Inside Bonaire -A Trip Report of Sorts

[leadweight]

In case anyone around here has been wondering where I have been hiding, It goes like this. The spring was not so great due to surgery for a 2 year old injury, but that is past and I am diving again.

My most recent trip was 12 nights/11 dive days in Bonaire. The first week was with a group formed by a sort of dive club which is part of a non profit organization. Due to privacy considerations, I have decided not to disclose the name of the organization, but if you are smart enough, you will know what it is. Because I have more time than many, I decided to stay an extra five days.

For the group part of the trip we stayed at the Sand Dollar condos and dove with Bonaire Dive and Adventure. The Sand Dollar offers spacious units and a beach view from nearly every unit (but not every bedroom). The units are in good, shape, but it is not the Hyatt. Our roof leaked the first night. The hot water heater had a timer on it. The first one up had to remember to turn it on or there would not be much hot water. Some of the units were fully air conditioned with quiet modern two piece air conditioners. Ours had window units in the bedrooms only. The landscaping is incomplete having never been repaied from the last big storm.

If there is a problem with the Sand Dollar it is the variable quality of the units and of the bedrooms. I have stayed there twice. Once I had a nice water view master suite, this last time I was in a "children's" bedroom with a parking lot view and shared the hall bath with my roomate or anyone else that might come by. It is also difficult for trip leaders to deal with this by giving different rates.

Please do not take this as a critisim of the trip leader. He did a great job and the package was attractively priced.

The other aspect of the Sand Dollar is that it is too far from town to walk there on a regular basis. If you are planning on renting a vehicle, that is no problem.

We had three 4-door pickup trucks (Taliban Tanks?) rented but rarely used them for shore diving. This is partially our own fault for being disorganized and also a function of the fact that there were 2 non divers who used the trucks as their diversion at times.

Next message: The Diving

 

[Billfish1]

Would love to hear more as I am trying to organize a trip to Bonaire for 7-21 thru 7-28 and was considering the Sand Dollar from all the rave reviews on beach, reef and friendliness. First time to dive Bonaire, so looking for good advice from everyone.

 

[leadweight]

When you arrive on Bonaire, it is not likely that you will be able to grab a tank and jump off the dock right away. This is especially true if arriving on Saturday when most groups come in. You will be asked to wait until morning, be subjected to a long briefing and then sent out on the dock to to a check out dive. Well, the good part is that the check out dive behind the Sand Dollar is a nice shore dive. They have several resident black and white spotted Morey's, juvenile spotted drum, sharp tail eels and all sorts of fish.

Regarding this site, Bari Reef, about 5 in the afternoon hordes of Brown Chromis come in to feed voraciously. A bit later the Tarpin show up and they will keep you company after it gets dark, hunting by your lights. I dove Bari Reef every day, sometimes twice a day or at night in addition to the two or three boat dives I did each day. The dock is perfect for diving. Easy in and out with tanks available for most of the day.

The bad part about the breifing is that it pretty much eats up the morning. Unfortunately, this proceedure is required all over the island.

The boats owned by Bonaire Dive and Adventure (BDA) were minimalist. Dual outboards, tanks kept aft and passed out once the mooring was reached. They tended to keep to the sites close to the Dock due to the poor fuel economy of the two strokes. Once the tanks are received the gear is assembeled on the floor. The diver then lifts the rig on to the bench, slips into it and enters the water via back roll. They have a good sturdy ladder to climb out of the water.

BDA's announced profiles were 60 minuters for every dive with a 100ft max on the first dive and 60 ft recommended on the second or third. I was usually first in the water and all of my dives were over 60 minutes. A few were 70 minutes and one was an 81 minute marathon. I was first in on that one, but not the last one out.

Tanks were filled to 3350 PSI warm. That usually resulted in a nice 3150 psi 5% overfill when the tanks cooled down to 80F, the usual water temperature.

During the period that I was in Bonaire, May 28 through June 10, there was a lot of rain and wind. It was mostly caused by the outskirts of the killer hurricane that hit Hatti and the Dom Rep. Visibility was sometimes compromised, especially out at Klien where the sand in the shallow spots was stirred up. The best diving was at places where the feef dropped off without a sandy part. Sometimes after a rian the water cooled off a bit. Most other divers wore skins or shorties. I used a full 3/2 and had an occasional chill, but I was racking up a lot of bottom time. The divemasters all used full suits, in one case a 7mm with a hood.

The divemasters at BDA wre very first rate. The bottom line on BDA is that it is geared to the experienced diver, but can also service the beginner. If you don't mind the simple boats, light breathers can have consistently long bottom time.

During the week we got to dive the Town Pier at night. It is covered in orange coral whose pollyps only open at night. There was a chain Morey, several juvenile spotted drum and a seahorse. Due to post 9/11 security, you must have a dive guide to dive Town Pier which will set you back $20 to $25. The good news is it is open more often than before.

