Trip Report Bonaire - October 4 to November 14 2022

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shopguy

Contributor
Messages
94
Reaction score
72
Location
Washington
# of dives
200 - 499
Stats
6 weeks on Bonaire, with 69 dives total, 6 of those from boat, 1 guided shore dive.
252 videos (omg) in playlist here:

Summary

Great diving, decent restaurants, good Internet, fun volunteering, everything else just acceptable at best.

Non-Diving (skip to next post in thread for diving report)​


Restaurants
Good options and good service, but I wouldn't say Bonaire is a place to go for food/dining. You will not go hungry, but in my opinion searching for and trying "local food", like one might do in Puerto Rico or Mexico, isn't a thing you need to focus on for this trip.

Cooking at Home
Most of the food we bought at the store and made at home "tastes weird". I love steak, and if I can't get steak, I love tortillas. I tried 8+ different sources here, and they all have this same weird taste. The only way I can describe the taste, without being offensive, is to say it tastes like what I imagine Raid roach spray tastes like based on the smell -- kind of a mild hotness with a chemical kick. Not sure how cattle/cows can taste that different from Bonaire to USA, but it does. It isn't seasons either, because I love steaks at home with zero seasoning, but not on Bonaire. Eggs, cheese and some bacon tasted the same as at home, so we mostly ate eggs at home, and other stuff out.

Internet
Our AirBnb had amazing Internet. Was able to upload over 100 4K long videos to YouTube without hitting any data caps, and there was only one short (maybe 30 minutes) outage the entire trip. Worked great for the 1 or 2 days a week I had to work, including some online meetings with video chat.

Volunteering
We were so bored when not diving. So glad we found out about Mangrove Maniacs -- we went out and helped them cut channels in the mangroves twice, and would have done more if we didn't have so many bug bites after the 2nd time (very unusual, probably will not happen to you). We also spent an evening with them at Foodies where they gave a presentation about their work, and Sea Turtle Conversation Bonaire (STCB) and STINAPA also spoke about their work. Was selfishly nice to have something else to do in this otherwise boring place. We also went on one cleanup dive at North Pier hosted by Dive Friends (they provided free tanks for around 100 divers, and bags for trash, etc).

Roads
Since we listened to all the advice here and everywhere else, we had a rental truck, and glad that our truck was on the larger side (some are more like El Camino / Ranchero, car with a truck bed). I didn't have to worry about the 6" drop from the road to the shoulder when you often have to drive half on the road as oncoming traffic passes on the narrow roads. The remote dirt roads were on par with most of the paved roads, in some ways better, at least the water didn't puddle as bad on the dirt roads -- and no mud here, ground is super hard everywhere, so no 4-wheel drive needed.

People
Where I live, when I go to town (25 mile drive) or the big city (100 mile drive), people you pass on the street look happy, often smile, and often say hi, good morning, etc. Here, I felt weird being my normal smiling self, very few people smiling or looking happy, except divers at dive sites. Staff in restaurants and dive shops were friendly, and people we did talk to in public were nice, just didn't feel as approachable as people at home that are smiling and saying hello if you make eye contact. Cozumel and Puerto Rico was not this way, so not just a "because I'm a tourist" thing.

Prices
Hard to compare to anything else because prices vary greatly by what you want. I can't imagine living here and trying to buy good quality stuff like tools, dive equipment, electronics, just doesn't seem to exist or your options are super limited. Expected for most islands. Gas was about $7.30/gallon ($1.59/liter), and surprising to me we drove 1,300 miles in a not-well-maintained pickup, so we spent plenty on gas (maybe $400). Steak at the grocery store was around $50/pound, which I would have kept paying, if it wasn't gross. Lots of other food was not expensive at all, cheaper than Seattle and New York, but more than Tucson. Restaurants vary from very expensive to "I feel bad if I don't leave a 50% tip inexpensive/cheap", so you can eat cheap or expensive as desired. Example - Pizza for 3, $14. Hamburgers, fries, and 1 soda/beer for 2, $60 (before tip).

