Bonaire Trip Report - Sand Dollar Nov 2016

[laikabear]

I went to Bonaire Nov 5-12 with my buddy. It was my 1st trip, his 2nd. Here's a thread I created when I was planning the trip that had a lot of helpful tips. We decided to stay at Sand Dollar Condos, and dove with Dive Friends Bonaire.

I was supposed to travel from LAX to Newark on a redeye (United), and then buddy and I were both on the Newark to Bonaire flight together. Unfortunately the LAX flight was delayed, to the point where I would miss the Newark flight. United got me on a different flight via Houston on standby, but they were not able to retrieve my checked bag (which contained nearly all of my dive gear), which went to Newark and indeed missed the flight to Bonaire.

I will never, ever pack the same way for a trip again. I had a large carry-on roller bag and my backpack, which fits under the seat. My clothes were all in the carry-on, as well as my regulator and dive computers and GoPro. Unfortunately, my liquid toiletries, sunscreen, all my other dive gear, the Go Pro housing, my chargers, and my only flip-flops were in the checked bag.

Every day, United reps told me my bag would arrive "tomorrow." So for the 1st 2 days of the trip, I washed my hair with a bar of soap and awaited my bag. Then I started to get a clue and went shopping for toiletries and a pair of cheap flip flops at the Chinese grocery store. The bag arrived on Day 5 - they routed it through Amsterdam on another carrier, and it then went to Curacao and spent a day there, before it came to Bonaire. Since United only has 1 flight a week to Bonaire, they were relying on other airlines to move the bag, and multiple different plans fell through.

I will admit I'm very Type A and the loss of the bag (and the daily 20-30 minute conversations with United reps) really bothered me. I hate diving with rental gear and this one snafu really irritated me more than it should have. Anyway, lesson learned. On future dive trips I will pack as much dive gear as I possibly can into my carry-on bags, and put clothes in the checked bag.

I rented a wetsuit, booties, fins, weights and a weight belt, and a BCD from Dive Friends Bonaire. My buddy had brought an extra mask, which was nice. Thankfully I had my compass in with my dive computers, because you need one in Bonaire! I didn't have dive lights, which you can rent through the shop but they are extra, and they didn't have any at the Sand Dollar Dive Friends location. I ended up borrowing a backup light from my buddy instead. Even more fortuitously, he has a Go Pro too, but usually uses a Sealife camera instead, so I was able to use his Go Pro housing to take some video.

Anyway, our condo at Sand Dollar was 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It was very dated, but clean. The complex has security guards and we often saw them either patrolling or sitting in a chair watching the place at night. Our unit had a clothesline on a screened in patio and had AC units in each bedroom. There is one in the living area but you have to pay extra to use it, so we skipped that. We didn't spend much time in the condo during the day at all, and in the evenings it wasn't that hot. They clean the rooms Tues and Thurs which was adequate for us. I would stay there again if I returned to Bonaire.

I thought I'd miss the breakfast buffet since we decided not to pay extra for it. I loved the breakfast buffet in Cozumel at Casa Mexicana. But, I think it may have just ended up an unnecessary time-waster. We wanted to get in 4-5 dives per day, and you really have to hustle to get that done, if you are new to Bonaire and don't have a routine down pat. We just went shopping at the grocery stores and stocked supplies for an in-room breakfast (I had cereal) and sandwiches to pack for lunch. My buddy brought a soft-sided cheap cooler and that was great for our daily outings. We had dinner at local restaurants.

We visited El Mundo twice (the food was amazing), Cuba Compagnie twice (food was really good and mojitos were good, but small), the Brewery once (food was okay and the Bonaire Blond beer was good), Rumrunners at Captain Don's once (the view was lovely but the food was not good and I got sick). At Rumrunners, I had ceviche, which tasted very off and I only ate a couple of bites. I am pretty sure it made me sick. (I heard a woman at the airport say the same thing when we were waiting to depart the next day, so it wasn't just me). I also had gazpacho, which was not very good, and we split a pizza which was good.

