You may or may not remember my initial post about Bonaire in 2016. I am fully recovered, and we did decide to go back for more in 2017! As I was writing my Huracan trip report I realized I never posted about our amazing second dive trip to Bonaire. Guess it’s true what they say about negative experiences being much more likely to be talked about.
We spent two weeks, 36 dives in Bonaire in May of 2017. It was an incredible two weeks, and thankfully I stayed nice and healthy this time! We stayed at Bamboo Bali, and as always, it was extraordinary! We got the suite with the private hot tub, which was lovely. Our first couple of nights, there was a mix up and we couldn’t get into that room. We were disappointed, and they didn’t necessarily go above and beyond to make it up to us, but every room is lovely, so it wasn’t a big deal. I only mention this, because sometimes we expect a level of hospitality we may find in the states, and that’s not always the case with other cultures. They may just apologize and move on.
We started our dives with one of my most memorable moments yet: we dove Oil Slick late afternoon, and I happen to look down (we were at about 60 feet) and spot an octopus. I’ve seen them playing in the shallows, and curled in a hole, but I’ve never seen one free swimming! It was fascinating to watch. Every time he’d move, he’d change color and pattern to the rock he was aiming for. My only regret was leaving my GoPro at home. I wanted to get comfortable in the water before bringing my new toy out.
We bought shore diving made easy and spent the next twelve days diving everything from Red Slave to Nukove. Our truck did get broken into somewhere around aquarium. They stole my husband’s flip flops, his hat (a cheap company logo hat) and my GoPro backflip case which has my <20 filter and an extra battery in it. No big deal, but then as we were headed back towards town, we see a guy walking down the road with the hat on. My husband, a shy, soft spoken introvert, hops out of the truck and snatches the hat off his head, and his flip flops out of the guy’s hands. Thank God he wasn’t wearing those, or who knows where that would have lead!
Thankfully, the Bonaire thieves aren’t violent, or this could have been an ugly tale. My husband got a tongue lashing from me for being so reckless.
For my husband’s birthday, we dove with East coast diving, the white hole and turtle city. (We dove the blue hole this year on his birthday, we are starting a trend!) White hole wasn’t all that exciting, but turtle city was amazing. I wish it would have been better viz, but such is life.
Candy land was interesting. My notes says that Boulder=Pile of rocks.
Current picked up on us at red slave, and we ended up three sites down with a mile+ trek back to the truck. Gotta love the accidental drift dive! We dove the cliff a couple of times to check out the frog fish. We found a seahorse at The Rock. My comment on my log for Karpata was “hardest entry ever, almost broke leg, check tides before going.” It’s been a while so I can’t remember specifics, but maybe it’s a good tip for someone. I seem to recall that that may be the one that you are supposed to sit down on concrete dock remnants and lower yourself in. I think tides were too high for it to work, and I got my leg caught in rocks with waves knocking into me rather violently. I could be totally wrong, though.
It’s fun reading my logs from Bonaire. We saw so much biodiversity. Turtles playing on the surface, and us watching from below. “Blue tang clan” schools swimming through the Clif. Free swimming Moray Eels, Rays, and a Boga Bait Ball at Invisibles, which was the coolest thing ever. A Frog fish, a seahorse, and my octopus friend. I caught a tiny turtle swimming and eating in the shallows at Salt Pier.
Man, I miss Bonaire! There is nothing quite like it. (At least in my limited experience.)
That’s one of the big issues with feeding the critters in Belize. Almost every dive at Lighthouse had reef sharks and groupers tailing us. At first it was cool, but it all started to look the same after a couple of days. My dive logs are so much more boring there.
We spent two weeks, 36 dives in Bonaire in May of 2017. It was an incredible two weeks, and thankfully I stayed nice and healthy this time! We stayed at Bamboo Bali, and as always, it was extraordinary! We got the suite with the private hot tub, which was lovely. Our first couple of nights, there was a mix up and we couldn’t get into that room. We were disappointed, and they didn’t necessarily go above and beyond to make it up to us, but every room is lovely, so it wasn’t a big deal. I only mention this, because sometimes we expect a level of hospitality we may find in the states, and that’s not always the case with other cultures. They may just apologize and move on.
We started our dives with one of my most memorable moments yet: we dove Oil Slick late afternoon, and I happen to look down (we were at about 60 feet) and spot an octopus. I’ve seen them playing in the shallows, and curled in a hole, but I’ve never seen one free swimming! It was fascinating to watch. Every time he’d move, he’d change color and pattern to the rock he was aiming for. My only regret was leaving my GoPro at home. I wanted to get comfortable in the water before bringing my new toy out.
We bought shore diving made easy and spent the next twelve days diving everything from Red Slave to Nukove. Our truck did get broken into somewhere around aquarium. They stole my husband’s flip flops, his hat (a cheap company logo hat) and my GoPro backflip case which has my <20 filter and an extra battery in it. No big deal, but then as we were headed back towards town, we see a guy walking down the road with the hat on. My husband, a shy, soft spoken introvert, hops out of the truck and snatches the hat off his head, and his flip flops out of the guy’s hands. Thank God he wasn’t wearing those, or who knows where that would have lead!
Thankfully, the Bonaire thieves aren’t violent, or this could have been an ugly tale. My husband got a tongue lashing from me for being so reckless.For my husband’s birthday, we dove with East coast diving, the white hole and turtle city. (We dove the blue hole this year on his birthday, we are starting a trend!) White hole wasn’t all that exciting, but turtle city was amazing. I wish it would have been better viz, but such is life.
Candy land was interesting. My notes says that Boulder=Pile of rocks.
Current picked up on us at red slave, and we ended up three sites down with a mile+ trek back to the truck. Gotta love the accidental drift dive! We dove the cliff a couple of times to check out the frog fish. We found a seahorse at The Rock. My comment on my log for Karpata was “hardest entry ever, almost broke leg, check tides before going.” It’s been a while so I can’t remember specifics, but maybe it’s a good tip for someone. I seem to recall that that may be the one that you are supposed to sit down on concrete dock remnants and lower yourself in. I think tides were too high for it to work, and I got my leg caught in rocks with waves knocking into me rather violently. I could be totally wrong, though.
It’s fun reading my logs from Bonaire. We saw so much biodiversity. Turtles playing on the surface, and us watching from below. “Blue tang clan” schools swimming through the Clif. Free swimming Moray Eels, Rays, and a Boga Bait Ball at Invisibles, which was the coolest thing ever. A Frog fish, a seahorse, and my octopus friend. I caught a tiny turtle swimming and eating in the shallows at Salt Pier.
Man, I miss Bonaire! There is nothing quite like it. (At least in my limited experience.)
That’s one of the big issues with feeding the critters in Belize. Almost every dive at Lighthouse had reef sharks and groupers tailing us. At first it was cool, but it all started to look the same after a couple of days. My dive logs are so much more boring there.