Stay
Our AirBnb was very nice. The cheaper one I was planning on was booked, so I paid more than I was planning, around $3500/month I think (before fees), but it was very nice like the pictures, with an awesome view of Klein from our 3rd floor patio. A/C throughout entire 2bed/2bath place, worked great. Nice modern kitchen and everything one might need, including blender and air fryer, stovetop, oven, dishwasher, washer/dryer. The weird part was there was only 1 toilet, and it was in a tiny room (knees hit the wall) near the front door, with just the toilet in this room, nothing else.

Weather / Bugs
Weather was weird, if I believe it -- rained almost every day, lots of clouds every day, wind couldn't decide which way to blow, changing often, and most days not much wind at all (the not much wind part is normal for this time of year). Supposedly (can you tell I don't believe it?) the bugs were also not common, but I think everywhere above 60F has bugs. We got eaten alive by bugs, even though we did the "not safe for reef" thing and put DEET/off/spray all over us often. Weather was only bad enough to keep us away from diving one day -- storms just making a real mess, lots of waves, and possibly strong currents.

Flights / Airport
It is fun at Bonaire airport, being a small airport, you exit the plane and walk down to the tarmac instead of through a typical gate. A fun experience if you haven't done that before, same as Cozumel. A new thing, right off the plane, before bag check or customs, you go through an area/line where they ask to see your QR code if you paid the tourist tax already, or they have you scan their QR code and use their wifi to pay the tax online right then (doesn't take too long, depending on how fast you type on your phone). Tax was $75 per person, I think, regardless of how long your stay is -- since paying online, had no problem using my credit card. I would pay before I leave home next time, if still the same. I paid the marine park fee at home, but didn't think about paying the new tourist tax that way.

The Park (Washington/Slagabai?)
This was the only place I encountered what I would call a "rude person". When you enter the park, even though most divers have already paid the fee, you have to stand in the "ticket" line anyway, to check in. The signs are far from obvious. There is a sign that said "check in here", but nothing said "check in required", and the building the "check in here" sign points at also has a much larger "TICKETS" sign on it, and all the people in line are on the ticket side. If you try to approach the other side, to "check in because I already have my ticket", you may be (rudely maybe) told to "get in line with everyone else" -- if you try to explain that you already have your ticket, as nice as possible, they might just say "are you special? no. get in line like everyone else". You will finally learn that even though it says tickets, it isn't just the line to buy tickets, it is "the line" for everything, and you must check in before entering. They will check your ticket/pass and get your vehicle info and your name, and write it in their log book. They may give you along talk about the park, and you can listen or politely mention that you were just here the day before, if you want to save everyone time (including the long line of people behind you).

My little rant about that... typical government run park experience, probably. It is worth driving around the park at least once and see everything there is, and then coming back another separate time at least once for diving the sites in the park. If you really don't like site seeing or outdoors, other than diving, you could skip the drive through day and just come to dive, and see most of the attractions as you drive by them (most are a little drive off the main road though, so you will not see if you don't make a point of it).

 

Diving​

On to the good part, the only reason to come to Bonaire in my opinion. I felt so bad for the people coming from cruise ships or driving around looking sad/bored that were not diving (or at least snorkeling).

Water Temperatures
Or should I saw temperature (singular) because 99% of the time my computer was saying 85F, to the point one might have thought it was broken. At home and in California, and even Cozumel, I'm used to the temperature changing at least 1 or 2 degrees throughout the dive. On these dives, almost always pegged at 85F from surface to 100' depth. Very rare did we hit a pocket of cool or warm water, and I'd call it a pocket and not a thermocline, because it was usually just a very small pocket of water, not vertical or horizontal, just a bubble shape maybe. Only one dive we hit a typical thermocline like experience where the water dropped from 83F to 81F and stayed that way for most of the dive while we stayed at the deeper depth -- being 83F at surface was already weird, so that was a weird day, probably weather related. Did see 86F on the rare occasion, but not always at surface, the depth didn't seem to make a difference for temps, other than the one dive. Our max depth was 100' though, maybe different if you dive deeper, but you aren't going to get too much deeper at most sites, unless you really love swimming out in to the empty sandy area with no coral and less life.

