jcroy66
Registered
So we're back from Bonaire Trip #2 (of many to come, I expect). A friend asked me yesterday if it was better or worse than the first trip, and my answer was "different - not better or worse".
First trip was the first week of November and we stayed at Sand Dollar. It was okay, but wasn't extra-special, so we decided to see what other options there were.
We loved diving the southern sites, so we thought staying on the south side might be nice.
Trip #2: Plaza Resort. Back in January, they offered up a pretty sweet deal if you booked in advance:
7 nights
Unlimited shore diving
11 boat dives
Breakfast
Rental truck
$700/person
That was well worth it. If that deal came up again, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Here's the full write-up (I've been accused more than once of "writing a book" and this trip report definitely qualifies!).
About Plaza:
AB Car Rental:
Toucan Diving:
Dive sites (daytime shore dives unless otherwise noted):
Pictures and video (including the seahorse, frogfish, octopus, nudibranch, and the "bait ball") are online at Bonaire August 2010 - philandjen's Photos.
Final analysis:
Plaza and Toucan were both nice. I have no complaints with either. But just as with Sand Dollar and BDA, I am still open to trying new options.
I've been eyeing the deal that Golden Reef Inn is offering - ~$550/person for unlimited diving, Nitrox, 24/7 access to tanks and gear. I REALLY like being able to get at gear and tanks any time of day (or night). Or my favorite, at 5 AM for a dawn dive! And if I remember right, their dive packages are with Wannadive. I really like that Wannadive has 4 facilities across the island where you can exchange tanks, so you don't have to drive all the way back to your resort, if you'd rather keep diving near your current location. Especially nice if we stay on the northern side of town, as we generally prefer the southern sites. I don't really need to stay somewhere on the water - even when I do, I don't usually spend time AT the resort on the water. I spend it DIVING.
However, we want our next trip to be somewhere we haven't been yet, so we won't make it this year. But we'll almost certainly be back to Bonaire sometime next year. If GRI has a deal then that is comparable to the one Liz is offering now, I expect this will probably be our next stop on the "Bonaire Tour".
First trip was the first week of November and we stayed at Sand Dollar. It was okay, but wasn't extra-special, so we decided to see what other options there were.
We loved diving the southern sites, so we thought staying on the south side might be nice.
Trip #2: Plaza Resort. Back in January, they offered up a pretty sweet deal if you booked in advance:
7 nights
Unlimited shore diving
11 boat dives
Breakfast
Rental truck
$700/person
That was well worth it. If that deal came up again, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Here's the full write-up (I've been accused more than once of "writing a book" and this trip report definitely qualifies!).
About Plaza:
- All in all, it's a nice place.
- From the description my travel agent had given, it sounded too "formal" and stuffy for my liking (hence why we went with Sand Dollar the first time). But as it turned out, the Plaza was quite relaxed. This was a pleasant surprise.
- It does have a front desk that is manned 24/7, which is nicer than the Sand Dollar where we waited outside with the mosquitos about an hour for someone to come by to check us in, even though they knew we were coming in on the red-eye.
- The front-desk area seemed to be plagued with mosquitos. Spray down using your own repellent or use the bottle they have on hand.
- The van from the airport also had a lot of mosquitos. I was glad we had a tiny bottle of 100% DEET in our carry-on so I got sprayed down as soon as we got off the plane. (My husband is awesome, I would never have thought of packing it in carry-on, even though I'm the one who gets bit like crazy.)
- Plaza is one of the few places on Bonaire that actually has a strip of sand beach. That's kind of nice, but we only used it once or twice. It does make for sandy booties after shore dives though.
- I personally would definitely NOT pay for breakfast if it wasn't included. I think the lady at the front-desk said it was $15/person if you bought vouchers from her, or $18 if you didn't. Ouch. The food was definitely not worth it. After I got a piece of watermelon that was "not right" the first morning (it didn't taste right and I later realized one end of it was actually brown), I mostly steered away from the fresh fruit. There was also a "cold bar" (cold cuts, cheese, cucumbers, etc), bacon and sausage (neither of which was particularly tasty), eggs (including an made-to-order omelet stand), pancakes, bread, cereal, "milk" and juice. Almost no variation on the items each day. The omelet stand was nice and I ate a hard-boiled egg most days. And the bread was tasty. But I wouldn't pay $15 for an egg, a chunk of bread, and a glass of juice.
- The beach BBQ on Tuesday night is very worth $15. All you can eat ribs, chicken, steak, pork, and sides. And all of it yummy. Oh, and dessert too, but I was full before then! Nice atmosphere, there was a live band playing "island music". Highly recommend this.
