Hintermann
Contributor
- Messages
- 1,049
- Reaction score
- 317
- Location
- Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, UK
- # of dives
- 500 - 999
Since I caught the diving bug in 2006, I had heard about how good the diving was in Bonaire but for various reasons I had considered and abandoned the destination several times over the years. Certainly one of the reasons was an extremely annoying “sole official agent in the UK” for Bonaire who kept sending me unsolicited e-mails why I should arrange a Bonaire trip with him and so on. But when I booked a trip to Socorro for May 2015, I decided that I might add Bonaire to the second week of the trip. After checking various possibilities, I booked a dive package with VIP Diving and am very glad that I did so. I planned to stay for a week and do 20 dives in all, 18 with VIP and 2 morning dives with East Coast Diving. Not everything went to plan but still it turned out to be a nice trip.
I went to Bonaire on the back of an exhilarating liveaboard cruise to the Socorro Islands. From Los Cabos in Baja, I took the AA flight to DFW and connected to Miami. After staying overnight at MIA Hotel, I connected the following morning to an AA flight to Curacao and from there used Insel Air to reach Bonaire. Paradoxically, there were a few glitches and minor delays with AA while the Insel flight took off 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
I had booked accommodation with Blachi Koko Apartments on Bas Noij’s advice and this tirned out to be another excellent decision. The condo is very well appointed with the diver in mind and taking into account the security concerns. Laetitia and Matthieu are an extremely helpful couple and go a long way in making their guests comfortable. The apartments are clean, spacious, cosy and well appointed.
I rented a truck with AB Car Rentals and although I did not use it to go to the dive sites, it was necessary and convenient. As I have driven on the “wrong” side of the road in the US in several states, that presented no problems in Bonaire.
VIP Divers are superb and then some. I recommend them to ALL first timers to Bonaire, and also second and third timers. They are extremely professional, friendly, helpful and organised. After the very physical trip to Socorro, I had arrived with a few kit glitches, all of which they fixed within 24 hours. The guides are courteous, helpful and strive to take the guest to any reasonable diving itinerary. I gave them 6 out of 5 on Tripadvisor.
Although I had 472 dives going into Bonaire, I was relative newbie to shore diving, having done those only in the UK, Malta and Bali and not particularly liking it. Therefore, the “VIP Approach” was more than welcome. Even so, I was rather clumsy during entries and exits but once underwater, it was all a piece of cake. The water temperature was in the 27*C range and as I had already done 19 dives in Socorro the previous week, I sensibly abandoned the idea of diving in a 3mm shorty after the first few dices and settled on a 3+3 mm combo outfit. It worked well.
I had a different 1-to-o1 guide each day but they were all very good. Steven Versheuren the Belgian on the first day and thereafter Kevin O’Brien, Frank Eijking, Eric de Vries, Jon Oosterhof and Ilona Niewenberg. I did 2 dives on the opening afternoon and the plan was to do 4 dives a day including a night dive. The sites that I dived at were:
Day 1: Red Slave (Afternoon) and Alice in Wonderland (Night)
Day 2: Oil Slick Leap & Karpata before lunch; Hilma Hooker in the afternoon and Cha Cha Cha for the night dive.
Day 3: Sweet Dreams & Salt Pier before lunch; Tolo in the afternnon and a UV night dive at Something Special.
Day 4: Margate Bay & Angel City before lunch; Bachelor’s Beach in the afternoon and Windsock for the night dive.
Day 5:1000 Steps in the morning; we had to cancel the second dive as Jon was feeling unwell. Ilona replaced him and took me to La Danila’s Leap for the afternoon and Invisibles for the night dive.
Day 6: I heard that East Coast Diving’s boat was damaged and so they cancelled the trip on 3 days, including mine. VIP offered to compensate by offering 2 morning dives of their own in a couple of the “regular” sites, but I passed and decided to allow more time for the gear to dry out.
As I lived just down the road from VIP, the arrangement was that I would drive down each day, park my truck at their place and accompany the guide in the VIP truck. This allowed me breaks between dives according to my convenience and I was very impressed on how flexible the VIP staff were to suit my requirements.
Apart from limited visibility at Red Slave, all the dives were very good. I did not enjoy the entries and exits and bet that the crew would have had a quiet laugh behind my back at my clumsiness. But without exception they were helpful and made appropriate adjustments to assist me. Despite that I fell awkwardly during the entry at Angel City and landed with my coccyx on a lump of rock. It still hurts to sit, but standing and diving were no problem.