North
Starting with the sites you can only reach from the park. We drove through the park twice, but only one of those two times we were diving. The road is so long and slow, 2+ hours, maybe up to 4 hours if you drive slow or get behind a slow driver. In my opinion, not worth doing, or not doing much diving out here, because...

The sites north of BOPEC, specifically the furthest drive, Playa Frans, is AMAZING. And, but you can't tell anyone, the drive is fast and not bad at all, so much faster than the park, and really didn't even feel longer than driving to the far south Lighthouse site. I don't remember loving the other sites (Nukove, Tailor Maid and Candyland) too much, but Playa Frans was amazing the two times we dove it, even though we didn't see anything super special (except 5 turtles on the first dive).

Karpata - it earns its reputation, it is nice. Different landscape and nice visibility without having to make the drive beyond BOPEC.

Oil Slick - One of the easiest dives on the island, if you like giant stride entries. Plenty of parking and not far from town, but all the feeling of a northern dive site. If my buddy liked giant stride I could see myself staying walking distance to this site for a week and just dive here over and over.

Other northern sites - All great dives, and different geography than the southern sites. Dive them all!

Central / Town
These sites are actually better than expected. I didn't think we would dive all of these "near town" sites, but Klein really helps block the waves/swells on stormy days, and days the wind decides to come out of the west (abnormal "wind reversal"). Visibility is equal to far north and south sites, or at least pretty close, most days. Parking can be an issue when crowded though, especially at Cliff because you have dive site parking combined with dive shop parking, and a pretty small parking area to begin with, and the only overflow parking (the main road) is maybe 100 yards away, long walk.

Buddy Dive is a super easy dive, giant stride or use the super nice stairs. It is a long walk from parking though, maybe 100 yards, but you can drop off your gear if you don't want to carry from parking. Our first day here we parked right at the site, and nobody said anything. We went back for a night dive and were told by staff that you can't park there, they want to keep it open for emergency vehicles/ambulance. I think it was more about keeping the area nice looking, we were parked right by the bar with all the pretty lights/etc, so our dirty truck really killed the vibe.

Klein Sites
We only got to dive one. We booked a boat dive with Dive Friends, a "Klein Boat Dive" as it was advertised. When we got on the boat, the super nice staff member asked "any requests?" and one guest said "anything but Klein" -- so we almost didn't get to dive Klein at all, but the staff member asked if anyone would be heart-broken if we didn't do Klein, and I spoke up, since that was my only reason for booking. Honestly I was still disappointed that both dives were not Klein, but this is just another reason I love shore diving, not having to deal with other people or agendas. The dive at Klein was awesome and worth it -- boat dives are the only dives we saw seahorses, because the guides know where they are. Saw a couple octopus also, although just in holes/corals and not out swimming, still cool.

My #1 disappointment with the diving in Bonaire is the fact that they don't allow or support shore diving from Klein. There is no reason it couldn't be done -- the shores are similar to the main island, if not even easier. No real current or anything, the boat dive wasn't a drift dive. Water taxis could get more business and charge extra for divers to bring gear (extra seat for your gear?), and even bring (and charge for) extra tanks for those that want to spend the day on Klein and do several dives. We ended up not even going to Klein itself -- seemed like just a long boring several hours, and if the bugs were bad there, would be stuck out there for hours with bugs, and no way to get back to mainland until the next taxi.

...more in next post.
 
Southern Sites
I thought I'd like the northern sites more, and spend more time up north. I will not say I liked one more than the other, hard to compare, but we ended up spending more time in the south. There are just a ton of sites, and lots of variety down south. A few examples of variety listed here.

Hilma Hooker - I didn't think I would like the wreck dive, prefer nature -- but it was actually a very nice change after a couple weeks of diving on Bonaire, and then we went back once more a couple weeks later. The 2nd dive we just did a drift by, but it was cool seeing the hooker one last time.

Invisibles - Such a unique landscape here. First, the entry is super easy, just sand, no ankle breaking rocks/coral to walk over, could do it bare foot even. Then you have a long stretch of sand, lots more than most sites. Then the reef area is so unique also, lots of wide sand channels making the reefs look more like islands than one big "wall" like most places, and some depth changes too, like rolling hills with islands -- a must see.