- The Plaza had an issue with their desalinization process while we were there. This resulted in one day with approximately 18 hours of no fresh water, followed by about 3 days of sporadic fresh water. They did notify us when the fresh water would/would not be available, but didn't always actually stick to those times. The one night, they said it would not be available between 11 PM and 6 AM, but actually shut off around 10 and didn't come back until 7. If I'd returned from a night dive at 10 expecting to take a shower before the planned water shut off at 11 and found there was already no fresh water to rinse the salt off before sleeping, I'd have been rather unhappy. As it was, the water shutoff schedule did result in us only having one night dive during the trip. They did give us 2 vouchers for a free beer/wine/cocktail in compensation, which was appreciated.
- A downside for us is that it was a bit of a walk from our room to the car and to the dive shop. After we found the gear lockers locked the one morning long after 6 AM when they were supposed to have opened (Island Time I presume), we started keeping our gear in our room if we wanted to do any early morning dives. With the distance from the room to the car, that made for a bit of a hike. Not awful, but certainly way farther than it was at Sand Dollar.
AB Car Rental:
- My husband handled the logistics of dealing with the rental car for both trips. He said the whole process was way easier and smoother with AB Car Rental than with Telerin (the rental agency we used when we stayed at Sand Dollar). Based on that, I can most certainly see renting from them again anytime we have a choice in rental agencies.
- Our package apparently "upgraded" us to an SUV. Having now used both the SUV and the normal pickup, I think the double-cab pickup still works better for shore-diving. Next time, we'll turn down the free upgrade.
Toucan Diving:
- Our package included 11 boat dives each. We went in with the idea of "we'd like to try Klein, so we'll probably use at least some of the dives. The rate is cheap enough that the boat dives are basically free. If we use some of them, fine, but if we don't like the boat dives, we'll just stick to shore-diving." In the end, we used 5 of the boat dives and that was just fine with us.
- In the morning, Toucan offers your choice of either a 2-tank boat dive (that leaves at 8:30) or a single-tank boat dive (don't recall when that left, as we weren't interested in it). In the afternoon, there is only a single-tank boat dive at 2 PM.
- If you haven't pre-paid for boat dives, they do have a minimum number of divers in order to send the boat out. If you have pre-paid for boat dives, they go out regardless.
- If you haven't pre-paid and want to do a boat dive, I think you're at the mercy of the boat having an open spot. Most of the week, the boats were booked completely full.
- Two of the days, the other divers on the boat asked to go to shore-diving sites. That seemed uber-silly to me. Given a choice, I would much rather shore-dive a site than boat-dive it, as long as the shore-dive is reasonable (swim isn't too long, not too hard to get to). So those days, we skipped the boat and went out shore-diving either by ourselves or with another couple from Plaza.
- Jackson not only showed us a frogfish on a dive at Just A Nice Dive, he also gave us directions to where WE could find a frogfish at Keepsake. Since we were all geared up and ready as soon as they said "Pool's open" and the hubby spotted the frogfish right away, it meant we had 9 minutes of uninterrupted one-on-one time with the frogfish. Much nicer than having to patiently wait your turn amongst 18 other people to be able to take a look and/or take a photograph.
- On that note, most of the boat dives had 18 people on them. And at Keepsake, another boat dropped in right on the top of us while we were doing our dive. Where's the logic in that?? It meant that at the end of our dive, there were ~40 people crammed into a small space of ocean. Ugh. This is the main reason we did mostly shore-diving. I'm not much for crowds anywhere, but especially not underwater.
- Toucan had 2 different air analyzers available for analyzing Nitrox tanks. Even after calibration, they seemed to read differently by almost 1%. I assume that means "user error" (i.e. me). I just learned to accomodate for that. All the tanks were pretty much spot on at 31.6% anyway (or 30.8% on the other analyzer) so as usual, analyzing the tanks was basically just a precaution. The one downside was that the Nitrox room was on the opposite side of the building from the parking lot. Not a long walk, but after a week of carrying 30+ tanks around that corner both going and coming back, my husband's back and shoulders were pretty sore. In that respect, Bonaire Dive and Adventure (dive partner to Sand Dollar) had the edge, as you could drive right up to the Nitrox room.
- Toucan's hours for the Nitrox room were better though - 8 AM - 5 PM. I think BDA's were something like 9 - 4. This definitely makes a difference when you're trying to adhere (at least somewhat) to the "2 tanks/diver" rule.
- There were apparently lots of Nitrox divers when we were there. Toucan nearly ran out of Nitrox tanks on at least one occasion, when I took the very last of the AL 80s, which left just 4 midget tanks IIRC. So if that's the case when you're there, get in and get your tanks before the others gobble up the tanks! (Which goes for most dive operations I imagine!)
Dive sites (daytime shore dives unless otherwise noted):
- Saturday: this was apparently the day of cleaning stations. We saw active cleaning stations on all 3 dives. Including the first time I've personally witnessed a grouper open up its mouth and let the shrimp crawl right in. Unfortunately, I think the grouper heard me say "WOW!" as he immediately swam away. Hubby does have video of a moray getting cleaned.
