cstreu1026
Contributor
Well I have fianlly gotten motivated enough to right a trip report about my honeymoon.
We spent the first week at Buddy Dive in Bonaire. The trip got off to a great start with a 4AM departure from The Hilton near the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Airport. We arrived at the airport, waited in a short line and breezed through secuirty were on our way to Dallas, then San Juan and finally Bonaire more than 12 hours after we left Cincinnati. All of our flights were either on-time or early. I was a bit apprehensive about flying on a prop plane but despite a bit of turbulance halfway between San Juan and Bonaire everything went smoothly. The plane was loaded with scuba divers heading to the dive festival.
Once we cleared customs in Bonaire and gathered our luggage we were greated by a member of the Buddy Dive staff. Sorry i don't really recall names that well but she was wonderful. She helped load all of our bags, and we had a lot. Off we went to the hotel. It was nice to not have to check in that night since we had been up since 3 AM and it was now almost 10pm. She helped drag all of our gear into our room and left us on our own. I am not sure if it is normal or not but the staff had placed fresh flower blossoms all over our room and left us a bottle of wine. The next morning we crawled out of bed and made our way to the dive shop for our orientation. We were given a tour Sandra (at least I believe that was her name) and we were off to do out "check out dives" We did a very short dive out to the edge of the reef and back before getting out and heading for something to eat. We had gotten up late and missed breakfast but fortunately we were done in time for lunch. We had one of the best hamburgers I have ever had at Buddys before we went to check in and get the keys to our truck. We had signed up for a nitrox class that afternoon so the rest of our day was filled with text book type stuff. We did opne more dive just before dusk on the house reef. We had dinner at the bar that night (can't say it was all that great) and called it an even ing very early.
The next day we were up bright and early for breakfast and a morning dive. we did out first of two nitrox check out dives on 32% to a depth of 70ft. got to see the usual reef type stuff. Lots of hard coral, more parrot fish than I could count, tangs, squirrel fish. All in all a pretty amazing dive since I had never seen anything like that in the quarries.
We returned to our room, took a nap, ate a late lunch and then headed out for a late afternoon dive. That nice we ate at Mango which is just a few doors down from Buddy's. I had some shrimp which were good, but I can't say a whole lot for the chicken my wife had. Atelast we found something we both could eat since neither one of us is very adventurous when it comes to food.
The next day followed the same routine and we did the exact same dives but still had a great time. We did do a night dive that evening...out very first. We found out we were not comfortable being our their at night without being with someone who knows their way around. We were greated by a very large tarpon on the swim back in. That is the biggest thing I have seen to date and very impressive. On the following day we dicided to head down the reef to Captain Don's to see La Macha (or somehting like that) but I fell victim to a bit of nausea nd called the dive early as we were to do town pier that night. We decided to take it easy until that night. We had signed up for a private dive and were to meet our dive master Ken from Colorado at the pier around 9. We got there and got geared up and were in to the water around 10 . We were the last people in and the last out. I once again had to call the dive early, just 8 minutes into it. Fortunately we were very close to the entry point so the others (my wife included) continued on with out me. I can't say I am all that disappointed though after hearing about the dive. They were greted with an abnormal amount of surge and my wife said she was very uncomfortable the entire time because she had trouble controling bouyancy in the shallow water. They did get to see a sea horse and frog fish.
Besides the town pier trip we only dived the house reef at Buddy's because we were too lazy to load the gear into the truck. We decided the last day of diving to to take a photography class with the house videographer Martin. It was a great oppurtunity to see things we had missed all week because we didn't know what to look for. I even got to see an octopus crawling across the sandy bottom which was very cool.
I hope next time we get to visit Bonaire it is with someone more expereinced in the island because I know we missed a lot of great placed to eat. We did make it to the Lost Penguin. The food was good (you have to try the lime-coconut syrup on the french toast) and the owners were extremely friendly. We also had a very wonderful dinner the last night at the Lion's Den at Lion's Dive.
For those who have not been out of the country one thing you might want to keep in mind is that gas is expensive. We filled out tank and it cost us $45 (it wasn't even near empty). The part about that that really sucked was that we drove around the island for an entire day and didn't even burn a quarter of a tank gas. Oh well someone is probably thanking us.
So in a nut shell: The diving was very easy and very good. The staff of the hotel and dive shop was very friendly and all around great, and we can't wait to go back.
