rufous:
My wife and I love to both scuba dive and kayak. The type of kayak we like to use is the larger 2 person sit in ocean kayaks as opposed to the smaller sit on top leisure kayaks. We are new to both activities. I have done 11 dives and my wife has done 8 dives. We have only kayaked a couple times. We would like to find a place in the Caribbean to do both activities. In the little searching I have done so far it looks like both can be done in Bonaire. I am a bit confused by that because one website said Bonaire typically has calm waters making kayaking safe and easy but another site says that the windsurfing in Bonaire is fantastic. I would think if it were windy then the waters would not be calm. So some clarification about that would be appreciated.
Additionally it seems that Bonaire is best when just doing shore dives (many have said that boat dives are unneccesary there as great diving can be done right from the shore). However since my wife and I are novices we do not feel comfortable diving on our own yet. So I wonder if there are dive masters there who could take us out on some shore dives at a cheaper price than doing the boat dives (or should we just do several boat dives early in the week with a dive master followed by shore diving on our own?).
Finally are there other destinations in the Caribbean (I include Belize, Roatan, Bonaire, Cozumel etc here along with all the other usual Caribbean islands) that offer both scuba and kayaking that we should be looking into? We do not need much in the way of other activities to keep us happy. We are not big shoppers are night time partyers. Thanks so much, Brian C.
Brian,
There are several places to rent Kayaks on Bonaire. Bonaire Dive & Adventure has both escorted tours and also rentals. The Plaza Resort also rents kayaks, but the only ones I saw there were the sit-on type so I don't know if they have ocean kayaks.
The westside of the island, which is where most of the divesites are, is generally flat calm, at least in the morning. Sometimes the wind picks up a little in the afternoon so you get a little chop. If you do go there, bring a good pair of treaded boots, there's usually coral/coral rubble just offshore at a lot of the divesites. Some of them have a small sandy area where you can enter/exit easily. You can also kayak along there, we saw several people go by in sea kayaks one afternoon. I'm guessing they were from the Plaza or they had a long kayak from the dive resorts north of town.
The other good area for kayaking is the mangrove area off Lac Bay. Lac Bay being on the east side of the island catches all the wind, making it good for windsurfers. And it's really shallow.
Being new divers, there are several options for escorted diving. One thing we did was go out with a BD & A naturalist to Bari Reef for a REEF fishcount. I think it's around $50 for the dive and you do a reef survey while diving in about 30-40' max. on Bari Reef which is said to be the most prolific reef in the Caribbean. The naturalist accompanies you and writes the names of the fish you see on a slate. Then you finish the survey postdive and they send it in to the REEF foundation.
We saw a family of squid there in less than 15' of water and there's seahorses in the area. It's an easy entry off their dock with steps into the water. They're located just south of the Sanddollar condo's
You could also go on a DM accompanied dive to either of the Piers, since the new port regs. went into effect last summer, it's the only way to dive them now. Salt Pier is a good, shallow day dive with an easy sandy beach entry. The farthest piling is only in 40' or so, past that it drops off quick. And the coral encrustation on the pier is outstanding, some of it is fire coral though, so don't touch it. We shot some of our best video footage there
I think most of the dive ops on Bonaire provide DM's for shore dives if you want to pay them. We did some boat dives with Toucan and made arrangements($25) with one of the DM's for a Town Pier night dive, we each brought our own tanks and gear, I don't think it was a Toucan outing, but rather a private deal.
Most of the dive resorts north of town have easy pier access to their house reefs and the water is generally calm. About the only areas I'd stay away from being new divers are sites south near the Lighthouse, there's some ripping currents there at times, especially in the afternoon and the Eastside. There's an outfit called Larry's Wildside Diving that dives there, I'm sure his name has something to do with the diving. And the area between Karpata and Rappel can be a little challenging at times, both the entry/exit and the currents.
A couple other areas come to mind for diving/kayaking, Cayman - although I don't know what it's like since Ivan tore it up. The diving is great there, and the shorediving is easy, every place that offers it has a pier with steps to get in the water. Although there's only about 1/2 dozen or so shoredivesites along/near 7 Mile Beach, most of the diving is by boat. You can get out on the North Wall from two places and also dive the Mermaid at Sunset House.
There's also eco-touring by Kayak in Belize, but I've not been there(yet) so I don't know what it's like. I also think they do that at Anthony's Key Resort on Roatan.
Steve
