Bonaire trip

[reefseal]

I am vacationing in Bonaire the first week of June. Does anyone have some "do not miss" or other related info that might be useful to know? We will be staying at Buddy Dive.

I'm there too arriving this weekend. Can't wait. will be 4th time. Will be with teen son who's going back for 2nd time as diver.

They are all good. My first dives when arrive tend to be Hilma hooker or Karpata. We may do Ladania's leap drift to Karpata first. So many choices!

 

[gbf]

one warning regarding seru largu:

We went up there for the first time late one PM, and it started to rain hard while we were up by the shrine. We ducked into an alcove in the cross planning to wait it out, then looked up at the wasp nest. Every alcove had one in it. Might have just been the time of year or something, but look up.

we got wet.

 

[ericjespersen]

Hopefully we will meet you when we are there!

 

[Jersey]

Second vote Salt Pier. The site is ugly. Broken machinery, old ladders. However that hides all kinds of life! Last dive we found two octopus out and hunting at noon, squid squadron, tarpon hanging just on the edge of the drop, big grouper hiding in the shadows of the pilings, eels, large schools of grunts circling overhead. My buddy was Go-Proing the octopus when the squid swooped by, the tarpon where right behind us and a 4 foot eel wandered by (he missed them all). I was mmmm mmhhhmmm mmmmmm!!!! into my reg, but he was hyperfocused on the octopi. I got still pictures to show him what he missed.

I also like the southern sites - Invisibles, Alice in Wonderland, Margate, Tori's.

 

[mselenaous]

There is tons of info on Bonaire in the Invade Bonaire section Invade Bonaire, 2013
AND
do check out the Coral Restoration Foundation's staghorn nursery & outplantings. The nursery is close to Buddy Dive. You can even volunteer to work in the nursery.
Bonaire | Coral Restoration Foundation

 

[mbs]

There is construction going on at Salt Pier and it seems to be more then just first shift. There was a "guard" sitting out there after 5pm one night last week. Definitely one of my most favorite dives and hated to skip it this year! A new site for us this year was Vista Blue. Very much like Margate, BUT it has soft white sand from the parking area into the water!!!! We just looked at each other wondering why no one ever told us about this! Not sure if we got luck and it normally has strong current, but it was great. Good chance to see this guy:

Be careful diving down there with the kite boarders. In the future I think I'm going to surface with my smb inflated.

 

[DiveMaven]

We're actually bringing a small lift bag to inflate prior to surfacing when we dive the far southern sites this year. It folds up small enough to not be a hinderance while diving, but after almost being hit by a kite boarder 3 years ago (he went over my head when I was about 2' from the surface), and knowing there are more kite boarders now, we decided a small marker we can inflate at the end of our dive was a good idea.

We'll only use it on the far southern sites, but I'm very happy to have the peace of mind this year.

 

[ericjespersen]

We enjoyed every dive we went on, didn't bother with any boat dives, Salt Pier was one of my favorites. we did a night dive on Buddy's Reef (my first) It was great too! We did 3 in Slagbaai National Park and jumped off the cliff! We met friends there who have been going for 9 years, which made the entire trip as perfect as one could hope for! I can't wait to return! Southern end was extremely rough from winds so we opted for other locations with easier entries. An unmarked dive site ended up being awesome too.

 

[ericjespersen]

We did get to see the coral farm at Buddy's Reef!

 

[ericjespersen]