FIRST TRIP TO BONAIRE in December 2015 --- Suggestions Please. Thanks.

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Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Location
United States
# of dives
100 - 199
Hello ScubaBoard,

My wife and I are visiting Bonaire for the first time in December 2015. We are excited about the opportunity. I have about 200 dives and my wife about 100 dives. We have been to Cozumel, Belize, Roatan and the Florida Keys. Our favorite to date is Cozumel of which we have visited about 7 or 8 times usually for 9-10 days.

Anyway, we have rented a 2 bedroom condo on Bonaire that I am told is "just a 10 minute walk along the seaside promenade to central Kralendiijk" (If you cannot see the picture I have included at the bottom of this email, we are staying almost directly across from Klein Bonaire)

I have yet to arrange any diving.

From what I have read, I am under the impression I should rent a truck and plan to visit the many shore diving sites around the island.

I have bouhgt and read ""Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy" by Susan Porter."

My questions are:

1. My wife and I have been mostly reliant on a divemaster to plan our dives in Cozumel and elsewhere. Do you have any suggestions on how I can prepare before going to Boanaire to plan my dives? I have no experience with navigation.

2. Can I dive by myself if my wife doesn't want to dive as much? If not, will it be easy to find a buddy(s) to dive with once I arrive?

3. Should I plan to do more boat dives so that all the planning is taken care of?

4. Should I plan to dive with/at a particular resort?

5. Are there 5 or 10 dives that I definately DO NOT WANT TO MISS on my first trip to Bonaire?

6. Can you reccommend anything for my wife and I to do when we are not diving? I thought we might rent some bikes and tour some of the island that way..

Thanks for your help!

PS... Here is a picture of where we are staying. If you cannot see the picture below, we are staying almost directly across from Klein Bonaire

Luxury Oceanfront Condominium in Playa... - HomeAway Bonaire
 
For some reason I can't see anything in the original post except the subject line. And Had to look in the Bonaire section to even see who started the thread. Between 100 - 199 dives, PADI cert., 6-10 years certified. That's about all I know. So I'll post general advice for Bonaire.

1.) Open-heel fins with boots (not 'booties') with thick soles. SeaSoft has Sunrays (warm water) & Stealth (cold water) boots that work. Walking on iron shore in gear can damage your feet without protection on shore. Walk in without fins, then don them in waist deep water. Reverse coming out.

2.) Rental trucks are manual/stick unless you arrange in advance & pay more money.

3.) Leave your doors unlocked & windows down when at shore dive sites, as thieves may come by & this lets them look for stuff to steal without breaking anything.

4.) Don't leave anything of value in your rental truck while you're in the water.

5.) If you're tempted to complain about 3.) & 4.) and that 'something should be done,' do a forum search & enjoy thread after thread debating the issue. And when you're done, leave your windows down & your doors unlocked.

6.) Some good distinctive sites are Karpata way up north (lush), Tolo (nice & since Karpata obligates you to along one-way drive around, hit Tolo on your way to it), 1,000 Steps (scenic stairway; get a picture), Oil Slick Leap (big giant stride in, nice site), The Cliff (fairly shallow, small vertical wall), Bari Reef (nice, famous for species diversity), Buddy's Reef (in front of Buddy Dive Resort, if you stay there; the reef in front of Buddy's & Captain Don's is just north of Bari Reef, and nice), Windsock (the site, not the resort; easy entry & exit, large pier makes finding your way to the exit on night dives easy), Hilma Hooker (the big wreck), Salt Pier (shallow with lots of support pilings; you can only dive it when a ship is not in), and there are plenty of others, but that would get you started.

7.) If you eat out, don't assume free refills on sodas. I drink water at restaurant meals, & guzzle diet soda back at the room.

Richard.
 
For some reason I can't see anything in the original post except the subject line. And Had to look in the Bonaire section to even see who started the thread.

Same here; glad it wasn't just me.

I'm in the same boat as we are going our first time in November. Keywords "tips" and "advice" searching the Bonaire forum bring up a treasure trove of threads with anything from where to dive to where to buy groceries. I'm sure (like me) that will help you start to come up with some more specific questions.
 
Original post should be visible now.
 
1. My wife and I have been mostly reliant on a divemaster to plan our dives in Cozumel and elsewhere. Do you have any suggestions on how I can prepare before going to Boanaire to plan my dives? I have no experience with navigation:

ANSWER: My husband and I had never dove without a dive master before, either. We planned our dives top-side but also have dive computers that take the guess work out. Shore diving in Bonaire is shockingly easy even without navigation skills. We purchased Dive Guide Bonaire from Dive Friends and it was a huge help. We did our first dive at their Yellow Sub location (super easy with a marker to look for when you're exiting), and then looked at the book to plan the rest of our dives. We weren't very deep most of the time, so we were able to do very long dives at most sites. And, even if you over or undershoot your exit, on every site we went to, it didn't matter. We just popped back down 10-15 feet and swam back, or finished on the surface. We are going back to Cayman this winter and last time did all boat dives, but this time are doing a mix of shore dives without a DM as well as some boat dives with a DM now that we know it's not that big of a scary deal to dive on your own.