The diving at Bonaire is very easy. Usually good visibility, almost no current, warm water and lots to see at 45 feet or so. Coral is in good shape. There has been a lot of recovery since Lenny. The place is know for fish diversity. Spotetd morey eels of boty B&W and gold variety along with sharp tail eels are frequent finds as well as scorpion fish. Green moreys are a bit rare and finding an ordinary Caribbean lobster is nearly impossible, though I saw two rare slipper lobsters on one day. No one saw any sharks, not even in the distance or deep. There a re a few turtles out at Klien, but they are shy and will not let divers get close. Two of them are full size loggerheads, the others are either green or hawksbill and much smaller. I saw two southern stingrays the whole week and only one large crab. I did find a tiny nudibranch on the sand in shallow water one day. There were also a couple of yellow frogfish at Cliff.

If there is anything bad about diving in Bonaire is that it might be too easy. There is a lot of similarity among the dive sites. Combined with the general lack of night life, sometimes I felt like my life had turned into Groundhog Day.

 

[leadweight]

In case you get hungry ther is a restaurant at Sand Dollar, but it is not all that great. Food is cheaper in town. The is a really good, owner operated, pizza place just south of Harbor Village that is open until 11 pm. Most other places close th e kitchen at 10 pm. Our package included breakfast at the Sand Dollar, but I do not believe it was worth the incremental charge, which was optional. It was exactly the same every day without nice baked goods and no bacon because it cost more than saussage.

In town the City Cafe is a good watering hole with 2 for 1 drinks every day for an hour at 5:30. They have sandwiches in the day, but at night it will be a dinner menu, with the exception of hamburgers. Up the street a block is Karel's which is a bar on a dock. Across the street is Zee Zicht, a decent restaurant with the same owner as Karel's. Zee Zicht is owner operated as well and it seemed like over half the people working there were family. the normal price for an Amstel is $2 in most places. Food is reasonably priced most places, but if you want to spend a lot there are expensive restaurants willing to take your money. Just remember, things really quiet down early on Bonaire. If you prefer to raise hell in the evening, go to Coz or San Pedro on Ambergris Caye

Those of you that know me are aware that I follow a diet made up of the five major food groups: Burgers, Pizza, Mexican, Chocolate and Alcohol. By the time I got home I had a serious deficiency of vitamin Mex, but was OK on the other four.

By Friday noon when the group quit diving I had 18 dives. I did one more from the dock that afternoon and paid $25 for a single boat dive with BDA on Saturday morning. A cab took me to the Divi Flamingo for five more days and another 14 dives for a total of 34.

The Divi is entirely different from the Sand Dollar. It is two blicks from town. The occupancy rate is much higher. The Sand Dollar seemed deserted by comparison. The place is lively during the day and quite few of the guests were families with children. The landscaping was tropical and complete. There was usually a KLM flight crew or two.

It seemed to me that most of the Americans on Bonaire were over the age of 50, The Dutch tourists tended to be younger. Nearly all of the Dutch speak English, but few seem to have any interest in getting to know Americans.

My room was large, but smelled of mildew. I complained and they cleaned it up and sprayed the living daylights out of it, but the odor came back in 48 hours. It must be in the walls. At any rate it had no effect on me, it was mostly cosmetic.

The dive operation at Divi was completely different from BDA. It ws geared much more to beginners. A lot of the divers used rental gear, which was mostly from Scubapro and in good shape. Dive profiles were supposed to be 70 feet for 45 minutes on the first dive, a 30-35 minute surface interval and 50 feet for 45 minutes on the second dive. The afternoon dive was 60 minutes/60 feet. I was able to streatch the morning dives to almost an hour (and an hour when the boat was crowded) by being first off each time. If I was last one back on the boat, I made sure that I came up the ladder immediately after the next to last diver so that I would not catch hell for making people wait. However, with the short surface intervals, you really had to watch your depth or the second dive would be severely restricted.

Their boats were substantial twin 300 hp diesels. Some of the further dive sites were visited including the excellent Rapell (North) and fascinating Salt Pier. The Salt Pier is like a Gulf Coast rig dive, but in shallow water.

The restaurant at the Divi was quick enough to get lunch between the morning and afternoon dives and reasonably priced, only slightly higher than in town.

Our divemaster, Pepe, was fron Venezuela. The otheres were local rather than European/Americans that we had at BDA. Pepe was particularly good at being a host on the boat. On one dive he assisted 3 divers. One was my buddy who had a freeflow on his Dacor Viper regulator. The other two managed to swim past the boat, althogh I don't know how they managed it.

I was about to take my buddy up to the surface, but Pepe came over and stopped the free flow. Frankly, I could not even find the purge button that weird Viper. Anyway after Pepe managed to return the two wayward divers to the boat he was 100% cool and hospitable, even complementing one white haired lost lady for keeping calm. I buddied with the white haired one the next day and she did not get lost. It turned out that she learned to dive this year and had 95 dives since 1/1/04. Also, I told the dive manager Serge, that Pepe was really impressive.

