D_O_H
Contributor
pilot fish:
That's not true - they were talking about cancelling it, but I understand they did not.
I've been to both Bonaire and Coz and you really can't go wrong either way. Both have some great things going for them. In some ways, they are similar. In some ways they are very different.
The diving at both is similarly excellent. I enjoyed the diving in Bonaire slightly more - more because I really enjoyed the freedom of shore diving over scheduled follow-the-divemaster-in-a-big-group type diving.
On Bonaire, I felt like I was at an all you can eat diving buffet. We dove whenever we felt like it. Got up whenever we felt like it. Ate whenever we felt like it. Just completely went with the flow of things. On Coz, we had our certain number of dives scheduled at certain times and that was it. We had to plan the rest of our trip around our scheduled diving.
As far as diving goes, I'd say give the edge to Bonaire if you like the freedom aspect, enjoy planning your own dives and having dive sites to yourself, don't mind schlepping your gear around a little bit and aren't afraid to get tossed around just a bit in the (mild) surf. Give the edge to Coz if you prefer guided dives, slightly more impressive underwater topagraphy and company at dive sites. You can dive off boats with guides in Bonaire, too, but they don't do as good of a job at it as the Coz ops in my opinion.
I'm going to have to disagree with Herman and, especially, Pilot Fish on the food comments. I really appreciate a good meal and think I have excellent taste when it comes to judging restaurants. I think the food is very good on both islands. Much better than I expected in both cases. However, I give bonaire a big edge as far as variety and quality of restaurants. We had at least 4 epic meals during our week on bonaire and 0 bad ones. I am still amazed that such a small, sleepy island has such outstanding almost world-class restaurants. Everything from casual and delicious to surprisingly fancy and delicious, it was all delicious. The one thing we did miss on bonaire that coz has in spades (obviously) is good mexican food. Something about being in the Carribean makes me crave a margarita, some guac, salsa and maybe some ceviche. None of the places we hit in bonaire were quite able to get these dishes right.
The last thing to consider is what sort of topside environment you want. Great restaurants aside, bonaire is not a very developed island. It's rough around the edges and doesn't have a big tourist infrastructure. I think it adds charm and keeps away the sort of people I don't really want to see on my vacation, but it's certainly not for everyone. If you want to have a little nightlife, do some shopping, rent jetskis, etc., bonaire is not the best choice.
Oh, and neither us nor any of the people we spoke to while on the island had any problems with theft. Just about every single person we ran into on the island, local or tourist, was extremely warm and friendly and I never felt like me or my belongings were in danger.