See part 2 about our trip to Curacao.
We spent the first week at Buddy Dive in Bonaire. The trip got off to a great start with a 4AM departure from The Hilton near the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Airport. We arrived at the airport, waited in a short line and breezed through secuirty were on our way to Dallas, then San Juan and finally Bonaire more than 12 hours after we left Cincinnati. All of our flights were either on-time or early. I was a bit apprehensive about flying on a prop plane but despite a bit of turbulance halfway between San Juan and Bonaire everything went smoothly. The plane was loaded with scuba divers heading to the dive festival.
Once we cleared customs in Bonaire and gathered our luggage we were greated by a member of the Buddy Dive staff. Sorry i don't really recall names that well but she was wonderful. She helped load all of our bags, and we had a lot. Off we went to the hotel. It was nice to not have to check in that night since we had been up since 3 AM and it was now almost 10pm. She helped drag all of our gear into our room and left us on our own. I am not sure if it is normal or not but the staff had placed fresh flower blossoms all over our room and left us a bottle of wine. The next morning we crawled out of bed and made our way to the dive shop for our orientation. We were given a tour Sandra (at least I believe that was her name) and we were off to do out "check out dives" We did a very short dive out to the edge of the reef and back before getting out and heading for something to eat. We had gotten up late and missed breakfast but fortunately we were done in time for lunch. We had one of the best hamburgers I have ever had at Buddys before we went to check in and get the keys to our truck. We had signed up for a nitrox class that afternoon so the rest of our day was filled with text book type stuff. We did opne more dive just before dusk on the house reef. We had dinner at the bar that night (can't say it was all that great) and called it an even ing very early.
The next day we were up bright and early for breakfast and a morning dive. we did out first of two nitrox check out dives on 32% to a depth of 70ft. got to see the usual reef type stuff. Lots of hard coral, more parrot fish than I could count, tangs, squirrel fish. All in all a pretty amazing dive since I had never seen anything like that in the quarries.
We returned to our room, took a nap, ate a late lunch and then headed out for a late afternoon dive. That nice we ate at Mango which is just a few doors down from Buddy's. I had some shrimp which were good, but I can't say a whole lot for the chicken my wife had. Atelast we found something we both could eat since neither one of us is very adventurous when it comes to food. The next day followed the same routine and we did the exact same dives but still had a great time. We did do a night dive that evening...out very first. We found out we were not comfortable being our their at night without being with someone who knows their way around. We were greated by a very large tarpon on the swim back in. That is the biggest thing I have seen to date and very impressive. On the following day we dicided to head down the reef to Captain Don's to see La Macha (or somehting like that) but I fell victim to a bit of nausea nd called the dive early as we were to do town pier that night. We decided to take it easy until that night. We had signed up for a private dive and were to meet our dive master Ken from Colorado at the pier around 9. We got there and got geared up and were in to the water around 10 . We were the last people in and the last out. I once again had to call the dive early, just 8 minutes into it. Fortunately we were very close to the entry point so the others (my wife included) continued on with out me. I can't say I am all that disappointed though after hearing about the dive. They were greted with an abnormal amount of surge and my wife said she was very uncomfortable the entire time because she had trouble controling bouyancy in the shallow water. They did get to see a sea horse and frog fish.
Besides the town pier trip we only dived the house reef at Buddy's because we were too lazy to load the gear into the truck. We decided the last day of diving to to take a photography class with the house videographer Martin. It was a great oppurtunity to see things we had missed all week because we didn't know what to look for. I even got to see an octopus crawling across the sandy bottom which was very cool.
I hope next time we get to visit Bonaire it is with someone more expereinced in the island because I know we missed a lot of great placed to eat. We did make it to the Lost Penguin. The food was good (you have to try the lime-coconut syrup on the french toast) and the owners were extremely friendly. We also had a very wonderful dinner the last night at the Lion's Den at Lion's Dive.
For those who have not been out of the country one thing you might want to keep in mind is that gas is expensive. We filled out tank and it cost us $45 (it wasn't even near empty). The part about that that really sucked was that we drove around the island for an entire day and didn't even burn a quarter of a tank gas. Oh well someone is probably thanking us.
So in a nut shell: The diving was very easy and very good. The staff of the hotel and dive shop was very friendly and all around great, and we can't wait to go back.
See part 2 about our trip to Curacao.
