Dive sites I will always do again, dive site I will not do again.

[rmorgan]

We were at depth at Invisibles when a ship departed Salt Pier. Pretty unpleasant.

 

[uncfnp]

Bari use to be several times a trip but the last 1 or 2 years, with the construction nearby, it has become almost undivable on days with any wind. Several times we would change our minds after arriving there and watching the dust devils swirling around the site. Twice we decided to give it a go that resulted in mouths/eyes full of grit and gear covered.

 

[Trailboss123]

Bari use to be several times a trip but the last 1 or 2 years, with the construction nearby, it has become almost undivable on days with any wind. Several times we would change our minds after arriving there and watching the dust devils swirling around the site. Twice we decided to give it a go that resulted in mouths/eyes full of grit and gear covered.

My last 2 trips (this past January and last August), I have been opting to dive from Captain Don's a fair amount. You don't have to be staying there to dive from there. Park in the parking lot, gear up and walk down to the pier. Easy giant stride off the end of the pier and easy ladder exit. If you go north, you can easily hit the Cliff dive site and return. If you go south, you are basically in the Bari reef territory in front of Buddy's and Sand Dollar. One of these days, if with a few others who are willing and with a 2nd truck, I would like to park one truck at Captain Don's and another at the Den Laman parking lot. Get in at Captain Don's and dive south and come up at Den Laman. Totally doable, especially if there is any current going south, which there is more often than not in that area.

In January, we were staying at a villa a few doors down from Dive Friends Hamlet Oasis and right in front of the Cliff dive site. 4 of us went out for a dive from the villa. We decided to go south. We got down to Captain Don's (very obvious since they have a rope or whatever it is that goes from their pier out to the reef) and we were planning to turn the dive there and head back to the villa. The current was picking up and moving south once we got there. It was getting really swift. Just after the rope is the Machaca wreck. We got there and hid behind it to get out of the current. Hand signal communication ensued and we decided there was no way we were going to get back to our villa against the current. We opted to fight the current for a few minutes back to the Captain Don's rope, do our 3 minute safety stop and follow the rope back to their pier and surface. We got out and walked up to the parking lot. We all dropped our gear there and then I walked back to our villa and got our truck and drove back to Captain Don's to pick up the other 3 and all of our gear. It was a total improvised dive, but was really awesome and got me thinking about the possibility of doing a dive from Captain Don's Pier to the Den Laman Pier with 2 trucks. Kind of like La Dania's Leap to Karpata. All good as long as you know and recognize the exit point.

 

[AdivingBel]

I've dropped in at Buddy's and exited at DF Hamlet; had tea & chatted with the shop folks; grabbed a fresh tank (had my tank package with DF); dropped back in and exited back at Buddy's (where I left my truck). Nice afternoon. I guess I could have surfaced at my villa for a sandwich as I went by, but that would have been too convenient. Hey, I bet I could get Walther (host at the Villa) to snorkel me one out. That would really be service...Bonaire just gets better and better. Gotta luv dive freedom.

 

[Perryed]

Try the hooker reef instead of the wreck much better

I like to take people to the Hooker for a brief tour and then spend an hour or more on the shallows on the way back in.It is impressive as you come up on it on your way out to it from shore. Good to time it so there is no one else there too.

 

[NDL_Diver]

I wonder if you could get in at DF Hamlet get out at DF Sand dollar, eat lunch at Breeze and Bites, reload at DF Sandollar and get out at DF Hamlet? It looks to be about 2600 feet.

Would need light current day, but what a way to travel.

 

[NDL_Diver]

Or if the current is moving a bit, get out at Yellow Sub??

 

[scubadada]

I wonder if you could get in at DF Hamlet get out at DF Sand dollar, eat lunch at Breeze and Bites, reload at DF Sandollar and get out at DF Hamlet? It looks to be about 2600 feet.

Would need light current day, but what a way to travel.

My wife and I stay at Den Laman, dive Bari Reef frequently, I often dive through Buddy's and then back. I have never done a one way. That would be from Cliff through Capt Don's, Buddy's, then Bari. @Trailboss123 knows Cliff a lot better than I do, perhaps he could comment on this plan

 

[drrich2]

I like the Hilma Hooker wreck okay; as a site, I tend toward Angel City since it also has nice reef and just for the novelty I tend to fin out to the outer reef and dive it, whereas at H.H. I just can't ignore the wreck (which takes maybe 10 minutes to fin around).

One nice thing about that wreck though; if you happen to be with fairly new divers who haven't seen much 'big stuff,' and maybe somebody is skittish about night dives, that wreck is a good place to spot a tarpon, sometimes a barracuda. If there was one mainstream west coast dive site I needed to hit by day and see something fairly big, that'd be the one.

My special site is Sweet Dreams, way down south. Really lush shallows, beautiful site, somehow hardly ever mentioned on the forum, yet it consistently rocks for the lush gorgonians, etc... Bonaire's reef can look a little sparse/weathered in places; last October Sweet Dreams and Margate Bay restored my faith in the place (warning: Margate Bay had mangroves, and I think that's from whence the mosquitos came after me).

 

[staggsSevin]

1000 steps - its on my list of things I want to try, but the wife has had both knees scoped over the last 2 years. Even the 2nd dive on karpata (when we do karpata, we do 2 tanks there) is hard for her to climb steps, on her knees.

I've offered to carry her gear after dive, but she's too proud to let me, and too afraid of the pain to try those 'it looks like 1000 when you look down them' steps.

I have gone to bonaire 5 times now, and still haven't done 1000 steps for similar reasons....I've offered carrying her gear and everything. I finally got her to go up and do karpata last May with me...it was a bit rough up north that day and I was told never again there