2. Can I dive by myself if my wife doesn't want to dive as much? If not, will it be easy to find a buddy(s) to dive with once I arrive?

ANSWER: You can look on here or Bonairetalk.com and Divebuddy.com or check with a dive shop on the island about a buddy. I think they have bulletin boards for that. We dove with Dive Friends who has multiple locations throughout the island and really enjoyed their services. You can also "rent" a DM to go on shore dives. We did a 3 two-tank boat dive and unlimited shore diving combo through Dive Friends and I wish we had one less day of boat diving than we did. I'm not sure what Bonaire's rules are on solo diving without your solo card.


3. Should I plan to do more boat dives so that all the planning is taken care of?

ANSWER: No. I would do some boat dives out on Klein Bonaire and/or the East End if you can, but the awesomeness of Bonaire is the freedom to shore dive. It really is far more easy than I'm sure you're expecting, because it was for us. But if you hate shore diving then go for the boat dives, I just think you'll feel like you missed out on the Bonaire experience if you don't do the shore diving too.

4. Should I plan to dive with/at a particular resort?

ANSWER: As I said, we liked Dive Friends because they have locations all over the island. If you dive with a resort, you'd have to go there to swap out tanks all the time or to get on the boat for boat dives.

5. Are there 5 or 10 dives that I definitely DO NOT WANT TO MISS on my first trip to Bonaire?

ANSWER: It all depends what you like. Lots of people love the Hilma Hooker - we hated it. We really liked Salt Pier, some people think its boring. The shore dives mostly have the same topography, but top side I really loved 1000 steps. There are loads of threads with favorite dive sites.

6. Can you recommend anything for my wife and I to do when we are not diving? I thought we might rent some bikes and tour some of the island that way.

ANSWER: Bikes might be hard and not as fun as you'd think. I don't recall a great deal of sidewalks and the roads are narrow/rough outside of the tiny downtown. And people drive a little crazy. We drove around the island to see the salt flats, flamingos, east end, north side. We enjoyed the distillery in Rincon but don't go when a cruise boat is in. We also had a great time at the donkey sanctuary.
 
For convenience you might want to purchase a dive package from Dive Friends as their Yellow Sub location is nearest to your condo which is actually on the north end of the waterfront in Kralendijk. A further advantage is their multiple locations - they have one on Bari Reef mentioned above, another on Cliff - the only vertical wall on Bonaire and a fourth south of town at Port Bonaire condos - at all of them you can exchange tanks. Where you're staying I wouldn't really consider any other operator.

Food shopping is mostly at two large food stores closer to the south end but it's not a very big downtown - the whole thing can't be a mile long. As you can see the condos are near - but not too near - to Town Pier "downtown" which is where a cruise ship will dock these days: Cruises To Kralendijk, Bonaire You may not even notice it except there will be more street vendors setting up when they do. That plus the ship is about the tallest thing in town...lol. It's not an overnight port so they'll be gone by 5 or sooner. Only two ships can tie up at Town Pier anyway and they're often not the big ones.

Most of Richard's dive site list is on my list also - a few others worth diving:

1000 Steps
Invisibles
Angel City
Rappel (boat dive)
Forest (Klein Bonaire boat dive)
Vista Blue - current can be ripping there - often in the afternoons. It's hard to tell from the surface.
Many of the sites south of town are on the double reef system also so you sort of get two dives in one.

If you feel the need for a shore dive guide initially there's BasDiving or VIP Diving. But as mentioned, generally there's little/no current, the reef parallels the shore and the vis. is as good as or better than Coz. All the sites have balls indicating the reef drop and often the boat moorings. You'll see the ropes/cables for them from a decent distance away returning from your dive. On the south side many can have firecoral growing on them so don't touch. Also gloves are not allowed anywhere on Bonaire by BMP (marine park) rules.

Since I have just about everything on Bonaire in Google Earth - here's some references:

Downtown area where you're staying:

downtown.jpg

references (yellow tacks) are Dive Friends Yellow Sub just to the north - their boats leave from that location, my favorite (and one of the best) restaurants, It Rains Fishes just north of your condo, Karels Bar complex (several restaurants/shops) just south, Town Pier where the cruise ships dock (no longer divable since they do), Van den Tweel and Warehouse Foods - the two major markets.

