BONAIRE: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (Trip Report, May 16 - 23)

[redacted]

While the big critters may be uncommon, they do show up sometimes. We have seen black tip reef sharks and a manta at Karpata. And we have had a number of eagle ray encounters on the southern sites and sites close to town. For some reason, the rays in Bonaire seem to be less cautious around divers. I was surprised to get within an arms length of an eagle ray digging in the sand bottom.

If it were not for the diving freedom of Bonaire, it would not be very special.

 

[RJP]

If it were not for the diving freedom of Bonaire, it would not be very special.

Sort of like saying "if it were not for those 530 touchdown passes, Peyton Manning wouldn't be much of a quarterback."

Diving freedom is Bonaire's brand essence -- going there for any other reason is somewhat silly, and sure to disappoint.

Strategic Marketing Lessons From Paradise

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

On internet every second person claims they do 5 - 6 dives a day. Such people do not exist in the same ratio on the island. I met a lot of divers and I would ask them how many dives they did or intended to do. Majority of the people that I met did 20ish dives. I was traveling with two trip leaders who were Bonaire veterans and they did less than 20 dives in a week even though they were living right on a house reef.


Yes it is possible to do 5 - 6 dives in Bonaire but it will be the dives that people are describing above. A lot of the dive sites are so close that you can go in from one site and come out at a different site. In my book these are not two different sites but two different ENTRY POINTS to the same site. It is very possible to dive the same spot from two different entry points and log it in your book as two different dives. That is not my style of diving. I wanted to dive sites that are evenly spread over the island and specially wanted to hit areas that are least accessible.


Like some people mentioned above, some of the better dives we did are northern sites like Karpata and beyond. These sites require off road driving on the dirt road. Concrete road ends at the oil refinery and beyond that you are driving at 15 mph on rock and gravel. The distance you would normally cover in 15 minutes will take 45 minutes once you go past the refinery. That is where we found the best diving to be. This is as far away from our hotel that you can be but it was definitely worth it. I would rather do two dives in that remote area than do 5 dives that are next to my hotel.


Food was a huge problem. I lift weights so I eat six meals a day. When I am on a vacation I only eat 3 meals but each meal is bigger than what most people eat. In the 7 days that we were in Bonaire I lost 10 lbs eating the way everyone else was on Bonaire was. On the last day I ordered two servings of food at a restaurant and each entre was 22 USD so my dinner was over 50 USD. The money that I saved with Bonaire’s famous “cheap diving” is what went into its world reknowned “expensive eating” so when all math was done, it was not the budget place that everyone makes it out to be. Unless you want to live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which a lot of people there do. Next time someone says Bonaire is about cheap diving ask them what they ate throughout the week just to get an over all idea of what that means.

---------- Post added June 23rd, 2015 at 11:21 AM ----------

Very glad you made it and now have a shared experience with many of us. A few observations from my 8 trips (the last solo):

1.) As others noted, group dives close. I like to do 2 in the morning, come back for lunch, head out & do 2 in the afternoon, and maybe a night dive on the house reef. If I felt the need to make the night dive a new site off somewhere, that would be a hassle. To pull this off, my last trip I ate supper at Buddy Dive every night, and breakfast buffet was included; lunch was in room simple stuff from the grocery store. I'm no athlete & it was tiring, but fun.

2.) Food's pricey. I bought 20-packs of Coke Zero at Zhung Kong supermarket, PB&J sandwich fixings & canned fruit cocktail, that sort of thing for lunch. Breakfast buffet included at Buddy Dive Resort. Ate at the resort restaurant in the evening. After traveling around to eat my 1st 7 times, the 8th, I stayed 'home' and kept it simple. A tank of gas in the truck at the end of the week can set you back $80.

3.) That 'you're on your own' thing is a big selling point to shore diving despite the harder work compared to boat diving. Offers the chance to foster some independence. I like both methods.

The crime thing merits its own section, for those who've not been & may use this thread to research. As any populated Caribbean isle will, Bonaire has crime. But it's considered by some one of the safer places, especially in terms of violent crime against persons (which it seems there have been more reports of in recent years, judging from online discussions, but I still felt safe out & about day or night).