We wanted to try Pasa Bon Pizza but it was mostly closed, and the one day it was open they turned us away because they were too busy - note they didn't say there was a wait, just nothing available at all. I also wanted to try Wil's Tropical Grill, but my buddy didn't like the menu, so we didn't eat there. I was disappointed because I had heard good things and the menu looked good to me. We went into Between Two Buns the last day to get something before we went to the airport, but frankly the place smelled awful inside and the food they had displayed did not look appetizing at all (I know this makes me sound picky but really I'm not, I love to eat). I was a little wary of eating there since my Rumrunners experience so I decided to skip it. The place was packed, though.

In general, restaurant food (where we ate) was pricey, and service was slow and usually inattentive. But, the food was mostly really good. One of the prix fixe menus at El Mundo was the best meal I've had in ages. Stuff at the supermarkets that we purchased did not seem pricey (I live in California) and I had some cheese that was to die for. I ate a cheese sandwich every single day, sometimes more than once. I loved that you can drink the tap water.

See next post for Part 2!

 

[laikabear]

Part 2:

Dive Friends Bonaire has a shop right at Sand Dollar, which was super convenient. They are open 8:30 to 4:30. They will do the "orientation" dive that's required before you go out on your own at any time while they are open. Since my flight was delayed, I missed their hours the first day so couldn't dive til the 2nd day.

You can rent most gear there (no lights at that location). They have a tank loading area that you can drive your truck up to (not a drive-thru), and they have lockers for your gear. The lockers are small, though, and stuff that's in them will not dry overnight. They have a rinse station set up that is really nice, but the hose water is turned off after-hours, so you can only use the pre-filled rinse buckets unless the shop is open.

They have a second area for tanks that is right by the steps to go down to the house reef (Bari Reef). So, you don't even have to haul a tank the 200 or so feet from the parking lot dive shop area to the beach area. They have a shower by the beach that is also locked after hours. There are stations to set your gear up by the tank area at the beach. It is nice to not have to try to lift your gear from the ground to put it on. There is a short stairway down to a sandy entrance for the house reef. This was an easy entry so I don't get the big deal about not being able to do a giant stride off the neighbor's pier. Bari Reef was the best reef that we dove on.

DFB has other locations around the island where you can pick up tanks. We used the one at the Cliff dive site and Yellow Submarine. Both were nice and very convenient. They all have Nitrox analyzers mounted to the wall which made it really easy to analyze tanks. I brought my own analyzer and used that the 1st day (to check for CO) but it was not practical to keep taking it back to the room (can't leave anything like that in the truck) so I just gave up on Day 2. (The CO readings I got were all zero). DFB asks you to sign a roster when you get tanks, but I don't think everyone was signing the roster. We'd often get a tank in the evening or at night, and then the next AM, there would be no more names on the roster, but they would be out of tanks.

We had 2 times where we went to get tanks and there were none. It wasn't a huge deal, though. Once, I found 2 at the beach station, that we shlepped back to the truck, and once we had to drive to a different location to get some. (We were diving Nitrox). I heard another customer complaining about the shop running out of tanks, so I know we weren't the only ones who experienced that. I never took tanks at night for the next AM dive, but I think a lot of people were doing that. The times they ran out were always in the morning (and a couple of times we got the last 2 tanks in the AM - we were diving early, before the shop opened). I was more annoyed with the realization that people were hogging tanks they weren't using, than the dive shop on that point.

Several of our tanks needed new O-rings and so I would recommend bringing a supply of them as well as a good pick, since some of the O-rings were really hard to get out. Fills were consistently good (AL 80s) and at the Cliff site they seemed to overfill the tanks since every one I got there was at 3300.

