Bonaire Trip Report Dec. 16-23

[Martha]

We arrived in Bonaire early on the red-eye from Houston. Our luggage was unloaded quickly, we found Poppy from Telerin car rentals, signed the paperwork and were on our way to BelMar. We did most of our dives at sites we didn’t get to last year, with a few exceptions. Here are a few of the highlights from each site:
BelMar house reef: Check-out dive. Saw a turtle, octopus, and lots of fish. We also did a night dive and saw a parrot fish inside its mucus cocoon. My husband pointed it out to me & truthfully, I didn’t know what I was looking at until he told me afterward.
Invisibles: School of barracuda, flamingo tongue cowries, …
Jung’s Place (we met a man who told us about an unmarked site that he liked, so we named it after him): Thick forest of elkhorn coral upon entrance, very nice dive!
The Lake: Saw a spotted eagle ray as soon as we entered and large groupers in the sandy channel. To top it off, we got to watch the sunset when we surfaced. We dove this site a second time and saw a free swimming octopus. It was very fun to watch.
Witches Hut: Very nice dive! We did a second dive here in a quest to find the two seahorses that have been seen here, but we weren’t able to find them. I did find a bearded fireworm, which was a first for me and we saw a free swimming spotted moray eel.
Karpata: Beautiful dive! We saw the anchor and a free swimming eel, among the many other fish and coral. There were many donkeys and goats roaming about on the drive back through Rincon.
Larry’s Lair: Two peacock flounders, three eels, and flamingo tongue cowries.
Alice in Wonderland: Schools of black durgon, two scorpion fish, arrow crab, and cleaner shrimp.
Red Slave: It was a little rough getting in, but not too bad. Saw a spotted eagle ray upon entrance. There were a lot of anemones at this site.
Salt Pier: I really enjoyed this dive. Upon entrance we got to enjoy a gigantic school of silversides. It was amazing watching them. Also saw four scorpion fish, three peacock flounders, a turtle, chain moray, tarpon, barracuda, etc…
Ol’ blue: Sharp tail eel, baby scorpion fish (very cute), peacock flounder. Very nice dive!
Dave’s Den: Two spotted moray eels and a very large turtle. A kiteboarder almost took my husband’s head off when he surfaced.

We snorkeled with our kids at Aquarius, which they really enjoyed and my husband did a night snorkel with them on the BelMar house reef. Thye’re both looking forward to the day when they can dive too.

We ate at the following places:
City Café: I had the beef salad. It was very good, although its name is a little misleading because there was very little salad, mostly beef.
BobbeJan’s: We enjoyed the ribs, but now I know to order French fries with it next time instead of the rice. Luckily, my son let me have some of his fries.
Patagonia: I had the calamari dinner. The calamari was soggy, so I didn’t really enjoy it all that much. The sides were great though. We had planned on going to Casablanca, but they were closed, so we thought we’d give Patagonia a try. I think next time we’ll go back to Casablanca.
It Rains Fishes: Wahoo with pesto. Mmmm mmmm good!!!
Papaya Moon: Fish tacos. Very tasty.
Pasa Bon Pizza: Fish pizza (my favorite meal of the trip).

We had a wonderful trip!

 

[The Chairman]

Very nice account. I look forward to going back there soon. Thanks for telling us about it!

 

[NDH]

What a great trip report. Thanks.
We are going to Belmar in May and can't wait. It will be our first trip to Bonaire and I was wondering if you have any must do's.

 

[WVDiver]

Cool, we just got back in mid Nov. the PBD is already upon us. We visited many of the same sites you did and ate at many of the same places. Glad you enjoyed it so much.

 

[Martha]

What a great trip report. Thanks.
We are going to Belmar in May and can't wait. It will be our first trip to Bonaire and I was wondering if you have any must do's.

For diving, I would say for the Northern sites, do Karpata and Witches Hut, for sure and for the Southern sites, Invisibles and the Lake. Some people didn't think the Salt Pier was worth it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, so it would be on my must do list, at least once. We haven't been able to do the town pier either trip because of the ship traffic, so that is still on our must do list. You may have better luck in May, if it's something you'd like to do.

For dining, you have to try Casablanca (mixed grill, if you're a meat eater) and Pasa Bon Pizza (the fish pizza is great & my husband said the lasagna is among the best he's ever had).

Site seeing, drive around the South side of the Island and look for flamingos. When we were there, we saw hundreds of them, starting at Red Slave and around to the lighthouse. Also check out the wind surfers at Lac Bay. The kite boarders are fun to watch too, although not when surfacing from a dive, so be careful and look up before surfacing at the Southern sites.

That's all I can think of right now. I'm sure I left stuff out, but I can add to it as I think of anything. Oh, definitely try a Amstel Bright. They are very refreshing after a day of diving, if you like beer.

 

[Martha]

Cool, we just got back in mid Nov. the PBD is already upon us. We visited many of the same sites you did and ate at many of the same places. Glad you enjoyed it so much.

I hear you about the PBD... although it's not quite so bad for me this time because we're going back in March, so we're already planning what we're going to do when we get back (and no kids next time, so it'll really be relaxing and I'll have no guilt about diving whenever/wherever we feel like it).

 

[WVDiver]

I hear you about the PBD... although it's not quite so bad for me this time because we're going back in March, so we're already planning what we're going to do when we get back (and no kids next time, so it'll really be relaxing and I'll have no guilt about diving whenever/wherever we feel like it).

Good for you. We left the kids behind last time also. Have a great time we will be looking for the trip report. Are you staying at the same place?

 

[Martha]

Yes, we'll be staying at the Belmar again. We really like it there!

 

[Martha]

I'll definitely try to do another trip report when we return.

 

[CLEAR BLUE]

We got back from Bonaire in November. Every dive was a good one but we really liked Oil Slick. And it's pretty fun doing the giant stride from the rock. Make sure you get the book - Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy. It told about all the sites and was quite helpful.