Bonaire is famous for petty theft out of parked dive trucks. Divers gear up, go in & locals (on this rather poor island) know the rich tourists are gone for about an hour. So a few criminal types search the trucks for stuff to take. The 'house rules' are leave the doors unlocked & windows down so they don't break in, take the key with you and don't leave anything valuable in the truck. Odds are good you'll lose nothing. I've left cheap sunglasses & plastic bottles refilled with water without incident. Cheap sandals or a raggedly looking old t-shirt might be okay.

But don't leave a cooler with food/drinks, a camera, change of clothes, etc... If it would bother you to 'donate' it, don't leave it in the truck while you dive!!!

This is how the place operates. With the (seemingly rare) exception of battery theft or occasional gas siphoning, you can practically eliminate yourself as a truck crime target. This is common knowledge.

Some people will not accept that. In this case, 2 out of 4 trucks got robbed. I'm guessing you know 2 because something was taken from each? Which implies something was left?

Richard.

P.S.: Please list the dive sites you hit. In your other thread you asked our favorites; I'd like to hear what all you chose.

Richard, I will have to get into the logbook for the exact names of sites but the list that you and a few others provided on my earlier post was the areas that we intended to hit. I was with some dive buddies who had problems with shore entries. They were extremely selective about where they could get into the water from. This eliminated some of the sites you wrote about though if I was on my own, I did not think the entries were that hard.

I understand your point about theft and I was prepared for it. This is why two other trucks did not get robbed was because they had driven off to another site when it happened. After that we all started to dive the same sites and we would rotate entries so that someone would always remain with the trucks. The crime is still bothersome because everyone on the island knows everyone. Even before a theft happens these guys know who did it. If they wanted to stop it they would. So far the diving community is willing to take exaggerated precautions or blame the victim for not taking exaggerated precautions.

Still ... with all its good and bad I will be going back at least once. Not anytime soon since there is plenty of ocean out there but someday.

 

[Lorenzoid]

On internet every second person claims they do 5 - 6 dives a day. Such people do not exist in the same ratio on the island. I met a lot of divers and I would ask them how many dives they did or intended to do. Majority of the people that I met did 20ish dives. I was traveling with two trip leaders who were Bonaire veterans and they did less than 20 dives in a week even though they were living right on a house reef.

The great thing about Bonaire is that, even within the same group, those who are "dive dive dive" can do 5 dives a day, while others can do a relaxed 3 dives a day.

I wanted to dive sites that are evenly spread over the island and specially wanted to hit areas that are least accessible.

So you have something against house reefs and a compulsion to drive far out of your way just so you can feel that you covered the entire island? So you can write it down in your log book? Some of us don't care about ticking off the boxes. The animals are not all in one area--you could dive a house reef every morning and see different things every day. Face it, you tried to dive Bonaire in a way that is not conducive to diving Bonaire. You tried fighting the current instead of going with the flow, and you didn't have a good time. That's hardly surprising.

Like some people mentioned above, some of the better dives we did are northern sites like Karpata and beyond. These sites require off road driving on the dirt road. Concrete road ends at the oil refinery and beyond that you are driving at 15 mph on rock and gravel. The distance you would normally cover in 15 minutes will take 45 minutes once you go past the refinery. That is where we found the best diving to be. This is as far away from our hotel that you can be but it was definitely worth it. I would rather do two dives in that remote area than do 5 dives that are next to my hotel.

Yes, that IS a nice area and yes it is relatively remote. We often will do two dives up in that area in the morning, eat our sandwiches, and then return to do two closer dives in the afternoon. Morning in the north, afternoon in the south. Easy!

Food was a huge problem. I lift weights so I eat six meals a day. When I am on a vacation I only eat 3 meals but each meal is bigger than what most people eat. In the 7 days that we were in Bonaire I lost 10 lbs eating the way everyone else was on Bonaire was. On the last day I ordered two servings of food at a restaurant and each entre was 22 USD so my dinner was over 50 USD.

So now you reveal you have special dietary requirements and a lack of corresponding knowledge of how to meet your nutritional needs. You said you dislike doing your own cooking. Sounds like an insoluble dilemma to me. My only suggestion is what you probably don't want/need to hear: do your own cooking. A guy I know packs a bag with frozen steaks from Costco. You said you spent time on Utila and liked it--what did you eat there, since there are no McDonalds, Wendy's, etc.? Even though the restaurants on Utila are more humble, eating big portions out on Utila every night could get expensive, too. I once spent a month there and cooked my meals like I do on Bonaire. By the way, you're the only weightlifter I know who complains of a lack of fast food--yeah, a burger would really help your nutritional deficit. Surely as a weightlifter you know you can bring protein powder or energy bars or something to supplement your diet if you want to eat six meals a day. You buy a double portion for yourself and complain about the cost of dining out?

