Hello All,
Long-time lurker, first time poster. I benefited tremendously from information provided by others in preparing for this trip, so I wanted to do a small amount to pay back my karma debt. My wife and I were on Bonaire for two weeks in late February/early March. By way of context, we are warm water divers who were bite hard by the diving bug circa January 2016. Since then we've been to Kona, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Roatan, and Little Cayman. With the exception of handful of "shore" dives at CoCo View, all of our ≈ 90 dives prior to this trip were boat dives.
Lodging. We rented a studio in the "A" wing at Sand Dollar through Home Away/VRBO (listing #264724 on VRBO). Plenty of space for two people and a superb location with just 30 seconds to get from the screened patio to the dock. There are several wagons available that you can borrow to schlep your stuff to/from the truck or dock. The patio was also nice for storing gear. More generally, we liked Sand Dollar's location. There were a number of restaurants nearby. Would stay here again in a heartbeat.
Truck Rental. We followed some advice on here and rented through Poppy and Telerin Car Rental. Booking was reasonably quick with a response to my initial inquiry within about 24 hours. Upon arrival there was someone waiting for us with a sign. We took a short drive with him to just outside the airport where the truck was parked. He hands you the keys and you're on your way. My advice is to immediately -- i.e., before you let him leave -- check the seat belts and make sure the truck will start. Neither the driver nor passenger seatbelt worked on the initial truck he tried to give us. I said that was a no-go and he gave us the small compact car that we rode in from the airport instead for the rest of the day. Poppy then arranged to swap out that car with a different truck later that evening. This truck was well-worn (140k+ kms) but worked mostly fine (e.g., one of power side mirrors didn't work). Would probably look at another company on the next trip. Total charge for 2 week rental including CDW was $851. Price without the CDW would have been $641. Not sure how that compares with other companies. Was fun zipping around in a manual transmission for a couple of weeks.
Dive Op. We used Dive Friends. It does not get more convenient than them and we'll use them again for sure. They have a bunch of locations, including one at Sand Dollar. (NB: One of the staff members we spoke with indicated that they would be opening two more locations in the not too distant future -- one at the new Marriott hotel by the airport and another farther south) As others have previously reported, Dive Friends has taken over the Bonaire Dive Adventures location at Den Laman, which is immediately next door to Sand Dollar, and was in the process of moving into their new digs while were there. As I said above, it's super convenient to access from Sand Dollar. You can get tanks 24/7 at this location and they also keep tanks down on the dock. This makes diving Barireef probably the easiest dive on the island: gear up, giant stride in from the dock, exit via the ladder, and you have rinse tanks waiting for you. If you're doing any boat dives with Dive Friends they will pick you up on this dock.
Beyond using the unlimited shore diving we did a few other things with them. First, because we were completely new to shore diving my wife wanted to do the 1/2 day shore diving course. This consisted of about 30 minutes of classroom instruction at their Yellow Sub location, a guided dive at Yellow Sub, and then a 2nd dive that we "led" at Cliff (their Hamlet Oasis location). It was good for us if for no other reason than it was guided practice at something we hadn't done before. As a result, it built confidence for me and, especially, my wife, who tends to be more anxious about these things.
We also did a night dive of Salt Pier, which is offerred on Wednesday nights (assuming there's no ship docked there). It was us, two other individuals, and the guide. Logic in doing the guided version (as opposed to on our own) was the same: we've done a half dozen or so night dives, so it's still new to us. This was a fun dive and having a guide meant we could relax a bit more and focus on finding things.
Last, we did 2 days of boat diving with Dive Friends. They go north a couple of times a week (Wednesdays and Saturdays, I think). The other days they go to Klein. We did one of each. They were fine dives but I don't think we'd do them again when we return. You're still doing all the work of a shore dive (i.e., hauling a tank and your gear) but you don't get the corresponding independence to dive at the pace that you (as opposed to the guide) want. Save for one sea horse that a guide pointed out, we didn't see anything on the boat dives that we hadn't seen on our own while diving from the shore. Dives consist of a ≈45 minute guided portion and then they get you back under the boat where you have up to 15 minutes to do your own thing. On 3 of the 4 dives, however, we were the only ones left in the water at the 55 minute mark (on the one dive that was different, the guide stayed down for the full 60 minutes, which I thought was nice in terms of signalling "it's okay to take the full time").
