cstreu1026
Contributor
Well my wife and I just got back from the honeymoon this morning. We spent a week at Buddy Dive in Bonaire and a week at Sunset Waters in Curacao. We didn't get nearly the number of dives I had hoped to but it was still a great time.
We were very lazy in Bonaire and did not leave Buddy except to dive the Town Pier and eat dinner a few times. It was far two easy to just walk down to the dock, set up our gear, and just jump in there. I am getting much more comfortable in the water these days.we made two and some times three dives a day and managed to squeeze in a nice afternoon nap. It was really nice to just take it easy after the wedding. I have to say the dive staff at Buddy's is top notch. We did two PADI specialties while we were there, Nitrox and Photography. I am anxious to see how the pictures turn out. The water was nice and clear or atleast I think so. I am guessing the viz was about 75 feet on most dives and the temps were 80-82 degrees. I can't say I was completely thrilled with our room. The pictures on their website made them appear a little nicer than what they were. My only real complaint was that the bathroom felt like was a minature version of a highschool locker room shower or something like the showers at the KOA campground I stayed at in North Carolina. But hey we weren't there for the rooms we were there for the diving. If anyone from Buddy's happens to read this I think a little color would go a long way to brighten up the place and add a little more character to the place. I can't say I was all that crazy about the food on the island. I thought things tended to be a little over priced for what you got. I did have an excellent meal at The Lion's Den at Lion's Dive and The Lost Penguin was a nice little place with reasonable prices and quality food and friendly owners.
The DCA flight to Curacao was an experience. It was more like an amusement park ride than a airplane flight. I can't say that the ride from the Airport to Sunset Waters is a particularly wonderful one but once we were there we didn't have to leave since that portion of the trip was all inclusive. The grounds at Sunset waters could use a little help as they were not nearly as pretty as those at Buddy's but the rooms were a little more what I was accustomed to. They gave us an upgrade to an ocean view which was very nice. Again the dive operation was top notch or atleast the staff was. The owner (Mike Day) has owned the operation for about a month or so and is doing things right. He replaced all the tanks, weights, rental equipment and even the boats. The staff is small at just 4 people but they do an excellent job. In the morning they load all of your gear onto the boat for you and even set it up. After the dives they unload your BC and regs and rinse them before storing them until needed at a later time. Heck they even switched gear from one tank to another on the boat between dives. 3 of the 4 staff members are from the US and hte fourth is a local with great knowledge of the diving. Now on to the diving. It was as good or better then was we experienced in Boanaire. The sites seems to be in just as good of condition and were distinctly different from those on Bonaire as all the coral seemed to form mushroom shapes like the well know mushroom forest. I made my deepest dive to date while there with a dive to 102 feet. That was kind of exciting. The conditions were much the same though the seas were a little rougher and the boat rides were a little rocky especially in the afternoons. OK so not everything in Curacao was great. The food was far from good. Some meals even boardered on ineddible. The property seemed as though it could use a little routine maintence, their were no phones or clocks in the rooms, and their wake-up "knocks" were late two days and didn't happen at all two days including the morning we were leaving, and the dive operation did not have Nitrox but that can be forgiven since they are very new.
The trip home was one big mess. We arrived at the airport at 4:30 after getting ourselves up at 2:30. When we arrived we were informed that the flight from the previous night that was to be a plane to San Juan had problems and would not be there until atleast 10:30 AM. There was no one from American Airlines there to answer questions until 8 AM and they we were told that they would only cover a hotel if we stuck to our planned route since we would not be able to make our connection as planned in San Juan in time to get to Chicago to catch a plane back to Cincinnati. I was a very unhappy camper over this since they could have moved us to Delta and gotten us to Cincinnati with just one stop in Atlanta. When we got to Chicago we had to try and fight for a place on the shuttle to the Hyatt along with abut 50 other people who were without flights.
