Bonaire Trip Report from a first timer- Part 1

[Sirto]

Bonaire 2006 Trip Report

August 5 – 19, 2006

This was our first trip to Bonaire and we loved the island and the freedom of shore diving. I usually prepare a trip report to keep as a reminder of what we liked and what we didn’t for future trips so I hope it’s not too long for others to read.

The flight down
We took Air Jamaica from Philadelphia to Montego Bay then on to Bonaire. Tickets were obtained via Mastercard Travel Rewards which pays the first $600 of the ticket price and has no blackouts or restrictions. We paid the additional $28 per ticket. AJ was delayed 1 ½ hours leaving MB because the crew was not available. Instead of waiting for the crew to arrive before boarding the passengers we all got to sit on the plane for the whole time.

After we arrived and went through customs we got to wait about one hour while AJ unloaded the bags. A few bags were placed on the belt and then the belt would stop. The baggage handler said they had to wait for the motor to cool off. After a few minutes this procedure was repeated. Every once in a while they would just throw the bags through the curtain onto the belt and the passengers would pass them down the line. Eventually the bags were delivered. It was an inauspicious if rather comical beginning to the trip.

I then proceeded to the Budget car rental counter. Lucky for me I left Carolyn with the bags and hurried to get the car since several people got there just after I did. I was third in line. The first person was just finishing up and, as the second person started their paperwork another person stuck her head in and informed the agent that the person at the head of the line was with a group and that they were getting 10 cars. GROAN!!! Am I now going to have to wait for them to process 10 people? Luckily not – they were told that they would each have to fill out the papers individually. WHEW! The people in front ran into a problem because their credit card was rejected when they tried to use it for the security deposit.

HINT: Be sure you call your credit card company prior to your trip to inform them that you’ll be out of the country. Some cards will reject a charge from foreign locations as a fraud prevention measure.

Anyway we finally got our pickup truck. Another hint – check to see whether you are getting a car with a manual transmission. This was not mentioned in any of our correspondence with the travel agent. Luckily I can drive a stick so it wasn’t a problem.

Budget was the only company with more than one customer. I’m not sure if this was just due to one large group arriving together but I may look at using a different rental agency next time. It took us a good 40 minutes to get our car and there were at least 6 other groups behind us. They must have been there for hours. Budget should change their procedures so that they fill in the forms with the customer information ahead of time so it doesn’t take so long to handle each person.

Eden Beach
We drove to the Eden Beach Resort (after a few wrong turns in town). They have our room ready and we checked in around 6:00 pm. The room is very hot since the A/C was off. We turned it on and left the room for the evening.

It’s now too late to do our checkout dive as we planned but, we roll with it – we’re on island time now. We have a drink at Bongo’s beach bar and start winding down.

We then headed to Bobbyjans for dinner. More on that in the dining section.

We returned to the room and found that it was still very hot. The A/C was just strong enough to keep the room reasonably cool but it took about 16 hours to cool it down from the initial high temperature.

The room is reasonable, not spartan but not luxurious by any stretch. There is no dresser for storage of clothing. Instead there are a couple of shelves in the concrete divider (the one you can see on their website pictures of the studio). The bed is very low but otherwise ok. The couch is very hard, I know because I slept on it the first night since it was cooler than sleeping on the bed. There is a full kitchen (no microwave). Our fridge did not work but they repaired it quickly. The bath has a shower but no bathtub.

The grounds are attractive and the beach is nice although it’s smaller than it looks on the webcam pictures. One thing we didn’t care for is the fact that you had to sign out a beach chair – they are not out on the beach for your use. This is an inconvenience if you just want to use it for a short time. There is a nice pool and a kiddie pool as well.

Wanna Dive
We checked in with the shop and filled out the necessary forms. They gave us an orientation and we did our checkout dive after purchasing our park tags. We dove from the northern end of the beach and swam north. We immediately started seeing many neat creatures. The visibility was, as had been reported by others, rather poor by Bonaire standards, perhaps 40 feet. During the next two weeks it was between 40 and 60 feet. This is not a problem when examining the
creatures that are close but it makes it hard to see the larger fish swimming by in the deep blue.

Truthfully the first couple of dives left us wondering why Bonaire’s reefs were rated so highly. They were ok but there was a lot of dead or bleached coral. We’d definitely seen better elsewhere. Then we dove Karpata. Wow, what a great site! Many other sites we dove later rivaled that site for diversity and quality of the of coral and variety of fish species..