Things were somewhat more busy while at the Divi because it was the week of Bonbaire Dive Festival. I ate at the taste of Bonaire in a park in town one night and there was a function at the Divi on my last night there.

Durig the 11 days I completed 34 dives and something like 30 hours of bottom time. In case anyone wants to know, I used a Transpac II with a travel air cell, 2# on the top tank band, 7# on a weight belt. A lot of people around here hate weight belts, but when the pounds are in single digits there is no problemo. Besides you can make side to side adjustments. I have a Scubapro MK20/G250/R190 with standard hoses and a brass SPG, no console. My fins are the full foot Mares Avanti Quatro Power's which are oversize compared to most Scuba fins. They like a low frequency powerful stroke for best performance. Personally, I believe these fins are the cat's me-yow for warm water diving and they are the favorite fin among dive guides in the Cayman Islands. I use an Aladin Pro Nitrox computer, but tables would work just as well considering how easy the diving in Bonaire.

There was a GUE instructor in our group who dove 100% DIR all week. She used a Uwatec bottom timer and had a really good understanding of decompression. One of the dive guides at BDA, Benji was also DIR as well as his statuesque videographer girlfriend Annuk. Benji and the instructor even found time to do a Trimix dive on the windjammer. So, if you know how to do that sort of thing, you might want to look him up at BDA.\

In short, I dove a lot, had fun, and would go more often if the connections to get there were not so difficult.

Any questions....?

 

[leadweight]

Would love to hear more as I am trying to organize a trip to Bonaire for 7-21 thru 7-28 and was considering the Sand Dollar from all the rave reviews on beach, reef and friendliness. First time to dive Bonaire, so looking for good advice from everyone.

The reef behind the Sand Dollar is definitely better than the one further south at the Divi. It is just that the Sand Dollar has a bleak atmosphere, particularly due to the poor landscaping.

 

[herman]

Billfish,
If you have not already joined us, come over to the Bonaire Board. www.bonairetalk.com Anything you want to know about Bonaire can be found there. Sand Dollar is not a bad place but most of the condos are owned by individuals and sublet by the resort so the furnishing vary greatly. We usually stay at Buddy Dive next door. They have a package that includes everything you need (room/vehicle/breakfast/diving) which is hard to beat. If you are looking for a real basic, inexpensive diver hotel, then Wannadivehut is pretty good. It's not fancy but a good deal for the price.

 

[Damselfish]

We stayed at Sand Dollar once, I guess we were lucky that the condo we had was pretty nice. Only had AC in the bedrooms and I wished the whole place had it. The grounds were kinda bleak, I missed having more landscaping. Clearly not the place to do a lot of water intensive landscaping, but it could still be much nicer. Also wished the pool was on the water side rather than out by the road, wasn't too inviting. I prefer Habitat.

 

[scubablue67]

I bet I made a couple dives with you last week. I was there with my mom diving. We did mostly shore dives. I thought Pepe was a big asset to the Divi. I thought the Divi was a pretty good deal overall. I dove once with the Habitat group and enjoyed it but they are a bit more and didn't really offer anything nicer. Buddy dive seemed like a very nice new property but can't comment on the dive operations. I'll probably return to Divi because of value, location and Serge and Pepe great service.
Richard

 

[Billfish1]

Thanks for everyone's comments, they really help (or confuse, depending on which way you look at it) Yes, I have been snooping around at BnonaireTalk and picked up tons of helpful info. Basically, it doesn't sound like you are going to go wrong with the diving anywhere on Bonaire but you aren't going to have "Gold Level" Fairmont hotel amenities anywhere either. (Had to throw that in as we just got back from a 9 day 10-year anniversary trip to Banff/Lake Louise/Jasper Canada and spent 2 nights at the Chateau Lake Louise on the Gold Floor. Really awesome and awesomely expensive, but if you ever get to Lake Louise is definitely the place to stay at least for one night.)

Now I have to show all of these comments regarding the Divi and the SandDollar to my wife and let her decide which one "we" pick. As I mentioned, it is the wife and a 17 yr old daughter going. Right now, I have a 2 bedroom condo semi-reserved at the SandDollar but could save about $450 for the week by taking a room with 2 double beds at Divi vs having the 2 bedroom condo.

Thanks again for everyone's recommendations.

 

[Billfish1]

Billfish,
If you have not already joined us, come over to the Bonaire Board. www.bonairetalk.com Anything you want to know about Bonaire can be found there. Sand Dollar is not a bad place but most of the condos are owned by individuals and sublet by the resort so the furnishing vary greatly. We usually stay at Buddy Dive next door. They have a package that includes everything you need (room/vehicle/breakfast/diving) which is hard to beat. If you are looking for a real basic, inexpensive diver hotel, then Wannadivehut is pretty good. It's not fancy but a good deal for the price.

I checked at Buddy Dive, but they didn't have any availability for the week of July 21, but they did sound like a real good choice for our next Bonaire dive trip. (Haven't even been yet, and already know I will want to go back!!)