Oh and one other minor problem, I lost my glasses to the sea in Curacao. Well I had better get to bed since I have had 7 hours sleep in the last two days. You all will have to wait for the book to come out if you want more details.
'night!
Cameron
We were very lazy in Bonaire and did not leave Buddy except to dive the Town Pier and eat dinner a few times. It was far two easy to just walk down to the dock, set up our gear, and just jump in there. I am getting much more comfortable in the water these days.we made two and some times three dives a day and managed to squeeze in a nice afternoon nap. It was really nice to just take it easy after the wedding. I have to say the dive staff at Buddy's is top notch. We did two PADI specialties while we were there, Nitrox and Photography. I am anxious to see how the pictures turn out. The water was nice and clear or atleast I think so. I am guessing the viz was about 75 feet on most dives and the temps were 80-82 degrees. I can't say I was completely thrilled with our room. The pictures on their website made them appear a little nicer than what they were. My only real complaint was that the bathroom felt like was a minature version of a highschool locker room shower or something like the showers at the KOA campground I stayed at in North Carolina. But hey we weren't there for the rooms we were there for the diving. If anyone from Buddy's happens to read this I think a little color would go a long way to brighten up the place and add a little more character to the place. I can't say I was all that crazy about the food on the island. I thought things tended to be a little over priced for what you got. I did have an excellent meal at The Lion's Den at Lion's Dive and The Lost Penguin was a nice little place with reasonable prices and quality food and friendly owners.
The DCA flight to Curacao was an experience. It was more like an amusement park ride than a airplane flight. I can't say that the ride from the Airport to Sunset Waters is a particularly wonderful one but once we were there we didn't have to leave since that portion of the trip was all inclusive. The grounds at Sunset waters could use a little help as they were not nearly as pretty as those at Buddy's but the rooms were a little more what I was accustomed to. They gave us an upgrade to an ocean view which was very nice. Again the dive operation was top notch or atleast the staff was. The owner (Mike Day) has owned the operation for about a month or so and is doing things right. He replaced all the tanks, weights, rental equipment and even the boats. The staff is small at just 4 people but they do an excellent job. In the morning they load all of your gear onto the boat for you and even set it up. After the dives they unload your BC and regs and rinse them before storing them until needed at a later time. Heck they even switched gear from one tank to another on the boat between dives. 3 of the 4 staff members are from the US and hte fourth is a local with great knowledge of the diving. Now on to the diving. It was as good or better then was we experienced in Boanaire. The sites seems to be in just as good of condition and were distinctly different from those on Bonaire as all the coral seemed to form mushroom shapes like the well know mushroom forest. I made my deepest dive to date while there with a dive to 102 feet. That was kind of exciting. The conditions were much the same though the seas were a little rougher and the boat rides were a little rocky especially in the afternoons. OK so not everything in Curacao was great. The food was far from good. Some meals even boardered on ineddible. The property seemed as though it could use a little routine maintence, their were no phones or clocks in the rooms, and their wake-up "knocks" were late two days and didn't happen at all two days including the morning we were leaving, and the dive operation did not have Nitrox but that can be forgiven since they are very new.
The trip home was one big mess. We arrived at the airport at 4:30 after getting ourselves up at 2:30. When we arrived we were informed that the flight from the previous night that was to be a plane to San Juan had problems and would not be there until atleast 10:30 AM. There was no one from American Airlines there to answer questions until 8 AM and they we were told that they would only cover a hotel if we stuck to our planned route since we would not be able to make our connection as planned in San Juan in time to get to Chicago to catch a plane back to Cincinnati. I was a very unhappy camper over this since they could have moved us to Delta and gotten us to Cincinnati with just one stop in Atlanta. When we got to Chicago we had to try and fight for a place on the shuttle to the Hyatt along with abut 50 other people who were without flights.
Oh and one other minor problem, I lost my glasses to the sea in Curacao. Well I had better get to bed since I have had 7 hours sleep in the last two days. You all will have to wait for the book to come out if you want more details.
'night!
Cameron
