Bonaire Trip Report October 21st-28th

[diverjen]

Bonaire Review

In Bonaire October 21-28th 2011, 1st trip, New Divers, Husband and Wife ages 28 & 30. From Aurora, CO.

Overall: Great trip, great diving, great people, great fun, can’t wait to go back. Insel Air * and bad weather tried to bring us down, and failed. Thank you so much for all of your help – you really helped make our trip great!

Bonaire Arrival – Telerin Car Rental and Sand Dollar Check In.
We arrived at Flamingo and our car from Telerin was a waiting, no problems – what a nice truck and great service. This was great because there was a torrential downpour happening that soaked pretty much our entire luggage. It was so easy to hop in the car and head to our accommodations at Sand Dollar. We paid extra for early check in (which was moot due to Insel), however check in was smooth and easy. The condo that we stayed in, A3, was fantastic - great location, well appointed, and really large with a great view. I never counted the steps, but you could toss a rock out the door and hit the gear storage room. It was super convenient to both the dock and the office. We talked to the folks at the dive shop, who let us get some of the paper work going.

Weather
Apparently there was a wind reversal the morning before our arrival, which means bad viz and rough conditions for about a week. Great, we are only here for a week. The first two days were the worst with heavy rain showers, and swells, with the dive boats and the instruction classes canceled – even the Dive Friends cleanup was cancelled ☹. I have to say that at first I was pretty disappointed –I had not come all this way to stay on land. And then on the third day the wind switched back with conditions gradually getting better and then I think we were in a depression from Rina. So, all in all I heard complaints all week about how terrible the viz was everywhere. We however, had a great time nonetheless.

Diving
Let me take a step back. We are brand new divers, we had done OW and PPB in August and September and Nitrox in early October. So our check out dive was our first dive in the ocean. We did our OW in Chatfield reservoir with about 4-5 feet of viz. We have snorkeled extensively through out the Caribbean and this was going to be a snorkel trip until I bit the bullet and took a Discover class (which was amazing!). Anyhow, we thought the Diving was fantastic and had a great time even when the viz was worse than usual. Although we were scared off a bit by other folks who weren’t getting in after orientation – really it was fine and we should have dove more that first day. Overall, we logged 19 dives, with about 14.5 hours of diving. Not bad for 4 full days, and 2 half days. We were really very sad to leave and I cannot wait to come back and dive some more. Two weeks next time! I know, you guys told me…

We dove:

Bari Reef - Great
Thousand Steps - Awesome
Angel City – Very Good
Tori’s Reef - Awesome
Something Special – Very Good
Front Porch – Awesome Night Dive (Thanks Sandy at VIP)
Bon Adventure (Klein) - Awesome
Monte’s Divi (Klein) - Awesome
The Knife (Klein) – My favorite so far!
Ebou’s Special (Klein) – Meh.
Just A Nice Dive (Klein) -Great

I enjoyed them all, although Ebou’s special was not really worth the boat dive for me. The deeper divers had a good time, but it was pretty depressing at 60 feet and up. I really wanted to hit more sites, but next time for sure. The ladder to the Cliff was broken, so although you can hike down – we passed because we were pushed for time and hit Something Special instead.

Dive Shops
We used BDA since we were at Sand Dollar. The setup here is just great, and in combination with the location of the condo, I would think the convenience would be tough to beat (however if any of you have comments on this or other places I would be glad to hear them – as I hope to be back in Bonaire soon). We really enjoyed Jerry and the Dive with the Naturalist course A LOT – I highly recommend this as it really helped me to enjoy our later dives in a whole new way. Otherwise Staff was varied from passable to just awesome (Jerry, Annie, and Travis). I think the price is pretty comparable to other dive shops I checked especially with the nitrox upgrade.

VIP diving – Based on some recommendations from BT and also a reluctance of BDA to guide dives, we contacted VIP about a night dive. They sent us out with Sandy, who had a great attitude and was so much fun and very attentive. We saw SO much stuff with her – it was an incredible experience. Color changing Octopus on the hunt, lobster, tarpon, crabs, shrimp, etc. I would highly recommend both VIP diving and Sandy.

Dining
We ate all breakfasts and most lunches in the condo, however we tried to eat out at least one meal a day.

BobbieJans – great value and nice atmosphere, I liked the chicken satay and chicken leg best, the ribs were tough, but the sauce was delish.

Norca’s – so good, good value, yummy cuisine, really loved the arepas, spicy indian chicken pita sandwhich, and the noodles. AMAZING FLAN

Plazita Limena- great fish of the day and steak sandwiches

Bistro de Paris - tied with Wil’s for best meal on the island, good value too – everything here was fantastic

Paradise Moon- great value, very good tex mex, and GREAT drink specials

Pasa Bon Pizza- sorry guys, I know many of you love this place, but I just didn’t like anything but the pieces of lionfish on top of my pizza (they were delish).

Wil’s- tied with Bistro de Paris for best meal on the island, a real treat

Richards- great blackened wahoo, otherwise just okay for the price.

Elle’s Deli- great and convenient lunch, good prices

Cactus Blue – really good food, great atmosphere

Surface Intervals
Enjoyed watching the kite surfers, driving around the island, seeing the animal shelter, watching the flamingos and donkeys, frequenting the various grocery stores, and just people watching.

