PhilC
Contributor
Pictures are up but not yet captioned at philandjen's Photos for those who don't want to read the whole report. Still have to go through a lot of the Friday above water photos and upload and then add captions, will try to get to that tonight. Underwater images with a Nikon L18 in Ikelite housing, AF35 strobe mostely turned off for the macro images. Above water with a D300 w/ 105mm macro and a D40 w/ 18-200 zoom.
We're back from our first trip to Bonaire and I wanted to give a bit of a trip report. My wife and I invited my parents along for a week in Bonaire, neither of us had ever been to Bonaire although my 'rents have done Curacau and Aruba before.
Flight and arrival: We left work on Friday at noon to catch a 6:00 flight out of Cleveland for Houston where we met my parents who flew out of Dayton. The red-eye down to Bonaire was a rough one. My wife got upgraded to first class because of her elite status (darn work for cutting out travel that could have kept my status) while I was back in cattle car country. Unfortunately for me I got a talker. It's nice to talk to other divers but sleep is good too and this guy just wouldn't shut up even when I asked directly. Arrival in Bonaire is a little confusing, rental truck paperwork to fill out, it's dark and I'm sleepy. We're getting two trucks because my parents don't dive and will want to head off in their own direction which made things even more confusing. We got it all straightened out and got to the hotel eventually, the Toyota Hilux is actually a pretty nice little truck, geared like a tractor but when we headed up to the far north that came in handy.
Resort: We stayed at the Sand Dollar which I found to be pretty nice. Jen and I were in unit B4 which was nicely furnished and had everything I wanted except for maybe a larger shower. Safe was plenty big to hold all of our camera gear and the laptop. My only real complaint was waiting around for someone to come open the office. They know the flight gets in at 5:30 and they know that people are coming, why doesn't the office open until 7:00? My parents we supposed to be in A16, it wasn't ready, will be ready by 3:00PM. They got put into a studio which they really liked but got a knock on the door just as they were lying down for a quick nap asking them to move to another unit for the morning. That one was a dump, dirty and falling apart. 3:00 rolls around and A16 still isn't ready and they aren't going to stay in the unit they were in. Eventually the resort made things right and put them right next to us in B6 which was actually a 2 bedroom\2 bath unit. All in all I have no real complaints about Sand Dollar but would probably try one of the other places next time. B4 gave us a short walk to the dive shop and we could park right at the staircase most days which made loading gear easy. Breakfast was included in our package and was very good each morning.
Dive shop: BDA seemed like a nice enough place. The office staff weren't very helpful but the actual dive masters were all friendly and very willing to share places to go and things to see. That 9:30 required orientation is a drag, lasted over an hour while I tried to stay awake. Nitrox tanks only available from 8:30AM-4:30PM so you have to do some planning if you like to get up and do a dive before breakfast or do a night dive. Not a big deal as long as you think ahead.
Food: Sunset Grill at Den Leman is pretty good but pricey for what you get especially on drinks. Actually most places were quite pricey. The Rose Inn in Rincon had some unique food and is worth a stop, cash only. Cappricio's was amazing and well worth the cost, expect garlic to ooze out of your pores for days. Casablanca was very good. Donna and Georgio's was a bust, food was so-so and VERY expensive service took "island time" to a new level. Wok on the Beach at Eden Beach had very good Thai food and a wonderful atmosphere, very reasonable. Temple pizza at Captain Don's was great, nice thin crust and very good toppings. All in all food was very good and a great assortment although it was a little pricey. The bar at the top of the hill above Oil Slick had great food, wonderful atmosphere and cheap prices, great place for a quick lunch.
