a six dive day.
Dining:
We tried a couple new places to us and hit some that we went to before.
Patagonia was the place we went to most. Great food and service. Pablo and his family are great. We were discussing deserts one night and he even made us a special desert.
Richards, we ate here a couple times the last night on island I surprised my wife and got the peir table. They have the best shrimp bisque I have had anywhere.
Cactus blue was alright don’t know if we would go back. It seemed really pricy for the portion you received.
El Fogon Latina. A small local Hispanic café. Very good food and cheap.
Last bite bakery. Awesome pastries. And a 10 guilder lunch that was very good.
City café. Great as usual we ate lunch here several times.
Papaya moon. Was good we would go there again tex mex and it had a good flavor.
Gibis Tuesday night Bonaire Talk Dinner. Simply awesome. We were the only couple to show so we had a private dinner from Gibi. We had Filet, Goat stew, Iguana stew, Iguana soup, rolls, salad, rice, desert and more. Everything was awesome.
Golden Reef Inn BBQ. Again Gibi had outdone himself on us, Four of us this time. We had grilled fish, bbq ribs and chicken and salads and desert.
We also did some grocery shopping and cooked in our room.
Getting home was just a routine easy trip home. I will be uploading pics now that I have my computer back online. Hopefully I will be able to get some up this weekend on my link in my signature.
I know this is a little late but a little late is better then never. We flew the continental red eye supposedly from Houston till the storms came through and we were delayed. We had a gate attendant the said he could see about putting us through Newark the next day but he had to check with his supervisor. This guy was the biggest jerk I have ever met and we ended up in a screaming match over getting me to Bonaire. When I demanded his supervisor and security showed up they all of a sudden came up with two seats on the Newark flight. So off we went finally. We arrived on Bonaire Sunday and were picked up and taken to the GRI, golden reef inn. When we got there Gibi was preparing breakfast, so we were able to eat as soon as we got there. He also got our keys to our room and truck. Shortly after Liz showed up and got all the paper work done. We went for our check out dive at Eden Beach through Wannadive. Bart and the guys there are great, a real first class operation. We also signed up for a nitrox class there for 75 bucks. We did the dive and we were off. The Inn was a very nice small place off the main road by about a block. Liz and Ed were great. I would recommend them to anyone. We stayed there for two weeks for the price of one week on the water, and thought it was a very nice place. It was very quiet in the evenings and really nice to sit near the pool and have a few polars and amstel brights while downloading pics and talking about the days dives.
Diving:
I had been pming Scubaotter and Walldiver before we left and were able to dive with both groups while there. We averaged three dives per day with the last day of diving cramming in six dives. We dove all over the island from shore no boat dives. Some of the sights were karpata, invisible,s alice in wonderland, bachelors beach, plaza, andrea 1 and 2, cliff oil slick leap.Ol Blue, Bari reef, windsock, the lake, hilma hooker, angel city, toris reef, margate bay and others that I cant remember at this time. I would have to say that one of my favorite sights this time is one that Scubaotter told us to go to Ol Blue. Nice entry and exit and a place to sit in the shade and off gas. The diving was great but vis was a little lower than last time we were there. Still in the 60 – 70 foot range. Some of the neater things we saw were a frogfish green in a green sponge thanks to Bud and Shannon. A few turtle that just hung around with us for about ten to twenty minutes at a time. A bell jelly fish the size of a basketball all by itself. Lots of squid. A midnight parrotfish that was huge. One of the biggest grouper I have ever seen at Bari and a couple octopus. We dove the Hooker the first time with Walldiver and family and angel city. My wife fell getting into the water at the hooker and she dropped her camera sp-350 and pt housing (second time in the water) Crack. She reacted quickly and got the camera out of the water to save her Christmas gift. I got out to her made sure she was all right and then checked out the camera. It bent the power button down and cracked the plastic. The button wouldn’t work. It didn’t however break past the oring. After we got back out of the water she decided she didn’t want to dive after getting banged around. I took the camera out of the housing and took the housing down to depth. No leaks just couldn’t use the power button. The thing work for the rest of the trip we got lucky. The last day of diving Bud Shannon(scubaotter) my wife Lyn and I decided to do four dives during the day and a night dive. After the third dive Bud says we can squeeze one more in, so we ended our two weeks with a six dive day.
Dining:
We tried a couple new places to us and hit some that we went to before.
Patagonia was the place we went to most. Great food and service. Pablo and his family are great. We were discussing deserts one night and he even made us a special desert.
Richards, we ate here a couple times the last night on island I surprised my wife and got the peir table. They have the best shrimp bisque I have had anywhere.
Cactus blue was alright don’t know if we would go back. It seemed really pricy for the portion you received.
El Fogon Latina. A small local Hispanic café. Very good food and cheap.
Last bite bakery. Awesome pastries. And a 10 guilder lunch that was very good.
City café. Great as usual we ate lunch here several times.
Papaya moon. Was good we would go there again tex mex and it had a good flavor.
Gibis Tuesday night Bonaire Talk Dinner. Simply awesome. We were the only couple to show so we had a private dinner from Gibi. We had Filet, Goat stew, Iguana stew, Iguana soup, rolls, salad, rice, desert and more. Everything was awesome.
Golden Reef Inn BBQ. Again Gibi had outdone himself on us, Four of us this time. We had grilled fish, bbq ribs and chicken and salads and desert.
We also did some grocery shopping and cooked in our room.
Getting home was just a routine easy trip home. I will be uploading pics now that I have my computer back online. Hopefully I will be able to get some up this weekend on my link in my signature.