Salt Pier - same deal as the hooker, man made, didn't think I'd be impressed. It was a nice change though, and the only place we could be sure to swim with MANY sea turtles in the shallows. We swam with the turtles for several minutes on both dives here, and saw them from shore a couple times we stopped while not diving. This was my first dive ever where both my wife and I hit 100' depth and didn't feel at all unsafe or nervous, it is just such a simple and calming and clear dive site. In Cozumel I was around 95' and wife around 85', but it started getting cold, dark, and didn't feel so relaxing with the drift factor. Only thing I was a little nervous about was a ship coming in to dock while we were diving, but that didn't happen.

White Slave - Longest swim out to the place it starts to look like a reef and slopes down to depth. There is a ton of terrain between the main reef and shore, more than Invisibles even, but in this unique spot it isn't just sand and fire coral, there is lots of soft coral. Looks very unique compared to anything else we saw. This was also the only site we had current strong enough to abort the dive, but we came back again and had a zero current dive.

Drift Diving - The south is a great place to do a drift dive, where you don't enter and exit at the same spot. Unlike the north, most of the south you can get back to shore easily, or at least "if your life depended on it", so it is usually safe for the average person to just drop down at any of the sites, follow the reef (stays about the same distance from shore everywhere) as far as the current takes you, then just swim back to shore and back to the road wherever you happen to end your dive. Then leave your gear with your buddy, and walk back to get your truck, on the nice paved road that runs the entire southern coast. Now that I have done this, I will probably never cancel a dive down south because of current, unless I'm at the far south with a southern current, or something unlikely like that. We did one such dive starting south of Hilma Hooker, we drifted by the wreck, and two other sites, in less than 30 minutes. For me though, just made me sad that I would be leaving Bonaire and likely going back to Cozumel before Bonaire again -- really prefer not drifting.

Lighthouse (and far south vs far north) - Probably because of the unique weather we had, but not at all scary as I had read. Zero currents and hardly any waves when we dove here. Wish we had done it more than once. My buddy didn't like the large(r than other sites) rocks you walk over at the entry though, so kept her happy and went elsewhere. The coral is super huge here. To compare Lighthouse (far south) to Playa Frans (far north) -- Lighthouse you have huge coral, mostly soft but also hard, and in Playa Frans you have huge hard coral and boulder/mountain-like terrain. Both had amazing visibility, but do you really need to see 100+ feet when the average "thing" you are looking at is 2 feet long or less? So really, visibility is just awesome-enough everywhere. If I was on a whale shark dive, I would say the visibility sucked, because it wasn't often you could see clearly over 30', but for what it is, and what you are looking at, it is crystal clear and pool like (just don't look off in to the distance, or it will look like a cloud/fog).

East Coast
We did two boat dives with East Coast Divers. They were both the same, but enjoyed them both. They started at Fungi Reef which is similar to Playa Frans or Lighthouse, but not identical. The geography is similar to most west coast dives though, but more dense coral, healthier coral, and more life. Visibility wasn't really better than west coast though, about the same. 2nd dive started at White Hole and ended at Turtle City, two sites in one (actually 3 if you count Coral Gardens in between). White Hole is unique, as it sounds, a white hole -- sandy bottom with reef/corals on both sides, one side is steep and the other side isn't. I really wanted to dive White Hole from shore, by doing the long walk from Jibe City (shallow water most of the way to the hole), but buddy said no.

Lac Cai (aka "Cai") - We dove twice from shore, the north side of the bay, where Mangrove Maniacs meets (plug plug). First dive was with Bas Tol, a local guide, it was by far the best of the two dives in terms of what we saw, how fun and easy it was, and length of the dive. Second dive we went alone, just me and buddy, it was still amazing, but most of the fun (for me) came from the explorer side of me, and just being able to do this dive that most skip/avoid, and have everything go as planned, including making it to the reef, swimming along the reef, and navigating back to the exit without having to surface to check location/look around... all without any training in navigation or compass usage (other than my brother showing me how to line up the points, and my elementary teacher telling me a compass points north).

