OK to miss Klein Bonaire?

[RJP]

Will I miss something special if I bypass Klein Bonaire?

No. Something Special is on the north end of town, just south of the Marina entrance.

:d

But seriously, I've been to Bonaire twice and done nearly 70 dives there. Never been to Klein Bonaire. Don't think I missed it.

 

[KeithG]

I have booked a week's dive package with VIP Divers and a day with Bonaire East Coast Diving in May. As I am on a tight schedule and diving with VIP (who do not use boats) I may not be able to visit Klein Bonaire. Of course, Bas Noij has suggested that if I was that keen to get to KB, I could switch to another dive centre for the day but I prefer not to do that unless there is something exceptional in diving in Klein Bonaire that is not found on the mainland dives. I prefer to remain with VIP.

Therefore, my question to Bonaire regulars is: Will I miss something special if I bypass Klein Bonaire and remain on the mainland for the duration?

YES! Absolutely! If you are not planning on doing Klein, then you should pass your reservations onto someone more deserving...like me...just kidding..it's been a whole week since I was there and I need to go back... real soon (not kidding!) I am just screwing with you. Relax and enjoy Bonaire. It is wonderful. Easy diving.

Much of Klein is very similar to much of west coast Bonaire. But there is lots of variation on both.

But it all depends upon how you measure your dive success. # of different sites? Hours of bottom time? # of sites someone else thought were special? Least amount of lost equipment? # of sites you have never been to before?

What do you want to see / achieve in Bonaire?

This is your vacation. Not mine. I suggest you relax and take a big breath and just enjoy what you find. Life is a journey, not a destination.

My measure of success is lots of bottom time and lots of small critters. I dove the same site 13 times in 1 week. Never saw it all. It was dive 12 before we found the yellow headed jaw fish. Dive 13 featured a Moray killing an octopus and then having a School Master take it away.

None of this can be preplanned.

P.S. Spotted Eagle Ray was scheduled for dive 4 but did not appear until dive 7. I will have to talk to its union rep.

 

[Hintermann]

What do you want to see / achieve in Bonaire?

Very good question and to be honest, I do not exactly know. A simple answer would be 'lots of good dives' with nothing specific in mind.

I have to confess that the only reason that I am going to Bonaire on the forthcoming trip is because there are so many of you who go there repeatedly and so I felt that before I retired from diving next year, I have to go myself once just to see what it was all about. Since I'll be going all the way from UK to Socorro the previous week, I felt that a side-trip for another week to Bonaire was feasible - so I booked it.

In my mind, I am probably comparing with the other sites that I have been to like Red Sea, Maldives, Phuket, Komodo, Turks & Caicos, Cayman Islands, Raja Ampat etc. I am aware that Bonaire is a specialty shore diving destination but the mode of entry is of little importance to me compared with what I am likely to find once underwater.

 

[wwguy]

Very good question and to be honest, I do not exactly know. A simple answer would be 'lots of good dives' with nothing specific in mind.

That's how most visitors enjoy Bonaire, but I'm quite surprised to see you professing desire for this approach. It's distinctly different from how you've been preparing for your trip.

I remain amazed that you started planning this 7 day dive trip more than 2 years in advance, supplemented (so far) with 16 new threads and over 100 posts here in the Bonaire SB forum. I'm not saying it's "wrong". I just don't comprehend the need or desire for it.

Since your first Bonaire inquiry my wife and I have pondered, planned, and executed 4 trips encompassing 9 weeks on Bonaire. Most days we don't know where we're diving until we find a dive site that feels good at the time. We don't even know if we're diving north or south until we have to decide which way to turn the truck when leaving the villa.

My point, and my motivation for this post, is that I think you're trying too hard. All you need to do is arrange accommodations, reserve a rental truck, and pick a qualified dive operator from the many available on the island. After that just enjoy some good dives, with nothing specific in mind. This is why Bonaire is so popular.

 

[drrich2]

I think someone who expects to visit Bonaire once in his life and never again, and who will give up diving soon, will approach it differently from someone who goes and says 'Maybe next time I'll...' dive the east coast, try Klein Bonaire, hit some sites in Washington-Slagbaii Park, etc...

Hintermann, you've got far broader dive experience today than I will probably have when I die. So take this with a grain of salt. Here's what I think you will find Bonaire, and its hype, to be.

Bonaire is the 24/7 'all you can eat, self-serve' buffet of scuba diving, offering mainstream sloping wall (coral reef) diving in very good viz., warm water, low-current often aquarium-like conditions outside the hurricane belt with little seasonal variation so whether you go August or December doesn't matter all that much.

Like good food buffets on land, it offers good diving, all you want, at an excellent value price overall. You dive when and where you want for as long as 2 tanks can hold you & your buddy.

That's the magic. That's the hype. That's why I've been there 8 times, a week per trip.

Bonaire is not...

1.) Sharky.

2.) Great for big stuff (aside from tarpon, a few big barracuda, green moray, a few tiger grouper, cubera snapper, the occasional fairly big turtle, rainbow parrotfish, midnight parrotfish).

