drrich2
Contributor
Hi:
I jointed the Parrot Island Divers group out of Nashville for a 3-6-10 to 3-13-10 trip to Bonaire. I've been with them twice before; March '07 & March '09. My wife Jami & friend Wallob go with me. Jami likes to dive a little; Wallob & I like to get in 2 to 4 divers per day. Here is a link to my '09 trip report thread, written as more of an Intro. to a Bonaire Dive Trip for folks who are interested & new to it like I was not so long ago. For this thread, I'll mainly hit the high points unique to this trip.
First off, we stayed at Eden Beach Resort as usual, in one of the 2 story apartments with 2 upstairs bedrooms made for quad. occupancy. The gas stove has dials that don't have temp. markings, so you've kinda got to wing it on cooking. Wireless Internet Access was free! That's new. Getting a key for the room safe is $2 per day; I considered that worth it.
City Cafe' was a good place to eat. We had Chinese food at Bon Appetite, ate at Cactus Blue, and The Ribs Factory (if you get the 'whole rack' order, try & figure out what it might be a whole rack of... Those ribs were short!).
We saw several of the yellow headed parrots of Bonaire; Wallob spotted 2 show up on the resort grounds! Yet this was the first trip we didn't photograph any. The last 2 trips, we saw 1 the first trip, maybe 1 to 3 the second trip. This time it wasn't even unusual. We saw some iguanas, including one in the resort parking lot, and plenty of those Bonaire whip-tail lizards running around. When we went through Washington-Slagbaii Park, Wallob & Jami hand-fed some whip-tails bits of apple.
There are plenty of wild goats & still some wild donkeys out & about.
Wallob & I got our Deep Diver Certification training done; now we've just got to mail in the applications. Last year we did Advanced OW.
Dive sites this trip in no particular order: The Invisibles for buoyancy check (I didn't even reach the reef; Jami got sea sick & we had to head back in), Oil Slick Leap, Tolo (a.k.a. Ol' Blue), Angel City, Alice in Wonderland, Andrea I, Eden's Rubble, Hilma Hooker, The Cliff, Windsock, Windsock Resort. We hit some sites more than once; I got 17 dives this trip (not counting Invisibles); Wallob got 18.
Note: On some underwater shots & used Adobe PhotoShop Elements 'Auto Levels' but I didn't do custom tweaking otherwise, aside from resizing. I use a Canon G10 with Canon UW housing; Wallob uses a Canon A620 with Canon UW housing. These pics are a mix of mine & Wallob's. I usually use PhotoBucket for my photo hosting; this time I'm trying Picasa's web gallery feature.
Gotta love Flamingo International Airport; the only pink airport I've been to.
Eden Beach Resort.
See that white-roofed hut? That white roof is HARD. One of our group, Rick, accidentally walked into it & thus took a blow to the head. Knocked him flat, and he didn't get up right away. That 'hut' used to be Bongo's, where I enjoyed fish sandwiches. Now it's mainly drinks, I think; I miss fish sandwiches!!!
If you stay here, take some dive lights out at night & walk the shore, studying where the waves wash over the rocks. As usual we found prowling chain moray eels at night; I found 2 juvenile spiny lobsters. You can also look from their pier.
There's an easily found wreck off the resort site, Eden's Rubble - the wreck of the Bakanal. I'd say around 80 feet deep or so, give or take. Far smaller than the Hilma Hooker, but you can actually take a photo of it.
South of this site you can reach the wreck of Our Confidence. Unfortunately, it's a swim, & Eden Beach Resort & Eden's Rubble sit across from Klein Bonaire, so unlike much of the central west coast of Bonaire, you can get some pretty good intermittent current. You look at the boats along shore; if perpendicular to shore, hop in. If parallel to shore, there's current. Our first trip to Our Confidence ran into current & instead became another Bakanal dive. Later we tried again. Current came up & Walllob (muscular little dude that he is) could swim into it & I (big chubby dude that I am) couldn't. Well, this was our second try, we'd been wanting to see this wreck since our last trip, and I figured 'Crap on this!' The area is mainly coral rubble & sand on the bottom, anyway, so I headed to the bottom, got a long piece of coral rubble, & used it like a pick axe to pull myself along. Once we got to the Confidence I would swim around it, so we made a quick circuit & headed back. Here it is:
With Wallob for size perspective.
Wallob dives with a skin suit to protect himself from sort of little aquatic 'noseeums' that cause a rash on him. We all 3 got hit with some tiny jelly fish at various points diving this trip; kind of like a bee sting, only not concentrated in just one point. Nothing major, but got our attention.
I finally got to photograph an Octopus out in the open. This guy was free-swimming, so we pursued & it stopped, changed colors, basically wanted us to buzz off.
I also found a Sea Turtle.
Wallob was animal man, though; he found a Frog Fish, 2 Spotted Eagle Rays & a couple of decent-sized Barracuda, including one at the Hilma Hooker, and took the best Parrot Fish shot I think we've gotten yet.
He also found 2 of these weird looking lobsters.
We did a night dive at Windsock because at one end you've got a pole with tires & more structure at the shore, so it's easier to see where to come out when you pop up. Plus, Windsock is one of the easiest entry sites, and the reef seems fine. Wallob got this night shot of a Scorpion Fish.
Oh, almost forgot - the obligatory dive buddy tarpon on a night dive in Bonaire.
The Hilma Hooker is still huge; you swim toward the open blue sea, then it seems 'fuzzy' or something, and suddenly your entire oncoming field of view is a dark wall of your side of the ship. There's no little ship in the distance; it's just suddenly there, close up.