The gear - my rental gear was adequate. It was $42 per day for a full set of gear. The BCDs don't have integrated weights and I loathe wearing a weight belt. But, everything worked fine. I got a chance to rent a regulator later in the week (mine had an unfortunate mishap toward the end of our trip) and the reg was not that great, but adequate. It just breathed rather noisily and with a somewhat increased cracking pressure, and the mouthpiece was really uncomfortable. I think if you're used to renting gear, it would be no big deal. I'm just very spoiled. I did like the shorty wetsuit. I NEVER wear a shorty and thought I'd be cold, but I was fine, even doing 4-5 1 hour plus dives per day. Water temps were around 84. I did wear a full rashguard though (I always do). In Cozumel by contrast, water temps were around 78 when I was there in May 2016, and I wore a 5 mm full suit there. I have a 2.5 mm full suit also but got cold with just that.

We wanted to do a day of boat diving with DFB but I did not arrange it in advance. Mistake! When my buddy arrived, he was told that the only boat dive available with them was 1st thing Sunday AM. Since I arrived late Saturday night, and didn't have any gear or my orientation done, we didn't get to do any boat dives. I am bummed about that because I didn't realize how similar the shore dives on Bonaire all are. It would have been nice to get some boat dives in too.

We also wanted to try a boat dive on the East side, but my buddy got in touch with the op over there and they had no room, either. I had heard about Bas Tol and thought about hitting him up but ultimately never got around to it. I wish we had tried to do that. IF I ever go back to Bonaire I will definitely book some Klein Bonaire and East side diving in advance. I really feel like we missed out.

We did 25 dives in 6 days (buddy did 26 since he dove the day before I arrived). We dove Bari Reef several times, including a couple of night dives, Karpata, Tolo, Oil Slick Leap, Windsock, Atlantis, White Slave, Tori's Reef, Salt Pier, Hilma Hooker, Alice in Wonderland, 1000 Steps, Cliff, Something Special, Andrea I, Andrea II, and probably a couple of others I'm forgetting.

I was struck by how similar the underwater features at each dive site were. I guess that should be obvious but I hadn't really thought about it beforehand. Everyone talks about the shore sites like each one is so different, but... well, the reef was pretty similar on most of them.

As I said above, I'd give Bari Reef the prize for best reef stuff. Many of the reef dives were similar, but I think Bari had the best variety. My other favorite dives were the Hilma Hooker, just to break things up a bit and I enjoyed swimming through the wreck, and Cliff. We went North at Cliff and ended up by the desalination plant, which has some interesting underwater stuff - pipes, and concrete structures and stuff like that. We dove the Hooker twice and we dove Salt Pier twice. Salt Pier and the Hooker were my buddy's favorites. I liked the coral restoration area on Buddy's Reef (we swam up there from Bari) and the small tugboat wreck that is south of Bari - Front Porch. We actually kind of stumbled on that wreck by accident since I hadn't read about that dive site ahead of time. The giant stride in at Oil Slick was fun and the ladder made it easy to get out. I thought the slave huts and the landscape down South were interesting. We got in some crazy current at White Slave and had to abort the dive. It was fun swimming with the tarpon on our night dives.

I really enjoyed practicing my navigation skills. I don't often play navigator on my local dives since I dive with much more experienced folks. My Bonaire buddy has lots more dives than I do but he preferred to have me lead the dives and navigate. I got pretty good at getting us back to the starting point without surfacing ("cheating"). That was really pleasing and was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

See next post for Part 3!

 

[laikabear]

Part 3!

Our truck got rifled through at Andrea II on our last diving day. Sand Dollar rents via Avis and they recommend leaving the windows up and the truck locked at all times. My buddy picked up the truck the day before I arrived. He chose a cheap daily insurance option which does not cover flats or broken windows. I think I would have chosen the more pricey option. Regardless, we nearly always left the truck unlocked. Windows up or down depended on the weather - if it was rainy or buggy we left them up. It rained nearly every night we were in Bonaire but we only experienced a few showers during the day.

Anyway, at Andrea II they stole some quarters we had in the console (we were saving them to vacuum the truck, because Avis told my buddy there would be a charge if we got sand in the truck), and some of our food. Apparently they like granola bars but not cheese sandwiches. They left my cheap sunglasses and fishing hat, my shorts and T-shirt, flip-flops, and surprisingly did not steal the spare camera battery and memory card I had bravely left in the truck. Same for buddy - he had a small O-ring kit, and similar clothing and stuff, that was not taken. 3 other trucks were in the lot with ours. One guy had put a safe in his truck and had a phone and credit cards in the safe. The thieves pried it open and stole all of his things. So, I wouldn't recommend that. Other than that, I think the thieves only stole food and possibly some cash from the other divers.

