White Chocolate
Registered
My wife and I spent a week in Bonaire at the start of December right at the end of the low season pricing. We were able to find airfare from the Pacific NW for $530 roundtrip with only one stop each way in Houston, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity. We visited several years ago and stayed at an Airbnb in Hato a few blocks from the water. This time, based on a friends recommendation and reviews here, we booked a drive and dive package at the Sand Dollar Resort. We were very impressed with everything at the Sand Dollar. We were on the 2nd floor of Building B, and our condo was clean and fairly modern with a comfortable bed and air conditioning in the bedroom and main area. The screened in porch with overhead fans overlooking the grounds and water was great for relaxing and drying gear that we didn't leave in the locker room. We had no complaints about anything regarding our accommodations. The construction next to the parking lot was still on-going but fairly quiet so we never heard anything from our room. The little sandy beach next to the dive dock was beautiful. I was standing in the water drinking a beer and watching the sunset one evening and saw dolphins come up right in front. The onsite Dive Friends shop shared with Den Leman was fantastic as many of you know. We did our checkout dive off the dock and saw squid, a huge moray eel out swimming, all the fish, and Myrtle the turtle. That was a pretty nice way to start the trip! The tank racks and wash bins at the dock and in the parking lot were extremely convenient. I was also able to find where the DIN nitrox tanks were hiding so I didn't have to use my yoke adapter. We got our truck from Avis at the airport and it had good tires and low miles. I spent years driving stick shift trucks in the woods on logging roads so I had quite a bit of fun driving around the island. We got a good tip about the rental car pickup at the airport, which can be quite inconvenient sometimes. While my wife waited for our checked bag I high tailed it straight to the rental counter and was first in line. We went from the airplane to our room in under an hour!
We went to Van Der Tweels the first day to buy groceries and we ate all our breakfast and made lunches at the condo. We ate out for dinner every night and had some pretty decent meals. I had fantastic ribs at Rum Runners, and Julien's Café was as good as I remembered and still an amazing value. The doner kebab across the street was another hit. Tasty and cheap! Our best meal of the trip was at Salatiga, which is the Indonesian restaurant underneath Osaka Sushi. We shared an Indonesian and Thai platter, and had a ridiculous amount of food that was over the top delicious. If you are an adventurous eater then I'd consider it a must try. There are some reviews noting poor service in the past but we had no problems. Of course, if you are more of a meat and potatoes person it may be better to avoid, as there are no fall back comfort items on the menu to please pickier eaters.
During the day the island seemed a bit busier than our previous trip (there was definitely more traffic near the downtown area) but we never ended up having to wait for tables at restaurants and we always managed to find good parking in one of the central parking lots. Hooray for the off season! On our last day we did some tourist shopping and exploring of downtown and then took a sunset sailboat trip out of the plaza resort marina with some friends we made from North Carolina. It was a fantastic way to end the trip. The only regret we have is not staying longer!
As nice as the resort and topside activities were, the diving was still the best part of the trip. My wife picked up right where she left off last time (after a pool refresher at home) and we immediately got comfortable. There were a handful of sites that we revisited, a few others that we missed last time and got to see, and a couple places where we just pulled over at a yellow rock and got in. I left my camera at the condo for the first three days to just enjoy things and get my wife dialed in, and then brought it out for the last three days. The sites we dove were Bari Reef x 4 (because house reefs at your condo with tanks on the dock are the greatest thing ever!), Oil Slick x 2, Andrea 2 x 2, Windsock, Tori's Reef, Angel City, Salt Pier, Jeff Davis, Vista Blue, Red Beryl, Tolo, Karpata and Invisibles. Water temps were in the low 80's, and I spent most of my dives in a rash guard and boardshorts. I did use my 3mm for a couple early and late dives and didn't regret the decisions. My wife stayed in her 3mm the whole time and was perfectly comfortable.
Highlights were many. Andrea 2 had large lettuce leaf nudis, lots of hamlets (my favorites!), and a snoozing turtle on the second dive. An octopus was out moving around a mound of coral near the bottom of the Oil Slick ladder, and I found the big patch of jawfish to the north tending their dens (no eggs unfortunately). Tori's Reef had anemones and shrimp everywhere. On the second reef at Angel City we watched a huge moray swim over the top through the biggest school of chromis and creole wrasse that I'd ever seen. The healthy shallow staghorn coral nurseries at Jeff Davis were full of schooling grunts. At Tolo we went north for a bit at depth, and then came up into the prettiest garden of coral that I've ever seen with a huge blue tang school cruising by. Karpata was as amazing as I remembered and the entry was quite calm. I dropped down for a space walk at my nitrox tank's MOD and a couple big Barracuda swam by to check me out. Bari Reef delivered EVERY dive. The juvenile angel fish and blennies at the rock pile and rubble structures near the pier stretched every safety stop out into a third of the dive. A big scorpionfish swam underneath me near the front porch concrete aquarium. On the last dive I was cruising near the top of the reef and a huge school of horse eyed jacks swam up from the bottom to play in my bubbles.