We looked at Boka Onima one day, but didn't dive it. Would be interested in diving that site in the future. The day we went, the rain was so heavy it washed out the road that crosses the Boka, hardly looked like a road was ever there. So much brown water was flowing from shore in to the boka (mouth) and out in to the ocean, causing a huge brown stain that covered acres of surface -- the likes of which I have only seen in La Jolla, California, prior to this, although there it had some green (lawn clippings) mixed in with the brown (dirt).

I may come back and make some edits, updates or improvements to this in the future, but that is all for now. I would have liked to provide more info about the diving, like specific fish names, coral names -- but I have to look that stuff up, can't trust memory, so it takes a long time to provide those details. If I don't respond to comments for a while, it is just because I'll be making the long trip home the next week or so, and then catching up on real life for a while after that.
 
Interesting to see how Bonaire is perceived by people knew to it. A few follow up thoughts and questions:

1.) Years ago, people sometimes wrote of how Bonaire often had grass-fed Argentinian beef, rather than the relatively more grain-fed beef we are accustomed to in the U.S., and this affects the taste. I don't know, just passing along what used to be claimed.

2.) For a lengthy trip to an island you see mainly useful for diving, you didn't do a whole lot of it, and you got bored. Out of curiosity, when didn't you dive more? I get that not everyone has the same wants/needs and some have health issues; just curious. You did turn to cutting mangroves amidst getting bug bitten.

3.) There are places you can get over 100 feet and still have sloping reef wall; Oil Slick Leap comes to mind.

4.) Glad you found Washington-Slagbaai Park worthwhile; it's sometimes dismissed as not worthwhile, but I found it quite scenic and worth at least one afternoon driving through, stopping to take photos and look at various things. It's interesting to see a hilly, even mountainous past of Bonaire, considering how flat the southern end is.

5.) While not my cup of tea, I'd add there are some non-diving things to do - kite boarding, windsurfing, I'm told there are caves to visit, kayaking mangroves, and some people even hike in Washington-Slagbaai Park (personally arduous walking while roasting doesn't appeal to me).
 
I have a very different experience with people on the island! Super friendly vibe.

Maybe everyone was just fed up with the horrible weather of the last couple weeks.
 
For a lengthy trip to an island you see mainly useful for diving, you didn't do a whole lot of it, and you got bored. Out of curiosity, when didn't you dive more?
My wife is my dive buddy on vacations, and she doesn’t like diving as much as myself or most here, so I pushed her only as far as safe — she does Crosfit and weightlifting, so I can’t push her around even if I wanted to :wink:

I did have to work 1 or 2 days each week, but not until around 1pm Bonaire time, so that didn’t stop us from diving two dives on most of the working days.

We only did one night dive and one evening dive that was dark on the second half… I think the masses of tarpons on the first night dive at Buddy’s may have been the reason my wife didn’t want to do more night dives.
 
I have a very different experience with people on the island! Super friendly vibe.

Maybe everyone was just fed up with the horrible weather of the last couple weeks.
Me too. One of our dive buddies got hurt exiting the van from the airport and needed medical care. They gave her a prescription for meds, so a few of us volunteered to go pick them up. We were parked downtown to grab a bite to eat, and we had no idea where the pharmacy was. So, we asked a guy if he knew where the pharmacy was and he asked if we had a car, which we pointed out was parked across the parking lot. He said he'd meet us there. He pulls up in a coast guard truck, told us to hop in, and he drove us to the hospital (no pharmacy), he asked for directions in non-english or spanish, and drove us to the pharmacy. He was awesome to talk to, invited us to a party (we couldn't attend), and drove us back to our vehicle. He wasn't on duty at the time. He went above and beyond to help us and was a pleasure to talk to while driving around. We almost felt bad because he was so helpful for no other reason than to just be helpful and he wanted nothing in return. We invited him to go diving with us but he had to work or something.
 
We only did one night dive and one evening dive that was dark on the second half… I think the masses of tarpons on the first night dive at Buddy’s may have been the reason my wife didn’t want to do more night dives.

The tarpon are intimidating if you don't why they are following you on a night dive. They're just hungry :)
 

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