My buddy was really annoyed about the "break-in," but he works in law enforcement. I didn't really care and wasn't surprised. I was thankful that the cash I had was in his swimsuit pocket! I never took credit cards or my phone with me. That is kind of a shame since I really would like to have taken photos of a lot of land-based stuff with my phone. The Go Pro takes terrible photos (IMO) because it's such a wide angle.

Something to consider - if you have a big camera rig and you get to a shore dive site that has a more difficult entry, you can't just leave your camera in the truck for that dive. We did fine on all the entries we chose, but there were a couple of sites where we stopped and looked at the entry and said NOPE. (Jeff Davis was one).

Other things we did on Bonaire... we visited the donkey sanctuary which was on my list, and the Cadushy distillery that was on buddy's list. The donkey sanctuary was fun - I loved how they mobbed us for carrots the second we drove in. At one point I had 4 donkey heads in my window trying to get me to give them a carrot. They are so comical! I was laughing so hard I was crying. Best $7 I spent in a long time.

The distillery was not so great. They will give you free samples of whatever you want to try, but I honestly found their liqueurs to be awful. And, I will pretty much drink any booze. 2 of the ones I tried literally tasted like cough syrup. Their green cactus liqueur is their specialty and I really don't get it - it's so gross! The spiced rum was ok but nothing spectacular. My buddy bought some purple stuff that tasted like Grape Dimetapp. I felt kind of bad because the host lady was really nice, but man. Ew. But, the drive up to Rincon and the drive home were fun. I enjoyed getting to see more of the island. I really wanted to see the Washington Slagbaai park, but we didn't have 4-wheel drive and it was raining every night, so we didn't bother. I think we would have gotten stuck in the mud, from what I read about the roads up there. That would have sucked.

I found the mosquitoes there to be very bloodthirsty. We brought both Deet 99% and I brought picardin (my first time trying it). I didn't feel like either worked very well. I ended up leaving with about 20 bites, and I was fanatical about applying bug spray. We kept it in the truck and in the condo. I am pretty tasty to mosquitoes, but usually with bug spray they leave me alone. Not this time.

Ultimately, I was happy with Sand Dollar, happy with Dive Friends Bonaire, and we had fun driving around and checking out all the different dive sites. I didn't think that the underwater life was as good as Cozumel, and the sites weren't as varied as I expected, but we still enjoyed ourselves and got lots of dives in on our own schedule. I really enjoyed improving my navigation skills. And, we had some really good meals.

I don't think I would go back to Bonaire. At least, not any time soon. I've only been diving a year, and there are lots of other places I'd like to see first. I've been to Cozumel and I do want to go back there. I think the shore diving with your own truck thing is fun, but the sites in Cozumel (and even here at home in SoCal) are so much more varied IMO. Anyway, maybe after I've done more diving trips I'll pine for some shore diving fun in a janky truck.

Again really appreciate everyone who gave me advice and everyone who posts trip reports. I hope mine doesn't sound too negative.

 

[KathyV]

Sounds like you had a great trip in spite of the lost luggage, how annoying. I never thought about the fact that the number of times per week that a carrier flies a route could affect their ability to deliver the luggage to the right people in a timely manner- but it makes sense. Thanks for the detailed report!

 

[drrich2]

Sounds like you had a really good trip, albeit withs some travel/gear-based aggravations, and hit a good range of mainstream west coast dive sites, such that you got a good dose of the Bonaire experience. I believe such experiences at destinations enrich one personally and as a diver, especially when it's a type of diving you may not do much elsewhere (e.g.: shore diving). Your report doesn't sound too negative; I think you hit a good balance.