The Wanna Dive staff at Eden Beach were great (we only did shore dives and so used them for air and the rinse tanks/lockers only). We signed up for a Nitrox course and this was handled through their shop next to City Café. Our experiences with that shop were less satisfactory. When we arrived for our course on Monday we were asked whether we spoke Dutch, Italian, or Spanish. Wondering why the question was asked I answered that I spoke Spanish. I was then asked how well I spoke it. Seems that they did not have the PADI Nitrox video available in English!! Luckily I do speak Spanish fairly fluently and I could translate for Carolyn. You’d think they would have notified us before we drove into town.

Next, we got the course books but one set of them was missing the nitrox tables so we had to share them while doing the problems.

Later we signed up for a night dive at the Town Pier on Wednesday and wrote our names on the board. We arrived early on Thursday and found the shop closed. I then noticed that our names had been erased from the signup board. We waited until the appointed time and no one showed up so we left and did a night dive at Buddy’s instead. On Thursday we saw the instructor and asked him what had happened. His response was “it was cancelled, didn’t anyone tell you?” NO, they didn’t.

Plaza
Since this was our first trip to Bonaire we wanted to stay on the beach and also to try two different locations so, after the first week, we moved to the Plaza. . We found that we don’t need to be on the beach and next time we’ll try one of the bungalow units instead.

The Junior suites at the Plaza are larger and more luxuriously appointed than the rooms at Eden Beach. Of course they are also more expensive and they don’t have a kitchen (but do have a coffee maker and mini fridge). There were two queen beds, a dresser and a table. There is a bath with shower not to mention a bidet. There is a small patio that looks out onto a garden path.

There is a nice beach with beach chairs and a pool. The pool and bar areas are much noisier than the ones at Eden Beach.

Toucan Dive
We found Toucan to be very efficient and well organized. The dive shop, rinse tanks and lockers are located near the parking lot and you can back your truck in to load up your gear. The dive locker is a bit tight for two people but other than that I have nothing but good things to say about Toucan.

Nitrox upgrades were free if you stayed at the Plaza.

The Plaza property is quite large and therefore there is a relatively long walk from the dive shop to the beach. This could present a problem with having to drag your gear back and forth for diving their house reef but Toucan has that figured out. Flag down any of their staff (in the red shirts) and ask for your gear to be brought to either of the beach entry points and they’ll bring it there in their truck. If you are diving nitrox they will also bring your tanks for you. Air tanks are always available at the beach.

 

[Sirto]

Dining
Bobbyjans
We ordered a couple of beers, the special plate and an order of ribs. The special includes a couple of skewers of satay chicken, BBQ chicken, ribs, French fries and cole slaw. The ribs were tasty but they were sweet – like Chinese ribs. I told the waitress that there might have been something wrong with my beer but that I had to check another one to be sure. We had enough leftovers for lunch on Sunday. Inexpensive and good.

Bambu – One of the newer restaurants; open only 8 months. It’s located on the road by the water one block north of Donna and Giorgio’s. They offer a three course dinner for $25. Carolyn ordered that and had a good tomato soup , a wonderful ribeye steak as the main course and an excellent tiramissou for dessert. I ordered the Kesha Yeni (as I understand it this is supposed to be a stuffed gouda cheese but it was a mixture of gouda, chicken, raisins served warm so the cheese was runny – tasty). I also had dorado with béarnaise sauce. With 2 beers and 2 iced teas the bill came to $62.. Very good

Gibi’s - We got to meet Kelly Baum, Jake and Linda Richter and their daughter, Walter, and Ed and Liz from the Golden Reef Inn. Turn’s out that Ed and Liz were from New Jersey where we used to live and they both worked in the same plant that Carolyn used to work in.

Casablanca – We went to Casablanca on Wednesday and it was pretty crowded, it was the only restaurant that had more than a few tables occupied during our two week stay. We ordered the chorizo appetizer and then the mixed grill for two. This turned out to be a huge pile of meat which included two chorizo (of course since we ordered that as an appetizer), a whole chicken, a steak, two pork chops, one strip of other meat (lamb?), a slab of ribs, salad and fries. We also ordered a bottle of wine and the total came to $63. The food was good and provided several additional meals for us.

China Nobo Very laid back place run by a nice woman who tries hard to please. They have Chinese as well as Indonesian dishes. Carolyn had Rijstafel (not the same as I’ve had in Holland but very good). It was actually white rice with grilled shrimp, chicken, steak and fish. I had the Bami goreng, Indonesian style noodles with pork. There were both served with very good fried sweet plantains. With three beers and a pint of Lover’s ice cream to go the bill was only $27. Very good.

Will’s Tropical Café We visited Will’s on Friday and found that the outside dining area was rather noisy due to a steady stream of traffic going by some of whom felt that everyone within a three block radius would appreciate hearing. some music and therefore had it blaring from the open windows of their cars. This may be an issue on Fridays since we experienced the same thing at Cactus Blue the next Friday but not at other times. It might be best to avoid those restaurants located on the main drags on Friday. We shared an appetizer of conch fritters and then ordered two pasta dishes. I had a seafood penne with vodka sauce and Carolyn had a chicken pasta dish. Both were very good. We had 4 margaritas. Since it was happy hour two were free. The bill came to $65.