The reef was still gorgeous, but I did notice red algae covering some gorgonians at all the sites up and down the coast, along with the yellow turtle food near the salt pier. Two years ago things seemed a lot more vibrant, but I'm not sure if that was just me being overwhelmed with my first real warm water dive trip! We did have a lot of morning rain and cloudy afternoons, so the visibility was down to 60-80 ft at depth, and it stayed between 20 and 40 ft in the shallows which might have also played a part. The fish life was still as incredible as I remembered, and although we didn't see any eagle rays or larger things this time we had more good lengthy turtle encounters, and I was able to start seeing a lot more different fish in the chaos of fins that was constant on every dive. Overall it was still incredibly beautiful and diverse. I still haven't travelled too many places, and while I have no doubt that there are more beautiful and healthier places to visit (coral triangle....) Bonaire will (hopefully) always remain a very special place to spend time down below.
We went to Van Der Tweels the first day to buy groceries and we ate all our breakfast and made lunches at the condo. We ate out for dinner every night and had some pretty decent meals. I had fantastic ribs at Rum Runners, and Julien's Café was as good as I remembered and still an amazing value. The doner kebab across the street was another hit. Tasty and cheap! Our best meal of the trip was at Salatiga, which is the Indonesian restaurant underneath Osaka Sushi. We shared an Indonesian and Thai platter, and had a ridiculous amount of food that was over the top delicious. If you are an adventurous eater then I'd consider it a must try. There are some reviews noting poor service in the past but we had no problems. Of course, if you are more of a meat and potatoes person it may be better to avoid, as there are no fall back comfort items on the menu to please pickier eaters.
During the day the island seemed a bit busier than our previous trip (there was definitely more traffic near the downtown area) but we never ended up having to wait for tables at restaurants and we always managed to find good parking in one of the central parking lots. Hooray for the off season! On our last day we did some tourist shopping and exploring of downtown and then took a sunset sailboat trip out of the plaza resort marina with some friends we made from North Carolina. It was a fantastic way to end the trip. The only regret we have is not staying longer!
As nice as the resort and topside activities were, the diving was still the best part of the trip. My wife picked up right where she left off last time (after a pool refresher at home) and we immediately got comfortable. There were a handful of sites that we revisited, a few others that we missed last time and got to see, and a couple places where we just pulled over at a yellow rock and got in. I left my camera at the condo for the first three days to just enjoy things and get my wife dialed in, and then brought it out for the last three days. The sites we dove were Bari Reef x 4 (because house reefs at your condo with tanks on the dock are the greatest thing ever!), Oil Slick x 2, Andrea 2 x 2, Windsock, Tori's Reef, Angel City, Salt Pier, Jeff Davis, Vista Blue, Red Beryl, Tolo, Karpata and Invisibles. Water temps were in the low 80's, and I spent most of my dives in a rash guard and boardshorts. I did use my 3mm for a couple early and late dives and didn't regret the decisions. My wife stayed in her 3mm the whole time and was perfectly comfortable.
Highlights were many. Andrea 2 had large lettuce leaf nudis, lots of hamlets (my favorites!), and a snoozing turtle on the second dive. An octopus was out moving around a mound of coral near the bottom of the Oil Slick ladder, and I found the big patch of jawfish to the north tending their dens (no eggs unfortunately). Tori's Reef had anemones and shrimp everywhere. On the second reef at Angel City we watched a huge moray swim over the top through the biggest school of chromis and creole wrasse that I'd ever seen. The healthy shallow staghorn coral nurseries at Jeff Davis were full of schooling grunts. At Tolo we went north for a bit at depth, and then came up into the prettiest garden of coral that I've ever seen with a huge blue tang school cruising by. Karpata was as amazing as I remembered and the entry was quite calm. I dropped down for a space walk at my nitrox tank's MOD and a couple big Barracuda swam by to check me out. Bari Reef delivered EVERY dive. The juvenile angel fish and blennies at the rock pile and rubble structures near the pier stretched every safety stop out into a third of the dive. A big scorpionfish swam underneath me near the front porch concrete aquarium. On the last dive I was cruising near the top of the reef and a huge school of horse eyed jacks swam up from the bottom to play in my bubbles.
The reef was still gorgeous, but I did notice red algae covering some gorgonians at all the sites up and down the coast, along with the yellow turtle food near the salt pier. Two years ago things seemed a lot more vibrant, but I'm not sure if that was just me being overwhelmed with my first real warm water dive trip! We did have a lot of morning rain and cloudy afternoons, so the visibility was down to 60-80 ft at depth, and it stayed between 20 and 40 ft in the shallows which might have also played a part. The fish life was still as incredible as I remembered, and although we didn't see any eagle rays or larger things this time we had more good lengthy turtle encounters, and I was able to start seeing a lot more different fish in the chaos of fins that was constant on every dive. Overall it was still incredibly beautiful and diverse. I still haven't travelled too many places, and while I have no doubt that there are more beautiful and healthier places to visit (coral triangle....) Bonaire will (hopefully) always remain a very special place to spend time down below.