Me and the Hooker.
I jointed the Parrot Island Divers group out of Nashville for a 3-6-10 to 3-13-10 trip to Bonaire. I've been with them twice before; March '07 & March '09. My wife Jami & friend Wallob go with me. Jami likes to dive a little; Wallob & I like to get in 2 to 4 divers per day. Here is a link to my '09 trip report thread, written as more of an Intro. to a Bonaire Dive Trip for folks who are interested & new to it like I was not so long ago. For this thread, I'll mainly hit the high points unique to this trip.
First off, we stayed at Eden Beach Resort as usual, in one of the 2 story apartments with 2 upstairs bedrooms made for quad. occupancy. The gas stove has dials that don't have temp. markings, so you've kinda got to wing it on cooking. Wireless Internet Access was free! That's new. Getting a key for the room safe is $2 per day; I considered that worth it.
City Cafe' was a good place to eat. We had Chinese food at Bon Appetite, ate at Cactus Blue, and The Ribs Factory (if you get the 'whole rack' order, try & figure out what it might be a whole rack of... Those ribs were short!).
We saw several of the yellow headed parrots of Bonaire; Wallob spotted 2 show up on the resort grounds! Yet this was the first trip we didn't photograph any. The last 2 trips, we saw 1 the first trip, maybe 1 to 3 the second trip. This time it wasn't even unusual. We saw some iguanas, including one in the resort parking lot, and plenty of those Bonaire whip-tail lizards running around. When we went through Washington-Slagbaii Park, Wallob & Jami hand-fed some whip-tails bits of apple.
There are plenty of wild goats & still some wild donkeys out & about.
Wallob & I got our Deep Diver Certification training done; now we've just got to mail in the applications. Last year we did Advanced OW.
Dive sites this trip in no particular order: The Invisibles for buoyancy check (I didn't even reach the reef; Jami got sea sick & we had to head back in), Oil Slick Leap, Tolo (a.k.a. Ol' Blue), Angel City, Alice in Wonderland, Andrea I, Eden's Rubble, Hilma Hooker, The Cliff, Windsock, Windsock Resort. We hit some sites more than once; I got 17 dives this trip (not counting Invisibles); Wallob got 18.
Note: On some underwater shots & used Adobe PhotoShop Elements 'Auto Levels' but I didn't do custom tweaking otherwise, aside from resizing. I use a Canon G10 with Canon UW housing; Wallob uses a Canon A620 with Canon UW housing. These pics are a mix of mine & Wallob's. I usually use PhotoBucket for my photo hosting; this time I'm trying Picasa's web gallery feature.
Gotta love Flamingo International Airport; the only pink airport I've been to.
Eden Beach Resort.
See that white-roofed hut? That white roof is HARD. One of our group, Rick, accidentally walked into it & thus took a blow to the head. Knocked him flat, and he didn't get up right away. That 'hut' used to be Bongo's, where I enjoyed fish sandwiches. Now it's mainly drinks, I think; I miss fish sandwiches!!!
If you stay here, take some dive lights out at night & walk the shore, studying where the waves wash over the rocks. As usual we found prowling chain moray eels at night; I found 2 juvenile spiny lobsters. You can also look from their pier.
There's an easily found wreck off the resort site, Eden's Rubble - the wreck of the Bakanal. I'd say around 80 feet deep or so, give or take. Far smaller than the Hilma Hooker, but you can actually take a photo of it.
South of this site you can reach the wreck of Our Confidence. Unfortunately, it's a swim, & Eden Beach Resort & Eden's Rubble sit across from Klein Bonaire, so unlike much of the central west coast of Bonaire, you can get some pretty good intermittent current. You look at the boats along shore; if perpendicular to shore, hop in. If parallel to shore, there's current. Our first trip to Our Confidence ran into current & instead became another Bakanal dive. Later we tried again. Current came up & Walllob (muscular little dude that he is) could swim into it & I (big chubby dude that I am) couldn't. Well, this was our second try, we'd been wanting to see this wreck since our last trip, and I figured 'Crap on this!' The area is mainly coral rubble & sand on the bottom, anyway, so I headed to the bottom, got a long piece of coral rubble, & used it like a pick axe to pull myself along. Once we got to the Confidence I would swim around it, so we made a quick circuit & headed back. Here it is:
With Wallob for size perspective.
Wallob dives with a skin suit to protect himself from sort of little aquatic 'noseeums' that cause a rash on him. We all 3 got hit with some tiny jelly fish at various points diving this trip; kind of like a bee sting, only not concentrated in just one point. Nothing major, but got our attention.
I finally got to photograph an Octopus out in the open. This guy was free-swimming, so we pursued & it stopped, changed colors, basically wanted us to buzz off.
I also found a Sea Turtle.
Wallob was animal man, though; he found a Frog Fish, 2 Spotted Eagle Rays & a couple of decent-sized Barracuda, including one at the Hilma Hooker, and took the best Parrot Fish shot I think we've gotten yet.
He also found 2 of these weird looking lobsters.
We did a night dive at Windsock because at one end you've got a pole with tires & more structure at the shore, so it's easier to see where to come out when you pop up. Plus, Windsock is one of the easiest entry sites, and the reef seems fine. Wallob got this night shot of a Scorpion Fish.
Oh, almost forgot - the obligatory dive buddy tarpon on a night dive in Bonaire.
The Hilma Hooker is still huge; you swim toward the open blue sea, then it seems 'fuzzy' or something, and suddenly your entire oncoming field of view is a dark wall of your side of the ship. There's no little ship in the distance; it's just suddenly there, close up.
Me and the Hooker.
