DiveMaven
Contributor
I've been encouraged to post a trip report about some of our experiences on Bonaire (thanks Robin), so thought I'd follow her advice. Rather than posting what others have posted about the basics, I'm only going to address a few things.
Accommodations: We stayed at Den Laman condominiums and will definitely return there (next year?). We had a studio apartment that was modern, clean, and well appointed. People report that the beds and furniture tend to be rather firm, and I'll agree, but not to the extent that it was a bother for us.
Dive Op: Our package was through Bonaire Dive and Adventure and included shore and boat dives. We found BDA to be convenient and easy to dive with, and the employees we dealt with were great, with a couple of exceptions. We only wound up doing one boat dive more because of scheduling than anything else. However, the one boat dive we did was a total waste of time, and we were very disappointed. I specifically asked if they could take us to a site with a seahorse and the response I got was "did you go to Rappel yesterday?". To top it off, the DM who led our dive simply swam out in front, never stopping to point anything out, nor slowing down for anything. It was basically a 1 hour swimming tour underwater as far as we were concerned. VERY disappointing.
The only other thing we would change about BDA were the hours they were open. They didn't open until 8:30am and closed the main tank area and nitrox tanks off at 4:30pm (as well as the shop). Although we didn't care that the shop closed, we felt that the tank areas could have stayed open later than 4:30pm, and definitely opened a bit earlier as well (even 8:00am would have been nice). The gear room and air tanks were available until 9:30pm, which was fine.
Training: We did 2 courses on Bonaire, the UW Digital Photography specialty and UW Naturalist. Suffice it to say that both were excellent.
We did our photography course with Tim at Fish Eye Photo and learned far more than we ever thought we would. My husband got so much out it that he bought a strobe from Tim mid-week the first week we were there. Tim made him an excellent deal and it was worth spending a bit extra to not only have the strobe for the rest of the trip, but doing business with someone like Tim is a pleasure. I'm sure my husband will do further training with Tim in the future as we return to Bonaire. Any training with Tim gets our highest recommendation.
Our naturalist course was with Jerry Ligon of BDA, and he more than lived up to his reputation. Great course and we learned a lot about fish behavior and hunting techniques that we found ourselves seeing new things that the critters were doing for the rest of our trip. I'd recommend this course highly.
Diving: We did the "normal" dives on Bonaire, however strayed a bit from the norm by diving Town Pier during the daytime instead of night. We went with Tim from Fish Eye and it was one of the best (90+ minute) dives we've ever done. There were only 3 of us diving the pier, but it was easy to see why this could be a nightmare of a night dive with many divers in the water at once.
Dining: We found many good places to eat, favorites being: Bobbejans, Pasa Bon Pizza, Rum Runners, and Papaya Moon. Since we were there off season (July), there were no lines, very little wait, and we never needed reservations. As a whole, food was very good and we quickly found the "normally" priced places to eat vs. the more expensive ones. There were some places we didn't go that we wanted to try, but that'll give us new spots to go next year.
I'd be more than happy to answer any specific questions anyone might have.
Accommodations: We stayed at Den Laman condominiums and will definitely return there (next year?). We had a studio apartment that was modern, clean, and well appointed. People report that the beds and furniture tend to be rather firm, and I'll agree, but not to the extent that it was a bother for us.
Dive Op: Our package was through Bonaire Dive and Adventure and included shore and boat dives. We found BDA to be convenient and easy to dive with, and the employees we dealt with were great, with a couple of exceptions. We only wound up doing one boat dive more because of scheduling than anything else. However, the one boat dive we did was a total waste of time, and we were very disappointed. I specifically asked if they could take us to a site with a seahorse and the response I got was "did you go to Rappel yesterday?". To top it off, the DM who led our dive simply swam out in front, never stopping to point anything out, nor slowing down for anything. It was basically a 1 hour swimming tour underwater as far as we were concerned. VERY disappointing.
The only other thing we would change about BDA were the hours they were open. They didn't open until 8:30am and closed the main tank area and nitrox tanks off at 4:30pm (as well as the shop). Although we didn't care that the shop closed, we felt that the tank areas could have stayed open later than 4:30pm, and definitely opened a bit earlier as well (even 8:00am would have been nice). The gear room and air tanks were available until 9:30pm, which was fine.
Training: We did 2 courses on Bonaire, the UW Digital Photography specialty and UW Naturalist. Suffice it to say that both were excellent.
We did our photography course with Tim at Fish Eye Photo and learned far more than we ever thought we would. My husband got so much out it that he bought a strobe from Tim mid-week the first week we were there. Tim made him an excellent deal and it was worth spending a bit extra to not only have the strobe for the rest of the trip, but doing business with someone like Tim is a pleasure. I'm sure my husband will do further training with Tim in the future as we return to Bonaire. Any training with Tim gets our highest recommendation.
Our naturalist course was with Jerry Ligon of BDA, and he more than lived up to his reputation. Great course and we learned a lot about fish behavior and hunting techniques that we found ourselves seeing new things that the critters were doing for the rest of our trip. I'd recommend this course highly.
Diving: We did the "normal" dives on Bonaire, however strayed a bit from the norm by diving Town Pier during the daytime instead of night. We went with Tim from Fish Eye and it was one of the best (90+ minute) dives we've ever done. There were only 3 of us diving the pier, but it was easy to see why this could be a nightmare of a night dive with many divers in the water at once.
Dining: We found many good places to eat, favorites being: Bobbejans, Pasa Bon Pizza, Rum Runners, and Papaya Moon. Since we were there off season (July), there were no lines, very little wait, and we never needed reservations. As a whole, food was very good and we quickly found the "normally" priced places to eat vs. the more expensive ones. There were some places we didn't go that we wanted to try, but that'll give us new spots to go next year.
I'd be more than happy to answer any specific questions anyone might have.