Diving: First let me say that I was truly surprised to find out that Bonaire has more incompetent, rude and destructive divers than I've seen anywhere else and that's saying something after our experience with a couple of divers in Cozumel. We witnessed people on numerous occasions kicking corals, laying on top of them, even grabbing a hold of them and breaking them off while trying and failing to control their bouancy or trying to get that perfect shot with their camera. It was disheartening to see people with so little care for the reef. One group that was staying at the Sand Dollar were doing all of the above while harrassing a Hawksbill who was eating on Bari, trust me on this the turtle didn't like your strobes going off less than six inches from his face and that picture is likely to suck anyways since the turtle was throwing up a ton of debris. When we saw them the next day gearing up for a dive we mentioned that being careful on the reef should be a priority and explained what we saw them do. "Sometimes you have to lay on the reef to get the shot" Enough said, we'll make sure to go places you aren't moron a pity that they won't yank your marine park tag for **** like that and make you spend the rest of your trip on the surface. OK rant over.
Bari was a great house reef during the day, more eels than I've seen anywhere else. Never did find the seahorse that was supposed to be right at the mooring for the first boat but saw plenty of other life. Strangely enough it sucked at night, badly, the only thing out was the tarpon who were kind of fun to watch hunt by our lights but didn't make up for an otherwise boring dive. We actually changed our plans after this night dive and didn't do any others so we could eat dinner at a normal time with my parents.
1000 Steps. Lettuce Leaf Sea Slugs everywhere. Never actually seen blue ones before in person always thought pictures of them were just bad white balance. They were here. Lots of people but not so many divers, I guess many people didn't want to haul their gear up and down.
Wayaka II. Off the beaten path by a ways, the trip through the national park is well worth it even if you aren't diving. Beautiful dive where the reef has definitely seen fewer moronic divers. Wayaka I had a wonderful mostly enclosed lagoon for my parents to snorkel in.
Slagbhai. Long swim but the reef is worth it. Only place we saw lobster the whole trip. Schools of barracuda, never seen them school before. Octopus in a hole with a pile of lobster legs out front was a great site. Squid out during the day.
Angel City. Squid during the day. Double reef makes for an interesting dive.
Soft Coral Garden. Out of the book, unmarked site. Never seen so many gregornians in one place before. Great dive which we did a couple of times.
Candyland. Unmarked site out of the book. Tough entry, maybe we didn't find the right channel to swim through. Very nice dive.
Nukove. Out in the boonies, the road to here makes the ones through the park look like the autobahn. Well worth it. Blue tailed lizards at this site actually come up to you and will lick the salt water off your fingers.
Oil Slick. The jump was fun but the dive was kind of a stinker. This one was usually very crowded and the reef showed the damage from too many people.
We did several more but those are the ones that stick out in my mind. Overall the diving was very very nice and there are a LOT of eels and sea slugs to see. You've got to look closely for the anenome shrimp but there are several different kinds to see. Never did find any seahorses or frog fish but saw a ton of scorpion fish including one swimming, didn't know the other side of their fins was so colorful or that they swam so fast. No sharks or rays the entire trip. Not having a schedule is nice but I think I might want my next trip to be back to Reef Divers and being spoiled. Schleping the gear wasn't as bad as I expected even at 1000 steps. We did look at a couple of sites and decide that the entry was too rough and just not worth it and there were a couple more that were pretty tough but doable. The unmarked sites and the ones way out in the middle of nowhere are most definitely worth the extra time and effort to reach.
Tourist stuff: Washington Slagbhai is amazing. Went up to dive it and then again on Friday to just be touristy and try out the long route. They aren't kidding that 24 km will take you at least 90 minutes to do on the short route. You really must make the time to do this. Salt production is pretty darn cool. Lac Bay wasn't worth the drive but doing the loop around the southern tip is very nice so just skip Lac Bay and do the loop. Take the drive up to the top of the mountain to see the shrine and get some amazing views of Klein and the entire island. The entire island is definitely on island time, getting a lunch in less than an hour is unlikely. Geocaches on the island required some trapsing through the brush, not really shorts friendly and definitely not sandal friendly, led us to some places we wouldn't have stopped otherwise though.