Cactus Blue We had ribs as the 2 for 1 appetizer during happy hour and they were very good. Note that drink prices are not reduced during happy hour and you both have to order the appetizer. I don’t understand this policy but didn’t argue about it. If the owner is reading this why not just charge for the more expensive item? I had grouper with a sweet/spicy sauce which came with rice, vegetables and fried sweet plantain. Carolyn had the Penne Jambalya with shrimp, chicken and chorizo. Both were very good. With three mixed drinks the total bill came to $63.

The Ribs Factory We ordered the ribs and they were ok at best.

Pinchos do Brazil This restaurant is on the road by the water and therefore has a fabulous view. The food and service were great. I had wahoo with an excellent garlic sauce and Carolyn had a wonderful chicken with mango sauce. With two mixed drinks the total was $53. Very, very good.

ZeeZicht – Our least favorite dinner. The service was good and the location was super with a great view right across the street from the water. However the food was ok at best. I had wahoo with a creole sauce the completely overpowered the fish which was tough. With 3 mixed drinks the total was $63. We would not return here.

El Fogon Latino - A locals kind of place on Nikiboko Zuid. It’s about 50 yards off of Kaya Industria. Turn right at the intersection where China Nobo is located and it’s on the right. We had Lomito (flank steak) and red snapper. Both were very good. Be sure to order the fried yucca (a tuberous starchy vegetable like a potato) as a side dish! It was very good and I’m Cuban and know good yucca when I taste it. We also had quesillo which is similar to flan but with a berry-like sauce. With three beers the total was only $33. VERY GOOD !!

Carneceria Latina – This local shop is open only on Saturday mornings. We purchased a full chicken and a rack of ribs for $14 and drove to Lac Bay for a picnic while watching the windsurfers. The ribs were the best we had (and we tried them at four places; In decreasing order of tastiness we had ribs from
Carneceria Latina, Cactus Blue, Bobbyjans and the Ribs Factory. The latter were the only ones we really didn't like much.

Lost Penguin (for breakfast) It's run by a very nice lady from the US and has great pancakes.

Great Escape (for breakfast) – They advertise a breakfast buffet for 6 nafl but when we went there they had toast and fruit out and you ordered omelets. The bill was $9.50 each. I’m not sure whether the advertised buffet is available only during high season.

 

[Sirto]

Diving
We did 33 shore dives over the course of the two weeks while taking one day off for touring the park and degassing. The reefs at the different dive sites are, with a few exceptions, in very good condition with both soft and hard corals. The fish life is varied and plentiful.

The rocks and corals at many entries can cause problems in the entries and exits if there is any amount of wave action. Even one foot waves can knock you down when you don’t have a flat spot to put your foot down. Entering is often easier because you can just inflate your BCD and float out over the rocks but getting out can be harder. On a dive at Witch’s Hut we got banged up (several black and blue marks as well as a lost weight belt and snorkel) when we ran into 1 ½ foot waves. This was one of our earliest dives so I’m sure that our inexperience helped create our problems. While tricky we did not find the entries and exits to be a major problem.

We used Shore Diving Made Easy which we ordered after reading about it on Bonairetalk.com. We found it to be a very useful guide and our favorite dive site, Soft Coral Garden, was one we would not have known about without having read this book. At this site we saw beautiful soft and hard corals and found a 3 ½ foot hawksbill turtle as well as a Southern stingray with a 4 foot wingspan.

We only had one dive where we encountered a strong current. This was at English Garden where we used nearly half our air just to get to the dropoff.. It was still a great dive however.

We did several night dives at the Plaza, one at Sand Dollar, one at Buddy Dive as well as one at Town Pier. While we did not see many of the usual creatures we are used to seeing on night dives (we saw only a few small crabs, perhaps two lobsters and a single octopus).we did see several 4’ tarpon that are resident at the Plaza’s reef. They just suddenly appeared out of nowhere and passed by very close to us. Scarred the bejusus out of me the first time and, as I watched, they zoomed past Carolyn and I saw her flinch as well. The tarpon stayed close by during most of the dives.

On our first night dive at the Plaza we saw literally hundreds of ruby brittle stars as well as Spanish lobsters, tiger tail sea cucumbers, and free swimming spotted and green morays. At one point in the dive we turned off our dive lights and it seemed like we were looking at a night sky full of stars. There were some shiny items floating all around us (this wasn’t the phosphorescence caused by waving your hand around). It was a really neat sight.