I was impressed by the lush and healthy coral at most sites, as well as the abundance of fish life. Once underwater, the diving conditions were very mild and quite often swimming with or against the mild current felt the same. Huge tarpon were present nearby during many day dives and all the night dives. They kept circling around out light beams, presumably using them to find prey. Plenty of queen angelfish, French angelfish, trumpet fish, parrotfish, jacks, snappers, parrotfish etc. I also saw a lot of arrowhead crabs, banded shrimps and lettuce nudibranchs during most dives. During night dive exits, millions of blue needle-like fish kept ‘bombarding’ us. There were plenty of lionfish and we saw at least one on every dive, sometimes several. Kevin and I penetrated the Hilma Hooker a few times, often swimming alongside the resident tarpon. The offbeat dive at Salt Pier was another very interesting exercise despite the fact that there were quite a few other divers about. The UV Night dive at Something Special was a new experience that I thoroughly enjoyed and it was sensible not to have taken the camera for that dive. Elsewhere I got a few good macro shots of Pederson’s cleaning shrimp and the other shrimp that lives within a sea anemone’s tentacles. There seemed to be a lot of spotted drums (juvenile and adult) as well in most dive sites. The current was very mild during the La Danila’s Leap drift dive and we had to ‘help’ by finning a bit.
A hilarious oddity in Bonaire was that there is a cookbook called “The New Caribbean Delicacy” doing the rounds and it is about catching and cooking lionfish. But at the same time, their latest fish guide sports a new attraction – lionfish! The impression that I got was that despite apparent reduction in numbers at the dive sites, the lionfish in the Caribbean are here to stay and in 20 to 30 years’ time will become a natural part of the underwater fauna. Already, there are rumours about some groupers starting to eat lionfish eggs and so the ‘balance’ has probably already started.
My overall impression – and I stress that it is my opinion only and not meant to be considered as a general comment – about diving in Bonaire is that it is good and relaxing but nothing really spectacular. In my case, the visit was made more memorable by the excellence of VIP Diving crew and without them the trip may well have been quite ordinary. The dive sites are all nice and healthy, but there was nothing really special about any of them, especially compared with some of the Indo-Pacific sites that I have visited. I can understand the repeated visits by Bonaire ‘regulars’ from USA and Canada because of the convenience of renting a truck and making up one’s own relaxed itinerary once one gets familiar with the place. But I saw nothing that would have persuaded me to spend time and money for repeated visits from further afield like the UK; it is a nice little place but IMO for one visit. I am pretty sure that if I was not retiring from diving next year, I would maybe have planned one more visit to Bonaire as part of a longer Caribbean trip, but certainly not more.
Here is a link to the pictures that I took: https://www.flickr.com/gp/25941505@N04/41uZuR
I went to Bonaire on the back of an exhilarating liveaboard cruise to the Socorro Islands. From Los Cabos in Baja, I took the AA flight to DFW and connected to Miami. After staying overnight at MIA Hotel, I connected the following morning to an AA flight to Curacao and from there used Insel Air to reach Bonaire. Paradoxically, there were a few glitches and minor delays with AA while the Insel flight took off 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
I had booked accommodation with Blachi Koko Apartments on Bas Noij’s advice and this tirned out to be another excellent decision. The condo is very well appointed with the diver in mind and taking into account the security concerns. Laetitia and Matthieu are an extremely helpful couple and go a long way in making their guests comfortable. The apartments are clean, spacious, cosy and well appointed.
I rented a truck with AB Car Rentals and although I did not use it to go to the dive sites, it was necessary and convenient. As I have driven on the “wrong” side of the road in the US in several states, that presented no problems in Bonaire.
VIP Divers are superb and then some. I recommend them to ALL first timers to Bonaire, and also second and third timers. They are extremely professional, friendly, helpful and organised. After the very physical trip to Socorro, I had arrived with a few kit glitches, all of which they fixed within 24 hours. The guides are courteous, helpful and strive to take the guest to any reasonable diving itinerary. I gave them 6 out of 5 on Tripadvisor.
Although I had 472 dives going into Bonaire, I was relative newbie to shore diving, having done those only in the UK, Malta and Bali and not particularly liking it. Therefore, the “VIP Approach” was more than welcome. Even so, I was rather clumsy during entries and exits but once underwater, it was all a piece of cake. The water temperature was in the 27*C range and as I had already done 19 dives in Socorro the previous week, I sensibly abandoned the idea of diving in a 3mm shorty after the first few dices and settled on a 3+3 mm combo outfit. It worked well.
