DiverDave65
Contributor
Lots of recent trip reports here so I won't try to beat stuff to death.
Flew in on Delta from Atlanta. They lost my scuba gear bag for 2 days despite all my efforts to avoid this situation. Good news: I had my dive/drive package set up with Wannadive and they let me use their rental gear at no charge for the first two days till my stuff showed up. What a great dive shop!!
Stayed at Golden Reef Inn, run by Liz and Ed. Fabulous place, great service, really nice staff, helpful with everything. Had breakfast every day served by the famous Gibi and his sister Christina. I highly recommend this small hotel!!
My truck was waiting for me at the hotel. Perfect truck, I think they call it a half cab or something like that. Had wooden racks in the back for carrying tanks. Perfect!!
Checkout dive at Wannadive site at Eden Beach with Sylvia. No big deal. 10 minutes of chat and a short 25 minute dive. Got my tag and off to the races. (NOTE: Park rangers actually checked me for the tag at Karpata one day!!)
I dove Alice in Wonderland and Hilma Hooker on the south side.....Hilma Hooker is a GREAT wreck. Alice in Wonderland has the double reef system but it is flat for the most part, as are most of the reefs down there. I preferred the sites to the north (north of oil slick) because they were more like "walls" with lots of vertical development. Best sites for me were oil slick, Jeff Davis Memorial, 1000 steps (I did it twice!!) and Karpata. Vis was great the whole week, but best up on the northern sites, near 100 ft and no currents anywhere. The reefs were truly beautiful and alive.
I did one guided dive on the East Coast Bay site.....there were supposed to be more pelagics in the area; did see some big schools of tarpon and a few eagle rays, but the vis over there is not as good and VERY STRONG currents getting to and from the site. A real UDT/SEAL type underwater swim. I wouldn't bother with this again.
I did two boat dives to Klein Bonaire.....one tank trips and these were fun. I think the vis is slightly better over there (hard to measure or prove) and I think the reefs are slightly more colorful, for whatever reason. Well worth the effort.
Best part of diving Bonaire is being able to go wherever you want on your own dive schedule without the uber-**** dive masters/leaders I have to put up with on dive boats all over the world!! If this sounds like I'm a cranky old b*stard it's because I AM, and after 30 years of diving I still have to put up with all the over supervision that seems to be the new standard all over the world in the diivng community. I know, liability yada yada yada but I hate it.
Relatively few divers at any of the sites I visited. Sometimes one or two vehicles but often I was the only one there. Used the normal precautions, windows down doors unlocked, no problems. I ran into one Dutch couple who left their windows rolled up and had a window smashed at Weber's Joy, so it does still happen. Nobody had told them to keep their windows down!
So Bonaire was PERFECT for me. In fact, I did a bunch of SOLO diving which was absolutely wonderful.....don't flame me about it, I don't want to hear it!!
Didn't waste too much time or money in fancy restaurants, but I did like the Cafe Buenos Aires downtown....open air place across the street from the water downtown. Great service and food at a reasonable price.
Water temps were a low of 77F most of the time. I wore a shorty at first, found myself getting chilled on dive 3 of the day. Used my full 3/2 for the rest of the week and it was perfect.
Spent a half day driving around the northern third of the island on my last day prior to flying out and had fun being a tourist. Checked out the museums at Washington park and took pics of the hordes of wild goats and donkeys all over the place. It was fun and worth a half day.
Overall, fantastic diving, very relaxed vacation. I had intended to make 4 dives a day, but only did 3. Found myself slightly more tired than expected from lugging the gear into and out on the shore entries....some sites an be pretty challenging. Bring THICK soled booties!!
Thanks for all previous posters for their info...hope this helps some of you.
DiverDave65
Flew in on Delta from Atlanta. They lost my scuba gear bag for 2 days despite all my efforts to avoid this situation. Good news: I had my dive/drive package set up with Wannadive and they let me use their rental gear at no charge for the first two days till my stuff showed up. What a great dive shop!!
Stayed at Golden Reef Inn, run by Liz and Ed. Fabulous place, great service, really nice staff, helpful with everything. Had breakfast every day served by the famous Gibi and his sister Christina. I highly recommend this small hotel!!
My truck was waiting for me at the hotel. Perfect truck, I think they call it a half cab or something like that. Had wooden racks in the back for carrying tanks. Perfect!!
Checkout dive at Wannadive site at Eden Beach with Sylvia. No big deal. 10 minutes of chat and a short 25 minute dive. Got my tag and off to the races. (NOTE: Park rangers actually checked me for the tag at Karpata one day!!)
I dove Alice in Wonderland and Hilma Hooker on the south side.....Hilma Hooker is a GREAT wreck. Alice in Wonderland has the double reef system but it is flat for the most part, as are most of the reefs down there. I preferred the sites to the north (north of oil slick) because they were more like "walls" with lots of vertical development. Best sites for me were oil slick, Jeff Davis Memorial, 1000 steps (I did it twice!!) and Karpata. Vis was great the whole week, but best up on the northern sites, near 100 ft and no currents anywhere. The reefs were truly beautiful and alive.
I did one guided dive on the East Coast Bay site.....there were supposed to be more pelagics in the area; did see some big schools of tarpon and a few eagle rays, but the vis over there is not as good and VERY STRONG currents getting to and from the site. A real UDT/SEAL type underwater swim. I wouldn't bother with this again.
I did two boat dives to Klein Bonaire.....one tank trips and these were fun. I think the vis is slightly better over there (hard to measure or prove) and I think the reefs are slightly more colorful, for whatever reason. Well worth the effort.
Best part of diving Bonaire is being able to go wherever you want on your own dive schedule without the uber-**** dive masters/leaders I have to put up with on dive boats all over the world!! If this sounds like I'm a cranky old b*stard it's because I AM, and after 30 years of diving I still have to put up with all the over supervision that seems to be the new standard all over the world in the diivng community. I know, liability yada yada yada but I hate it.
Relatively few divers at any of the sites I visited. Sometimes one or two vehicles but often I was the only one there. Used the normal precautions, windows down doors unlocked, no problems. I ran into one Dutch couple who left their windows rolled up and had a window smashed at Weber's Joy, so it does still happen. Nobody had told them to keep their windows down!
So Bonaire was PERFECT for me. In fact, I did a bunch of SOLO diving which was absolutely wonderful.....don't flame me about it, I don't want to hear it!!
Didn't waste too much time or money in fancy restaurants, but I did like the Cafe Buenos Aires downtown....open air place across the street from the water downtown. Great service and food at a reasonable price.
Water temps were a low of 77F most of the time. I wore a shorty at first, found myself getting chilled on dive 3 of the day. Used my full 3/2 for the rest of the week and it was perfect.
Spent a half day driving around the northern third of the island on my last day prior to flying out and had fun being a tourist. Checked out the museums at Washington park and took pics of the hordes of wild goats and donkeys all over the place. It was fun and worth a half day.
Overall, fantastic diving, very relaxed vacation. I had intended to make 4 dives a day, but only did 3. Found myself slightly more tired than expected from lugging the gear into and out on the shore entries....some sites an be pretty challenging. Bring THICK soled booties!!
Thanks for all previous posters for their info...hope this helps some of you.
DiverDave65