Yes, west coast dive sites often share a similar rough topography; a sloping wall, maybe 45 degree slope give or take, rocky with corals, gorgonians & sometimes sea fans growing on it, various fish, mostly smaller (e.g.: French grunts, trumpet fish, schools of blue chromis, graysbys, filefish), drop-off might start around 20 - 30 feet deep (varies), so the dive plan tends to be much the same. Exceptions include the Cliff (shallow vertical wall), Salt Pier (the columnar pilings; shallower dive) and Hilma Hooker (wreck); by boat you can hit Small Wall (like the Cliff, but bigger), and east coast diving is much different. Southern sites tend to have longer swim-outs (but up north it's hilly so you may have to park farther from the dive site and walk down stairs or the like), and some southern sites have a double-reef system; you can swim out to...another reef wall kinda like the 1st.

But in terms of 'dive site monotony,' it's not too bad. For example, if you dive out of Morehead City, North Carolina, I really hope you like wrecks...(but that was a great trip, for different reasons). Perhaps one of Bonaire's strengths (that you can dive a whole lot in a week) gives people a chance to get a little bored with repetition.

While I've been to Bonaire 8 times, it's been awhile, because although I love and miss it, like you, I'm exploring what else is out there. My wandering has led to other blessings; being surrounded by sand tiger sharks, kelp, a harbor seal pulling on my fin, getting buzzed by a sea lion and approached by an electric ray, sampling live-aboard diving...

If you want another tropical shore diving destination with some shore diving and varied topography, I'm reading good things about St. Croix.

Richard.

P.S.: Where else besides Cozumel and southern California have you dove?

 

[elgoog]

Thanks for the detailed (and frank) report. This is super useful for me as I'm researching a 1st trip there as well.

 

[laikabear]

I think we may have hit Small Wall while we were diving from an adjacent site. Is that possible? We did find a vertical wall that was about 30' high and maybe a couple hundred feet long. Or is that part of Cliff if you go South??? I have some video of it but I haven't gotten around to editing it yet.

A lot of times our dives were long enough to hit at least 1 complete adjacent site.

Actually the only diving I've done is SoCal, 2 dives in Havana, Cuba (which were not that great), the Cozumel trip, the NC Wreck trip (we only got to do 4 dives in 3 days, and I'd love to spend more time there since we only hit inshore wrecks) and this Bonaire trip. I just got certified in Oct 2015.

In SoCal I do a good mix of shore and boat diving. Last year and the early part of this year were bad for shore dives because of El Niño conditions, so I did mostly boat dives Since late summer, conditions have been better and I've gotten in a number of shore dives. I belong to a group called Reef Check out here that does lots of shore diving (and counts critters and seaweed) but we are done for the season.

I'm glad I had a number of shore dives under my belt before this trip. That's one thing - I don't think Bonaire would be a good destination for someone newly certified who wasn't planning to either do boat dives or go with someone experienced. I was certified through PADI and did my OW and AOW back to back, but I don't think that coming out of AOW with about 12 dives, that I would have been competent to assess and successfully navigate some of the entries and exits we did (Karpata and Andrea II come to mind). But maybe that's just me.

 

[simcoediver]

United Airlines is really bad at losing luggage and dive gear. Especially if you switch planes or get delayed. Its happened to us twice and now we always take direct flights with better airlines. glad you liked Bonaire and thanks for a good write up. Bonaire is an experience and unique. I would go back , I miss it. but like you I am exploring different places .

 

[deeper thoughts]

thnx for sharing

 

[howswedeofme]

Great trip report. Bummer about the luggage, but overall sounds like you had a good experience. I did the same thing at Between Two Buns - walked in and walked out. My favorite meal was the Cactus Blue truck after our morning dive at Hilma Hooker where we were able to get some incredibly fresh lionfish sandwiches. The hubs and I had a great time on Bonaire but, like you, don't think we'll go back because we like varied topography. We haven't been to Cozumel yet (it's on our list) but so far our favorite has been Grand Cayman, which is also the only place we've gone back for a second trip. This year we are headed to Saba, and I'm pretty excited about that too. There are so many amazing places to see!