I had a different 1-to-o1 guide each day but they were all very good. Steven Versheuren the Belgian on the first day and thereafter Kevin O’Brien, Frank Eijking, Eric de Vries, Jon Oosterhof and Ilona Niewenberg. I did 2 dives on the opening afternoon and the plan was to do 4 dives a day including a night dive. The sites that I dived at were:
Day 1: Red Slave (Afternoon) and Alice in Wonderland (Night)
Day 2: Oil Slick Leap & Karpata before lunch; Hilma Hooker in the afternoon and Cha Cha Cha for the night dive.
Day 3: Sweet Dreams & Salt Pier before lunch; Tolo in the afternnon and a UV night dive at Something Special.
Day 4: Margate Bay & Angel City before lunch; Bachelor’s Beach in the afternoon and Windsock for the night dive.
Day 5:1000 Steps in the morning; we had to cancel the second dive as Jon was feeling unwell. Ilona replaced him and took me to La Danila’s Leap for the afternoon and Invisibles for the night dive.
Day 6: I heard that East Coast Diving’s boat was damaged and so they cancelled the trip on 3 days, including mine. VIP offered to compensate by offering 2 morning dives of their own in a couple of the “regular” sites, but I passed and decided to allow more time for the gear to dry out.
As I lived just down the road from VIP, the arrangement was that I would drive down each day, park my truck at their place and accompany the guide in the VIP truck. This allowed me breaks between dives according to my convenience and I was very impressed on how flexible the VIP staff were to suit my requirements.
Apart from limited visibility at Red Slave, all the dives were very good. I did not enjoy the entries and exits and bet that the crew would have had a quiet laugh behind my back at my clumsiness. But without exception they were helpful and made appropriate adjustments to assist me. Despite that I fell awkwardly during the entry at Angel City and landed with my coccyx on a lump of rock. It still hurts to sit, but standing and diving were no problem.
I was impressed by the lush and healthy coral at most sites, as well as the abundance of fish life. Once underwater, the diving conditions were very mild and quite often swimming with or against the mild current felt the same. Huge tarpon were present nearby during many day dives and all the night dives. They kept circling around out light beams, presumably using them to find prey. Plenty of queen angelfish, French angelfish, trumpet fish, parrotfish, jacks, snappers, parrotfish etc. I also saw a lot of arrowhead crabs, banded shrimps and lettuce nudibranchs during most dives. During night dive exits, millions of blue needle-like fish kept ‘bombarding’ us. There were plenty of lionfish and we saw at least one on every dive, sometimes several. Kevin and I penetrated the Hilma Hooker a few times, often swimming alongside the resident tarpon. The offbeat dive at Salt Pier was another very interesting exercise despite the fact that there were quite a few other divers about. The UV Night dive at Something Special was a new experience that I thoroughly enjoyed and it was sensible not to have taken the camera for that dive. Elsewhere I got a few good macro shots of Pederson’s cleaning shrimp and the other shrimp that lives within a sea anemone’s tentacles. There seemed to be a lot of spotted drums (juvenile and adult) as well in most dive sites. The current was very mild during the La Danila’s Leap drift dive and we had to ‘help’ by finning a bit.
A hilarious oddity in Bonaire was that there is a cookbook called “The New Caribbean Delicacy” doing the rounds and it is about catching and cooking lionfish. But at the same time, their latest fish guide sports a new attraction – lionfish! The impression that I got was that despite apparent reduction in numbers at the dive sites, the lionfish in the Caribbean are here to stay and in 20 to 30 years’ time will become a natural part of the underwater fauna. Already, there are rumours about some groupers starting to eat lionfish eggs and so the ‘balance’ has probably already started.
My overall impression – and I stress that it is my opinion only and not meant to be considered as a general comment – about diving in Bonaire is that it is good and relaxing but nothing really spectacular. In my case, the visit was made more memorable by the excellence of VIP Diving crew and without them the trip may well have been quite ordinary. The dive sites are all nice and healthy, but there was nothing really special about any of them, especially compared with some of the Indo-Pacific sites that I have visited. I can understand the repeated visits by Bonaire ‘regulars’ from USA and Canada because of the convenience of renting a truck and making up one’s own relaxed itinerary once one gets familiar with the place. But I saw nothing that would have persuaded me to spend time and money for repeated visits from further afield like the UK; it is a nice little place but IMO for one visit. I am pretty sure that if I was not retiring from diving next year, I would maybe have planned one more visit to Bonaire as part of a longer Caribbean trip, but certainly not more.
Here is a link to the pictures that I took: https://www.flickr.com/gp/25941505@N04/41uZuR