At the Town pier we saw several moray eels, a sharptail eel, adult and juvenile spotted drum fish, juvenile French Angelfish, orange cup coral, brittlestars, a large seahorse and a starfish. The dive at the Town pier was interesting but it was too crowded - 8 divers and two DMs which caused traffic jams at times.

The flight back
The Air Jamaica flight to Montego Bay was delayed 1 hour. Since we only had a layover of 1 hour we were concerned that we might miss our flight to Philadelphia but it turned out that the next flight was using the same plane on which we came in. The flight left 1 ½ hours late but otherwise there were no problems. All our bags arrived in Philadelphia and we finally got home at 1:30 a.m.

Miscellaneous hints/notes
We were a bit worried about finding our way back to the entry point but we hit it almost perfectly each time. Swim into the current until about 1500 psi then return and you'll be pretty close. Make minor adjustments to the turn around pressure to account for the currents you encounter.

A compass is essential - sometimes you can really get turned around as you search for that elusive moray.

We used soft soled booties and some of the walks were difficult as a result - get hard soled booties if you can.

There is no need to change dollars to guilders. Everyone takes dollars though you usually get guilders back as change.

The Plaza charges a 3% fee for use of traveler's checks.

Don’t purchase traveler’s checks with a credit card; they treat this as a cash advance and charge a fee as well as finance charges on the transaction.

If you drive through the park in a large truck be aware that at some points the road is too narrow to avoid brushing up against the bushes along the sides of the road. Some of these have thorns and your truck can get pretty scratched up. If it wasn't scratched when you got it then you might have a problem when you return it. Check your inspection report to see if scratches were noted.

On your last day you can check your bags with the airlines very early thereby avoiding the lines and then drive around the island some more

Bring lots of water if you visit the park. It takes a lot longer than they state to do the tour (3 1/2 hrs vs 2 1/2 hrs in our case).

Be careful about parking on any sandy areas - we got stuck at Vista Blue and took about 15 minutes to free ourselves.

Bring a bottle or two of frozen water for drinking. It will be melted by the time you come up but will still be cold.

Bring a large bottle of water for rinsing after a dive. It will be nice and warm.

If you wind up past where the road becomes one way, there is an alternative to taking the long way back thru Rincon. Just after Karpata on the road to Rincon, there is a rock with a bicycle painted on it next to a small, dirt road that goes to the right. It goes up over a hill, and then back down and joins up with the coast road back on the two-way section (the road is about 3 ½ miles long). This saves a half hour driving thru Rincon and back. Thanks to Bonaire Talk for this hint..

 

[WVDiver]

Good report. Thanks

 

[ronrosa]

Great review. I still haven't made it there. I recently returned from my 1st shore diving trip. To help with finding our way back. I used a 4' safety sausage held down with a 3lb weight as a marker for our return back to shore. My navigation skills are a little weak. The sausage really took the anxiety out of things seeing it on our return.

 

[scubaotter]

Thanks for taking the time to write such an extensive trip report. My countdown to Bonaire during Thanksgiving is about to begin!!!

I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with the guys over at Wannadive. In the four trips that I have had to the island, usually two weeks at a time, I have never had a problem with the shop. One time AJ "misplaced" our luggage AKA: all of our dive gear. Bob and Bart did not hesitate to give us enough equipment to dive on for three days while our luggage was "located". In the end they would not let us pay for the use of the rental equipment. Good guys in my humble opinion.

 

[TheRedHead]

Great review. I still haven't made it there. I recently returned from my 1st shore diving trip. To help with finding our way back. I used a 4' safety sausage held down with a 3lb weight as a marker for our return back to shore. My navigation skills are a little weak. The sausage really took the anxiety out of things seeing it on our return.

It's really simple because there is no long swim back to shore. It's like 30 feet so you can see everything clearly. You'll love it. My buddy and I took over 700 photos in a week. When we would end our dives at Buddy's, I would sit in 15 feet of water photographing trumpet fish and sharptail eels, wrapping my leg around the handrail on the stairs to keep from floating to the surface with 200 psi. I would finally get out before draining the tank and stand and walk up the stairs to the rinse tank. Amazing amount of small critters too if you look closely.

 

[ronrosa]

I've been trying to dive Bonaire for years, but it never seems to work out.

My diving trips are usually long weekends with my dive buddies or week long trips with my non-diving wife. Unfortunately Bonaire hasn't had the flights for long weekend trips and the topside is too boring for my wife.

Hopefully I'll make it there one of these days.

 

[RTW]

Thank you for the great report!
Our first trip to Bonaire begins next Saturday.

 

[overandover]

Thanks and double thanks for the tips, we're headed there this week-end and I'm sure they will come in handy!