- Eighteenth Palm (checkout dive)
- Joanne's Sunchi (boat dive on Klein) - Sherman found us the largest seahorse I've ever seen. The guy was probably 6" tall.
- Margate Bay
- Sunday:
- Just a Nice Dive (boat dive on Klein). Saw a yellow frogfish. Also saw the largest lionfish I've ever seen. This monster was huge. Boooooooo!
- Closest Point (boat dive on Klein)
- Red Slave. Saw a school of hundreds of large (1.5'+) yellow grunts. Very cool. Also located and marked a lionfish, smallest one I've ever seen. He was actually see-through. In about 10' of water. *sigh* We were really hoping to go a trip without seeing any lionfish.
- Salt Pier (twilight shore dive with local divemasters). Awesome dive. Very worth it. Note: Toucan does not offer this as a dive with the shop, as apparently Cargill isn't ACTUALLY issuing any permits. But local divemasters are willing to take you, if there aren't any ships expected.
- Monday: We spent the morning in Washington-Slagbaii National Park. Next trip, we may spring for the 3-tank park dive with Buddy's. The drive through the park is even more physically and mentally-taxing than the dives. We were both wiped out most of the afternoon afterwards. And some of the dives have rather rough entries/exits and/or long swims. But if you've never been up there, you definitely need to go at least once (we've been 3 times now). Regardless of whether you're diving. The scenery in the park is BEAUTIFUL!
- Boka Bartol (shore dive in park).
- Playa Funchi (shore dive in park). Awesome dive, easy entry.
- Bari (twilight shore dive)
- Tuesday:
- Ol' Blue/Tolo
- Bari
- Soft Coral Garden
- White Slave. Susan Porter isn't kidding when her book says "very long swim". Whoof. But worth it. Saw 2 eagle rays. Also found and marked another lionfish, another juvie, also in about 10' of water.
- Wednesday:
- Nukove. Awesome dive, just like last year. The dirt road to Nukove was way smoother this time though. Apparently that's what happens when it hasn't rained recently.
- Taylor Maid
- Angel City
- Eighteenth Palm (night shore dive). Mostly boring, but we did find an octopus in about 3' of water, right near the breaker wall. I'm thinking maybe night dives on Bonaire would be better long, long after dark, as there were so many divers in the water with their dive lights when we dove, it might as well have been a twilight dive.
- Thursday:
- Salt Bay (Klein boat dive)
- Keepsake (Klein boat dive). Hubby found the gray frogfish, based on Jackson's directions. He actually had his lure out and was snapping it, trying to score a meal.
- Aquarius. Hubby found a nudibranch that he is fairly certain is a "purple-ring nudibranch". Rarely sighted in the 16 years since it was identified as a species. And his pictures turned out better than the ones we've found online. That is so amazingly cool. :banana:
- Friday:
- Invisibles. Early morning (but after dawn) dive. We decided to end the trip with a visit to a site we've never been. This one came recommended by someone at SB, and since it was the first one we drove past that we hadn't been to that was also unoccupied, we went for it. I am REALLY glad we did. Out on the double-reef, there was a "bait ball" of thousands and thousands of 3" fish being herded by a group of jacks. And then there were some of the largest groupers I've ever seen just cruising around. A tiger grouper, a black grouper, and several other "more normal" groupers. The fish seemed so preoccupied by the jacks that they apparently didn't notice (or care about?) the groupers. Hubby witnessed the groupers occasionally just open up their mouth and swallow a few. Yum! I was absolutely mesmerized. I was tempted to spend my entire tank just staring in wonder at the way this school of fish would move in unison, nearly as though it was a single organism.
Pictures and video (including the seahorse, frogfish, octopus, nudibranch, and the "bait ball") are online at Bonaire August 2010 - philandjen's Photos.
Final analysis:
Plaza and Toucan were both nice. I have no complaints with either. But just as with Sand Dollar and BDA, I am still open to trying new options.
I've been eyeing the deal that Golden Reef Inn is offering - ~$550/person for unlimited diving, Nitrox, 24/7 access to tanks and gear. I REALLY like being able to get at gear and tanks any time of day (or night). Or my favorite, at 5 AM for a dawn dive! And if I remember right, their dive packages are with Wannadive. I really like that Wannadive has 4 facilities across the island where you can exchange tanks, so you don't have to drive all the way back to your resort, if you'd rather keep diving near your current location. Especially nice if we stay on the northern side of town, as we generally prefer the southern sites. I don't really need to stay somewhere on the water - even when I do, I don't usually spend time AT the resort on the water. I spend it DIVING.
However, we want our next trip to be somewhere we haven't been yet, so we won't make it this year. But we'll almost certainly be back to Bonaire sometime next year. If GRI has a deal then that is comparable to the one Liz is offering now, I expect this will probably be our next stop on the "Bonaire Tour".