Conclusion: Diving was great. Trips with your parents are more stressful than ones without. Food was expensive but mostly good. We'll go back for sure. Next time I want to try the east side boat trip.
We're back from our first trip to Bonaire and I wanted to give a bit of a trip report. My wife and I invited my parents along for a week in Bonaire, neither of us had ever been to Bonaire although my 'rents have done Curacau and Aruba before.
Flight and arrival: We left work on Friday at noon to catch a 6:00 flight out of Cleveland for Houston where we met my parents who flew out of Dayton. The red-eye down to Bonaire was a rough one. My wife got upgraded to first class because of her elite status (darn work for cutting out travel that could have kept my status) while I was back in cattle car country. Unfortunately for me I got a talker. It's nice to talk to other divers but sleep is good too and this guy just wouldn't shut up even when I asked directly. Arrival in Bonaire is a little confusing, rental truck paperwork to fill out, it's dark and I'm sleepy. We're getting two trucks because my parents don't dive and will want to head off in their own direction which made things even more confusing. We got it all straightened out and got to the hotel eventually, the Toyota Hilux is actually a pretty nice little truck, geared like a tractor but when we headed up to the far north that came in handy.
Resort: We stayed at the Sand Dollar which I found to be pretty nice. Jen and I were in unit B4 which was nicely furnished and had everything I wanted except for maybe a larger shower. Safe was plenty big to hold all of our camera gear and the laptop. My only real complaint was waiting around for someone to come open the office. They know the flight gets in at 5:30 and they know that people are coming, why doesn't the office open until 7:00? My parents we supposed to be in A16, it wasn't ready, will be ready by 3:00PM. They got put into a studio which they really liked but got a knock on the door just as they were lying down for a quick nap asking them to move to another unit for the morning. That one was a dump, dirty and falling apart. 3:00 rolls around and A16 still isn't ready and they aren't going to stay in the unit they were in. Eventually the resort made things right and put them right next to us in B6 which was actually a 2 bedroom\2 bath unit. All in all I have no real complaints about Sand Dollar but would probably try one of the other places next time. B4 gave us a short walk to the dive shop and we could park right at the staircase most days which made loading gear easy. Breakfast was included in our package and was very good each morning.
Dive shop: BDA seemed like a nice enough place. The office staff weren't very helpful but the actual dive masters were all friendly and very willing to share places to go and things to see. That 9:30 required orientation is a drag, lasted over an hour while I tried to stay awake. Nitrox tanks only available from 8:30AM-4:30PM so you have to do some planning if you like to get up and do a dive before breakfast or do a night dive. Not a big deal as long as you think ahead.
Food: Sunset Grill at Den Leman is pretty good but pricey for what you get especially on drinks. Actually most places were quite pricey. The Rose Inn in Rincon had some unique food and is worth a stop, cash only. Cappricio's was amazing and well worth the cost, expect garlic to ooze out of your pores for days. Casablanca was very good. Donna and Georgio's was a bust, food was so-so and VERY expensive service took "island time" to a new level. Wok on the Beach at Eden Beach had very good Thai food and a wonderful atmosphere, very reasonable. Temple pizza at Captain Don's was great, nice thin crust and very good toppings. All in all food was very good and a great assortment although it was a little pricey. The bar at the top of the hill above Oil Slick had great food, wonderful atmosphere and cheap prices, great place for a quick lunch.
Diving: First let me say that I was truly surprised to find out that Bonaire has more incompetent, rude and destructive divers than I've seen anywhere else and that's saying something after our experience with a couple of divers in Cozumel. We witnessed people on numerous occasions kicking corals, laying on top of them, even grabbing a hold of them and breaking them off while trying and failing to control their bouancy or trying to get that perfect shot with their camera. It was disheartening to see people with so little care for the reef. One group that was staying at the Sand Dollar were doing all of the above while harrassing a Hawksbill who was eating on Bari, trust me on this the turtle didn't like your strobes going off less than six inches from his face and that picture is likely to suck anyways since the turtle was throwing up a ton of debris. When we saw them the next day gearing up for a dive we mentioned that being careful on the reef should be a priority and explained what we saw them do. "Sometimes you have to lay on the reef to get the shot" Enough said, we'll make sure to go places you aren't moron a pity that they won't yank your marine park tag for **** like that and make you spend the rest of your trip on the surface. OK rant over.