If you notice the Dive flag (not placed by me) in that area - Calabas Reef - that's the Divi Flamingo Resort and your other close option for boat dives. Also on upper left corner you can see a small slice of Klein Bonaire. There's also a dive in front of DF Yellow Sub - you'll do your BMP Orientation dive there first. Town Pier as a dive site is closed since the cruise ships arrived. Sad because at night it was a great dive - lots of Orange Cup Corals. Probably all silted over now.

Playa Lechi on Bonaire

bonaire.jpg

Most of the known dive sites are located on this view - it's an overlay I acquired. the 4 on the North End are in Slagbaai Park which requires at least a truck, maybe a Jeep. Buddy Dive also does a 3 tank trip up there once per week - I believe so does Dive Friends. Also you can see Flamingo Airport in this view. Just off the runway west is Port Bonaire - the south side Dive Friends location (not marked) Under the "Y" in Runway is Lac Bai - the Kitesurfing Beach. It's the other popular activity on Bonaire.

hth,

P.S. there are no scuba police on Bonaire (technically there are - the BMP Rangers). No one is going to ask to see a solo card - at most sites there's no one even around. Since you're not staying at a dive resort, standard protocol will be to throw as many tanks in the truck as you need and go diving. No one will touch the others while you're gone, they can't get them filled except at the marked owners location.

Once you leave town, there are no facilities at any of the dive sites. So plan accordingly but don't bring anything you can't bear to lose. The kids will go thru the truck while you're gone - they know how long divers are down and steal anything of interest. So get a little waterproof case for the car key, cc, cash etc. I use one of these: Witz from LeisurePro - the black $7.25 one. I've had it on every dive for about the past decade anywhere I've been - I leave my wallet back at the room.

As you can see from the 2nd map, you're not much more than 15-20mins. from your condo at any dive site - the exception being once you commit to Karpata on the north it's one way thru Rincon and back to town - that takes about 20mins. - longer if they're "walking" the goats.
 
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In 2014 we stayed at the same Playa Lechi complex, but a different unit than the one you are booked. Great place and location. The walk downtown was 10-15 minutes. Dive Friends Yellow Submarine is less than a 5 minute walk away. You can rinse and store your gear at DFYS. There is an area near the tanks where we would pull our truck into, and load our tanks(provided we were not diving at a location which did not had a Dive Friends location), gear and head out.

Shore diving on Bonaire is easy to navigate. Since you will need to do a check out dive(all dive ops on Bonaire require this), you may want to look into coupling that with a guide to feel more comfortable in a new environment for your first dive.
 
From where you're staying, heading north on the main coastal road, you'll pass Buddy Dive Resort on your left, and a bit up on your right see Zhung Kong Supermarket. A small grocery store that's generally well-regarded, so you can stock up without having to 'go into town,' so to speak. For a larger grocery store, Van den Tweel (the newest, most modern looking, but some product labels in a foreign language) & Warehouse Bonaire are popular; there's also Top's (formerly Cultimara), unless things have changed recently.

Non-diving activities vary with what you like. Some options:

1.) Drive through the donkey sanctuary once.

2.) Take a good half day to drive through Washington-Slagbaii Park up north. Take pictures; some of the hilly/mountainous terrain, cliff faces & large waves pounding coastal cliffs is quite scenic. When you pay for your $25 marine park pass, keep the receipt & bring it here to save the $10 entry fee.

3.) On the west coast, around a site called Atlantis, people kite board.

4.) On the east coast, at a 'village-like' area called Jibe City, you can see people wind surfing at Lac Bay.

5.) Although there's a persistent breeze, Bonaire is hot, sunny & arid. Do NOT forget your sunscreen. If biking & baking is your thing, go for it. A buddy of mine who lived on the island a year & 4 months used to go running there. So it can be done.

Richard.
 
1. My wife and I have been mostly reliant on a divemaster to plan our dives in Cozumel and elsewhere. Do you have any suggestions on how I can prepare before going to Boanaire to plan my dives? I have no experience with navigation.

Navigation in Bonaire a cinch...

  1. park your truck
  2. enter the water and swim out to the drop off
  3. descend to 50-60ft and swim to the right/left until you hit 1/2 tank, check your time,
  4. ascend to to top of reef (say 30ft or so) and reverse direction for the same amount of time.
  5. Do a swimming safety stop as you swim towards shore.
  6. When you exit the water your pickup truck will be right there.


---------- Post added August 28th, 2015 at 09:03 PM ----------

2.) Take a good half day to drive through Washington-Slagbaii Park up north. Take pictures; some of the hilly/mountainous terrain, cliff faces & large waves pounding coastal cliffs is quite scenic. When you pay for your $25 marine park pass, keep the receipt & bring it here to save the $10 entry fee.

Don't forget to bring lunch, drinks, and three tanks each! (ie Dive the park!)
 
Oil slick leap was the most fun giant stride entry I've ever done, I would definitely do that again.

And I second the take 3 tanks up to the park.

Solo diving in Bonaire is not a problem.
 

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