How far apart are the dive sites?

[scuba41girl]

We are looking to do a trip to Buddy in July/August. Our group is deciding whether to pay for a food plan for lunch at Buddy. Do you recommend going back to the resort everyday for lunch or are there good places to eat near the dive sites? We also don't want to have to drive 30-40 minutes everyday if the dive sites are far from the resort.

Thank you!!

 

[DustyC]

For the most part, if you're south of Cliff (Hamlet), it's one dive site and the yellow markers are parking. Some are literally a 100 yards apart. Others are a mile once you get way down south. Meal plans IME, aren't worth it. You wouldn't want to miss out on all the awesome food in town and most importantly, at Kite City.

 

[tursiops]

Absolutely keep your options open for lunches. Blennies at BD is good for lunch, but so are many other places. Kite City is excellent, and Between Two Buns is World Class.

 

[Charred]

if you are doing two morning dives then back to Buddy for more tanks, that makes some sense.

My wife and I love the food trucks down near the airport. We would plan to be near there for lunch.

I’d say no to give you more options.

 

[darook]

I will echo everyone else's comments. Eat their breakfast and if you find yourself at the resort mid day buy lunch then. We usually do something quick at the apartment. Kite City and Between 2 Buns are as awesome as everyone has indicated. Except for sites way far north to the way far south sites they are all a reasonable surface interval apart. There are plenty of places where you can enter at one site and exit at another if you wish.

 

[diversteve]

This link will install worldwide divesites in Google Earth that will show all the Bonaire sites and distances. We found ourselves going by our resort so often that later in the week we'd only take what we needed for a dive or two, The other Buddy facility is at Belmar in Belnem which is the start of all the really good sites south of town. Except for the Kite City food truck you won't find any other food options to the south but from the farthest south (Lighthouse) to town is at most a 30 min. drive.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&ved=0ahUKEwi0kezO0MfZAhUBDGMKHRK5CtIQFghUMAY&url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/kml?output=nl&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&ie=UTF8&nl=true&mid=1QoY1-WBxvd0KvAKgNb6cWM1AXJA&usg=AOvVaw0CYfK4ogfezElqtC0I5E66

 

[KeithG]

We are looking to do a trip to Buddy in July/August. Our group is deciding whether to pay for a food plan for lunch at Buddy. Do you recommend going back to the resort everyday for lunch or are there good places to eat near the dive sites? We also don't want to have to drive 30-40 minutes everyday if the dive sites are far from the resort.

Thank you!!

Do not pay for a lunch plan. Breakfast plan, maybe. My opinion has nothing to do with dive sites. It is all about vacation freedom.

There is no need to go back to the resort restaurant for lunch. If you want to eat "paid for" food then there are multiple dine in options around the island. Enough to try a different commercial lunch venue every day.

BUT: You may decide to go back to your resort kitchenette for a slap together sandwich lunch. But you will have to shop. And make your lunch. Or you can make a lunch and take it with you...

We stay at the Divi. Generally with a room that has only a really bad coffee maker and a fridge. We grab questionable lunch food stuffs at the local Sunshine mini-market. As dock divers, we eat our lunch on our water front balcony watching the waves. Lunch is generally a bun slathered with mayo and something else in it (golden lettuce, sliced or canned mystery meat and some cheese-ish stuff) and a few olives and maybe some golden nuts. And a half a dozen really sweet awesome tasting really terrible for you cookies with tons of beef fat squishy stuff in the middle.

Yum! We have thankfully not yet discovered a Whole Foods on Bonaure.

For us, supper is always just after a very early night dive, and at a world class restaurant:
- Capriccio
- At Sea - but they sold a few years ago so we now also try..
- Brewery
- Sebastians

On a casual evening we try to hit La Guernica for tapas. Okay, not awesome, but we get fed.

 

[Schwob]

This link will install worldwide divesites in Google Earth that will show all the Bonaire sites and distances. We found ourselves going by our resort so often that later in the week we'd only take what we needed for a dive or two, The other Buddy facility is at Belmar in Belnem which is the start of all the really good sites south of town. Except for the Kite City food truck you won't find any other food options to the south but from the farthest south (Lighthouse) to town is at most a 30 min. drive.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&ved=0ahUKEwi0kezO0MfZAhUBDGMKHRK5CtIQFghUMAY&url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/kml?output=nl&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&ie=UTF8&nl=true&mid=1QoY1-WBxvd0KvAKgNb6cWM1AXJA&usg=AOvVaw0CYfK4ogfezElqtC0I5E66

Whoa!
Finally something to set my non existing auto pilot in my non existing dive yacht to...

 

[KeithG]

Whoa!
Finally something to set my non existing auto pilot in my non existing dive yacht to...

I tried the link and it wanted me to "save the file". Not sure how to jam that in to my dive bag. What's google earth?

And unfortunately I thought I could just google Bonaire Stinapa and get an awesome website showing all of the dive sites. Nope. Stinapa website Stinapa Bonaire National Parks Foundation is crap. Seems to have been designed by marketing peeps.

I just want a map of the dive sites.....

 

[Schwob]

I tried the link and it wanted me to "save the file". Not sure how to jam that in to my dive bag. What's google earth?

And unfortunately I thought I could just google Bonaire Stinapa and get an awesome website showing all of the dive sites. Nope. Stinapa website Stinapa Bonaire National Parks Foundation is crap. Seems to have been designed by marketing peeps.

I just want a map of the dive sites.....

This is how it "ocurred" on my phone.
After downloading the ".kmz" file from the link, I opened google earth and it magically had a (named if you click on one) marker for all the divesites that were in that kmz file, world wide.
The way I understand it, a .kmz fole is afile with GPS coords.
Google Earth is a program by Google, free. it is the mother of all computerised maps... the "ubermap". Try it. Download it on your computer. Maybe am ipad? On your phone maybe only if it got a good amount of memory and horsepower. Not sure. My current (3 or 4 years old) phone can deal with it rather well, my (really) old one could not.

Just want a map?
Google is your friend. Google images...
Google "Bonaire dive sites"
Click on the images choice in the result window. On the very right (top area) find the search tools. Click it. if you are on a computer or if you tell your phonecto go to the desktop side you get more search tool choices. The mobile version lets you filter out large images. The desktop version lets you e.g. filter out images (scroll down on the size choices) larger than 8MB (play with it)..
You do that, click on the first three results, in each click on the pic with the map to open and the longclick (phone) (maybe right click on computer, I am on phone now) and you get a choice to download image and you have a very nice map of what you seek. Not an inteligent GPS whiz map like in Google Earth, but a nice image useable as a map, even on the phone (plenty of zoomability)