3.) High variety. Yes, the Cliff & Small Wall offer vertical walls, and the east coast is different, but the mainstream west coast dive sites most hit most of the time tend to very roughly follow a general form. Some better than others.

4.) Super convenient - if you love live-aboard diving where you set your gear up once, staff refill your tank between dives, and you only haul gear walking to & from your bench to the rear to giant stride in or ladder out, then hauling gear around in a truck, walking in geared up, watching your footing in the shallows, etc..., is more work.

I love Bonaire. I recommend it highly to people who will love what it offers. But don't expect the drift diving and varied topography I've heard Cozumel has, the sharks of the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos, the topside lush rainforests of Dominica and Saba, the 'best diving in the Caribbean' I keep hearing is found at Bloody Bay Wall in Little Cayman, the big animal action of the Socorros/Cocos/Galapagos, the biodiversity of Indonesia, those neon-colored nudibranch photos of the Philippines & other places, etc...

If you come to Bonaire with a mindset to appreciate it, I think you'll like it. But don't come as a seasoned gourmet diner seeking a made-to-order specialist delicacy entree'. Come as a mainstream food lover after plenty of good value good eating and stuff yourself.

My 2 cents, anyway.

Richard.

 

[Hintermann]

Thanks ddrich2, that is pretty much what I expected and I am sure I'll enjoy it.

Though primarily a liveaboard diver, I have done my share of 'inconvenient' diving, including shore diving. UK itself (with 3 times as much weight as I will need in Bonaire), Malta, Tulamben etc. I'll manage.

 

[RJP]

VI am aware that Bonaire is a specialty shore diving destination but the mode of entry is of little importance to me compared with what I am likely to find once underwater.

You don't really understand what Bonaire is about. What you are likely to find underwater in Bonaire is COMPLETELY a function of the mode of entry.

Shore diving in Bonaire allows you to:
- dive wherever you want
- dive whenever you want
- dive as long as you want
- dive as frequently as you want
- dive with whomever you want
- dive the same sites repeatedly if you want
- skip a site and come back if there are too many people there if you like
- dive after dinner if you like
- dive before breakfast if you want
- dive in the middle of lunch if you want
- etc
- etc

Those things all have a dramatic impact on "what you see underwater" and I would suggest that going to Bonaire without fully embracing "shore diving" as so much more than merely your "mode of entry" would be a genuine travesty. You should be prohibited from entering the country.

:d

Seriously.

 

[Doctorfish]

RJP and WWguy are absolutely correct about Bonaire. The best way to do the island is to just get in the water and enjoy. There are lots of small critters as well as healthy corals. All of the island has good diving. Where you go on any given day depends more on personal preferences and weather. What you see depends on luck. I would not sweat Klein vs main island at all. It's all good.

 

[Hintermann]

I remain amazed that you started planning this 7 day dive trip more than 2 years in advance, supplemented (so far) with 16 new threads and over 100 posts here in the Bonaire SB forum. I'm not saying it's "wrong". I just don't comprehend the need or desire for it.

Actually, that is not quite the way it happened.

My primary destination for May 2015 was and still is Socorro on board the Rocio del Mar. That trip needed to be booked 2 years in advance because they get full-up quickly. In fact Nautilus Explorer was already full around that time when I started checking out 2 years ago.

Having made that booking, I felt that I needed a secondary destination for another week since I had the leave (from work) and was coming all the way from the UK. I considered several options - returning to Cozumel or Little Cayman (where I have already been) or a new destination like Bonaire or Utila. I started asking questions because I wanted to make-up my mind and decided on Bonaire because of its popularity.

Having made the booking with VIP Divers, I'll just let Bas Noij or his colleagues decide the best dive sites to go.

 

[KeithG]

You don't really understand what Bonaire is about. What you are likely to find underwater in Bonaire is COMPLETELY a function of the mode of entry.

Shore diving in Bonaire allows you to:
- dive wherever you want
- dive whenever you want
- dive as long as you want
- dive as frequently as you want
- dive with whomever you want
- dive the same sites repeatedly if you want
- skip a site and come back if there are too many people there if you like
- dive after dinner if you like
- dive before breakfast if you want
- dive in the middle of lunch if you want
- etc
- etc

Those things all have a dramatic impact on "what you see underwater" and I would suggest that going to Bonaire without fully embracing "shore diving" as so much more than merely your "mode of entry" would be a genuine travesty. You should be prohibited from entering the country.

:d

Seriously.

Agreed - the reason we repeat Bonaire is that we get to dive when / where / how long we want. Since we use a 24 hour operator, this means ANYTIME. In our early days we discovered we like night dives. Better than day dives. We were disappointed on many trips by the lack of or cancellation of night dives. Not a problem on Bonaire.

Not having to run to someone else's schedule is the main attraction. On our most recent trip, lunch took longer than we intended, so i ambled down to the dock and told them we were skipping the afternoon boat since we would have to rush too much. We relaxed, finished lunch and then did a nice long afternoon dive from the dock. On our own schedule.

The diving for macro critters is also quite good!