Bari was a great house reef during the day, more eels than I've seen anywhere else. Never did find the seahorse that was supposed to be right at the mooring for the first boat but saw plenty of other life. Strangely enough it sucked at night, badly, the only thing out was the tarpon who were kind of fun to watch hunt by our lights but didn't make up for an otherwise boring dive. We actually changed our plans after this night dive and didn't do any others so we could eat dinner at a normal time with my parents.
1000 Steps. Lettuce Leaf Sea Slugs everywhere. Never actually seen blue ones before in person always thought pictures of them were just bad white balance. They were here. Lots of people but not so many divers, I guess many people didn't want to haul their gear up and down.
Wayaka II. Off the beaten path by a ways, the trip through the national park is well worth it even if you aren't diving. Beautiful dive where the reef has definitely seen fewer moronic divers. Wayaka I had a wonderful mostly enclosed lagoon for my parents to snorkel in.
Slagbhai. Long swim but the reef is worth it. Only place we saw lobster the whole trip. Schools of barracuda, never seen them school before. Octopus in a hole with a pile of lobster legs out front was a great site. Squid out during the day.
Angel City. Squid during the day. Double reef makes for an interesting dive.
Soft Coral Garden. Out of the book, unmarked site. Never seen so many gregornians in one place before. Great dive which we did a couple of times.
Candyland. Unmarked site out of the book. Tough entry, maybe we didn't find the right channel to swim through. Very nice dive.
Nukove. Out in the boonies, the road to here makes the ones through the park look like the autobahn. Well worth it. Blue tailed lizards at this site actually come up to you and will lick the salt water off your fingers.
Oil Slick. The jump was fun but the dive was kind of a stinker. This one was usually very crowded and the reef showed the damage from too many people.
We did several more but those are the ones that stick out in my mind. Overall the diving was very very nice and there are a LOT of eels and sea slugs to see. You've got to look closely for the anenome shrimp but there are several different kinds to see. Never did find any seahorses or frog fish but saw a ton of scorpion fish including one swimming, didn't know the other side of their fins was so colorful or that they swam so fast. No sharks or rays the entire trip. Not having a schedule is nice but I think I might want my next trip to be back to Reef Divers and being spoiled. Schleping the gear wasn't as bad as I expected even at 1000 steps. We did look at a couple of sites and decide that the entry was too rough and just not worth it and there were a couple more that were pretty tough but doable. The unmarked sites and the ones way out in the middle of nowhere are most definitely worth the extra time and effort to reach.
Tourist stuff: Washington Slagbhai is amazing. Went up to dive it and then again on Friday to just be touristy and try out the long route. They aren't kidding that 24 km will take you at least 90 minutes to do on the short route. You really must make the time to do this. Salt production is pretty darn cool. Lac Bay wasn't worth the drive but doing the loop around the southern tip is very nice so just skip Lac Bay and do the loop. Take the drive up to the top of the mountain to see the shrine and get some amazing views of Klein and the entire island. The entire island is definitely on island time, getting a lunch in less than an hour is unlikely. Geocaches on the island required some trapsing through the brush, not really shorts friendly and definitely not sandal friendly, led us to some places we wouldn't have stopped otherwise though.
Conclusion: Diving was great. Trips with your parents are more stressful than ones without. Food was expensive but mostly good. We'll go back for sure. Next time I want to try the east side boat trip.
We did see a lot of people in full 3mm and even a few in full 5mm suits.
