Trip Report Divi Flamingo Resort August 15-23, 2025

[OH2OD]

My wife and I visited Bonaire August 15-23, 2025 with a group of friends.
This was our 14th dive vacation to Bonaire.
We returned to the Divi Flamingo Resort and dove with Divi Dive
We flew American through Miami and all flights were non eventful.

We enjoyed the breakfast buffet and ate several meals at Chibi Chibi or Pure Ocean restaurant on site. Most evenings we walked to town and enjoyed the restaurants there .
We enjoyed most lunches eating sandwiches with friends on the sun deck overlooking the ocean. It's a great time to relax and recharge for the afternoon activities .

Our dive package included boat dives and unlimited shore diving tanks.
All shore dives were off the new pier at Calabas dive site.
On the Tuesday afternoon shore dive we were accompanied by a loggerhead
turtle for a good portion of the dive. I turned to check behind me and it was swimming
about thirty feet behind. We were able to observe from the distance for over twenty minutes .

Laurel, Raffi and Orlando were our dive crews for the week.
One boat dive deserves a special mention. We stopped at Something Special for our second morning dive and it lived up to the name. We spotted the usual fish life and enjoyed several special sightings. Multiple scorpion fish, green moray eel, a school of blue tang, two baby trunk fish, an octopus and a spotted eagle ray in the shallows
One diver with hundreds of dives, stated “this was a top ten all time dive.”
It really was special.

I have attached a video of some highlights from our trip.

We shared another wonderful trip to Bonaire with great friends.
We hope to return soon.

 

[Drip Dry]

Thanks for the report and the video. Nice to read Orlando is still there, thought he had retired, or semi-retired. He's a real character. Are most of the lockers still down by the south pier? The new north pier looks naked without the covered lockers and benches, it was a nice place to store, don, and doff your gear. Any rinse tanks on the north pier?

 

[OH2OD]

There are rinse tanks on the north pier.
Most lockers are in the covered area just outside the dive shop.
There are two benches near the end of the pier for gearing up for shore diving.

 

[OH2OD]

Drip Dry,
I found a couple of pictures to show the tanks and lockers.

 

[ScottsdaleSteve]

The north pier lockers are just outside the dive shop as shown in the pic below. There are a bunch of big-tired wagons you can use to haul your gear to the end of the dock and back. Ever since hurricane Ian in 2022, the Bonaire government won't allow any new "temporary" structures like pergolas and lockers on docks. Ian smashed the shaded pergola and lockers at the end of the dock to matchsticks.

I do miss having my gear right by the boat, under shade at the end of the dock. But things change, and because of the wagons, it's no big deal to haul your stuff back and forth to the new lockers.

 

[dflaher]

Thanks for the report! Was at the Divi some 15 years ago and your video brought back special memories.