*(check your flight times by phone the day before! They changed our flight after we booked and sent us new tickets with the wrong departure time and we missed our flight, took the next flight which was 6 hours later – costing us a lot of dive time - Insel also mentioned that this had been happening a lot lately)

 

[diverjen]

First Dive Trip Pictures!

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110150722934353103717/posts/XqUWiVt9hs8

Octopus Bonaire(Bari Reef, Oct 2011) - YouTube

 

[drrich2]

Glad you had a good time. I went to Bonaire last in Oct. 2010 & it was very uncharacteristically rainy with poor (for Bonaire) viz. the first half of the week, and like you, we still got lots of dives in & had a great time.

Quite awhile back before that, when Tropical Storm Omar was pounding the west coast on Bonaire, my old instructor had a group there & they dove on the EAST side, which for once was calm, while the west coast was getting hammered.

Gotta love Bonaire. Liked your octopus video; weird how they sort of 'glide' along the bottom.

Richard.

 

[diverjen]

We really loved Bonaire - now we have to decide where to go next. We would like to return to Bonaire, but want to try more locations. Any advice?

 

[drrich2]

What sort of experience are you looking for? There's nothing quite like Bonaire. If shore diving is a big deal, Curacao and Grand Cayman are known for boat & shore diving. Maybe a bit in Cozumel and Roatan, but not as extensive from what I understand and you might need to stay at specific places. Diving as much as a Bonaire trip lets you dive might require a live-aboard elsewhere. Anybody sea sick prone or unwilling to live in a boat for a week? How important is it for you to see sharks (Bahamas), go for a rustic location with something unusual (the submerged pinnacles of Saba), to stick to areas endorsed by large numbers of divers (Cozumel, Roatan)?

Richard.

 

[Mud&Rox]

great right up, pics, and vid.....ill be flying out to Bonaire 11/11/11....cant wait!! Insel Air hasn't changed anything on us yet *knock on wood* gonna be interesting......quick question....what was the actual rules on the baggage? one site reads 88lb for scuba on one bag and 50 on another....and when I called the guy didn't speak very good english but he said 88 total weight of both checked bags??? did you have any problems with baggage?

 

[diverjen]

Sorry I have been on SB everyday but never made it back to my post!

Mud&Rox - Insel let us bring two bags each and we had no problems with about 40-50 kg of luggage between the two of us with no additional charges. Supposedly divers get 2 bags totaling 30kg each without charges, but I would double check this!

Richard - For places to go - I am going to have to think on that. I LOVED Bonaire but would not mind to see some bigger stuff (not afraid of sharks, but its not a must), however I am a soft coral fanatic. I love getting to dive as much as possible, and no sea sickness - but I want to go someplace that is good for newbies, because we are not yet AOW and I am comfortable/certified to 60ft. I don't mind going a bit off the beaten path, but need a good dive op, etc. Also, I don't want to go somewhere and just be disappointed that its not as good as Bonaire.

 

[drrich2]

Sometimes it helps to target a couple of mainstream options & explore them in depth rather than split your focus amongst too many options. I'll point out a couple so you can get a sense of some options, sticking to mainstream choices that are very popular. You've shore (& boat) dove in Bonaire, with minimal currently, not much big stuff (mainly tarpon & the occasional green moray, barracuda or grouper). So let's consider options that would expose you to something different; a land-based charter boat op. where you dive 2 or 3 times per day then explore town, shop & eat out in the evenings (Cozumel), and a live-aboard (Bahamas).

1.) Cozumel is known for drift diving, great viz., some bigger stuff vs. Bonaire (I had 2 dives there; got to see a roughly 3 to 4' black grouper, a southern stingray, a channel cling crab, a yellowfin grouper, some other stuff), and excellent dive op.s. Warm year-round - January 2011 the water was 75 degrees when I drove. I used & am a big fan of Living Underwater with Jeremy Anschel; small group on the boat, big steel 120 cf tanks that let me get a dive in around an hour & 17 minutes (vs. maybe 45 I tend to get with 80 cf aluminum tanks), great service & a good guy with a nice crew. There are other popular op.s, too.

Alternative: Roatan. Never been, but it's popular. It's my understanding the viz. isn't as great as Cozumel's usually.

2.) AquaCat Live-aboard in the Bahamas (Blackbeard's is cheaper & referred to as 'camping at sea'). From what I've read here, with the Bahamas you need to get aways from the main islands for good diving, and a live-aboard can get you to more remote areas, and you might get 3 to 5 dives per day (and not do a whole lot else). The Bahamas is significantly colder in winter (I don't wear a wet suit in water 73 degrees & up; if you do, that might matter less to you), and from what people have posted on this forum the diving it probably not as great as Cozumel, but you can probably get a shark feeding dive at some point.

Alternative: Belize, Turks & Caicos maybe? I'm thinking Live-aboards.

You could also do charter boat diving from West Palm Beach, Florida, or the Florida Keys.

I suggest you check your airfare, hotel & 5 or 6 day charter boat cost & see what a dive trip would cost you.

Richard.