What a complainer! I'm done listening.

 

[BradMM]

Heading there for the third time in July.

We've rented vehicles but never experienced any theft. I'll be more aware of it, thanks.

As for East Side diving, I was recently told by one of the dive shops via email recently that the surf on the "wild side" is way too high right now and nobody's going out. I had hoped to do this but oh well. We'll see.

Going with my wife so not looking to max out number of dives.

Thanks,

 

[Hintermann]

Then again, "quantity" has a quality all its own.

Did you do any research before you went?

I agree that quantity can have quality of its own.

As for research, I did and followed the advice given here by Bonaire regulars about what to take etc and was better for it. You are reading my message wrong - it IS thanks to that advice that a Bonaire newbie like me did not lose something or the other. If I had not followed your advice and behaved like I had done in other land based dive sites, I would have probably done things like leaving my gear in a locked truck or similar. Over a week something would have got stolen.

What I am saying is that the necessary following of that advice was inconvenient all the same. I was once nearly in the water on a day dive before I realised that I had left my big torch under the T-shirt. Not wanting to take a chance, I went back and took it with me.

As for "fast food outlets" I don't like them any more than you do. But with planned 4 dives a day, there was not a great deal of time for a sit down lunch and I found it hard to 'grab a sandwich' somewhere. Maybe I was not looking in the right places.

I agree with drrich's concept of adjustment and workflow. But that is easier for US based divers because of the geography. When I go on a dive trip, the most important consideration by far is the quality of diving, whether it be marine life, wrecks or even just topography. From that viewpoint, I would love another opportunity to visit Komodo, Truk Lagoon or Little Cayman and would be willing to spend time and money on such a trip but honestly I cannot touch my heart and say the same about Bonaire. (All hypothetical, of course as I am retiring from diving in July 2016).

 

[tursiops]

As for East Side diving, I was recently told by one of the dive shops via email that the surf on the "wild side" is way too high right now and nobody's going out.

WindGURU: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba - Bonaire
This is the site a lot of the local dive guides/shops use to estimate East side conditions. Red is bad! Green is good, but not common. Yellow may be tolerable. Look at the wave heights as well as the wind speeds.

---------- Post added June 23rd, 2015 at 12:01 PM ----------

One thing I detect in threads like this is a tendency for those who try and go as cheaply as possible (especially accommodations, trucks, no boats) to have the most complaints. Spending a few extra bucks on the ground is often a good investment. The airfare is so expensive to Bonaire that going for longer than one week helps a lot with the "per dive cost."

 

[iamrushman]

enjoyed your assessment and this thread....

 

[Hintermann]

One thing I detect in threads like this is a tendency for those who try and go as cheaply as possible (especially accommodations, trucks, no boats) to have the most complaints. Spending a few extra bucks on the ground is often a good investment. The airfare is so expensive to Bonaire that going for longer than one week helps a lot with the "per dive cost."

I know that the statement was not aimed at anyone in particular but since I did moan a bit myself, I would like to explain my position on this:

1. As a primary liveaboard diver, I do not prefer to 'go cheap'. I went to Bonaire after a not very cheap trip to Socorro and my next dive trip is to Bali & Wakatobi - again, not cheap.
2. I booked with VIP Diving and as they are a shore diving guide specialist, they do not operate boats. But they certainly are not "cheap"
3. I booked accommodation with Blachi Koko Apartments as suggested by VIP - excellent place but not what I would call cheap.
4. I did rent a truck.
5. A week in Bonaire was the best I could manage due to work leave limitations.

 

[RJP]

Just wanted to make clear that my comments above (and below) are not meant to flame or dispute anyone's specific experience. I'm glad that folks share their experience for others to benefit from. I merely want to provide some balance for some things that folks brought up as "truths" about the island that may have been the truth of the way they did their trip... but are certainly not universally true of Bonaire overall.

I also don't mean to suggest that everyone does, or must, do 5 dives a day. Simply wanted to clarify that anyone with the inclination to do so will have no problem whatsoever in Bonaire.