Some miscellaneous things that might be useful to others:
(*) We had water temperatures of either 79 or 80 degrees while there (according to our Mares Puck Pros). We both wore 5mm full suits. I run cold, so after the first couple of days I added a beanie and then upgraded a few days after that to a full hood.
(*) I wanted a really good sun hat that covers your neck and ears. When you're gearing up on location you'll spend a few minutes here and a few minutes there in the blazing sun. The shade that you normally retreat to on a dive boat probably doesn't exist. That adds up quickly and remember you're quite close to the equator. The tops of your hands also get a lot of exposure. I'll probably get some fingerless fishing gloves for future trips, but I'm basically albino white so others might not be similarly impacted.
(*) Bring a bunch of o-rings for tanks and something to use to remove old ones. This has been hinted at in previous threads, but the o-rings are often in pretty rough shape. The station where you analyze tanks is often very close to where they fill them and if that machinery is running it can be next to impossible to hear whether you have a leaker or not. After a few frustrating mornings with bad o-rings I started hooking them up to my first stage in the morning before we headed out (we would get fresh tanks the night before) and swapping out any bad o-rings.
(*) We were glad to be there for two weeks. It took us a good 3-4 days to find a rhythm that worked for us. We're pretty tired after even a couple of boat dives and that doesn't include the work of dealing with your gear each day. Don't get me wrong, the absolute freedom you get to do your own style of diving is 100% worth it, but just recognize that you'll be "working" harder than you do on other dive vacations. Having 2 weeks meant we could move at a slower overall pace and have a day where we only did one dive without feeling "bad" about it.
(*) The diving really is ridiculously easy.** I remember researching this trip and reading about how easy people say it is. I forwarded a number of these posts to my anxious wife to allay her concerns. What people write about this is completely and utterly accurate. Swim out to the reef, figure out if there's a current, start swimming against it, find a couple of things to remind you of when it's time to turn back into shore, go for a while, turn around, find the thing(s), swim in. Speaking of the swim in, keep your eyes open on the swim in from the reef. There were a number of really great things that we saw while transiting across a sand patch, including a ton of peacock flounder and an octopus that we watched in 7 feet of water for a good 10 minutes.
** We stuck primarily to the "easy" sites from the Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy book. Did maybe a few "intermediate" ones. Can't speak to the "advanced" ones.
(*) The quality of restaurants is, in general, quite good, but be prepared for service to be slow. Dinner at a restaurant is going to be close to a 2 hour investment. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for epic dining experiences (e.g., tasting menus), but I don't want them on my diving vacations. One way we got around this was to go to a place shortly after they opened for dinner, which got us faster service. We did some cooking in our condo because eating out got old and a hassle. If you're looking to split the difference between prepping your own meal and eating out, Van Den Tweel, the Dutch chain grocery store on the way to the airport, has some pre-made dishes that you can bring home to heat up that are good and reasonably priced. (Remember to bring a quarter so you can borrow a grocery cart) Our favorite meal was at La Cantina del Mar but all of the restaurants we ate at were above the bar (Rum Runners, Eddys, Blue Garden, Zazu Bar, Zenbar, Bistro de Paris, Wil's, Go Green).
Overall, we'll definitely be back to Bonaire. I can see why so many people love it down there. I suspect we'll do it again when we can be there for a full two weeks, but now that we know the lay of the land and what to expect, a one-week trip would easily be worth it for us as well. Hope this helps some of you out there a bit.
cheers,
RCB
Long-time lurker, first time poster. I benefited tremendously from information provided by others in preparing for this trip, so I wanted to do a small amount to pay back my karma debt. My wife and I were on Bonaire for two weeks in late February/early March. By way of context, we are warm water divers who were bite hard by the diving bug circa January 2016. Since then we've been to Kona, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Roatan, and Little Cayman. With the exception of handful of "shore" dives at CoCo View, all of our ≈ 90 dives prior to this trip were boat dives.
Lodging. We rented a studio in the "A" wing at Sand Dollar through Home Away/VRBO (listing #264724 on VRBO). Plenty of space for two people and a superb location with just 30 seconds to get from the screened patio to the dock. There are several wagons available that you can borrow to schlep your stuff to/from the truck or dock. The patio was also nice for storing gear. More generally, we liked Sand Dollar's location. There were a number of restaurants nearby. Would stay here again in a heartbeat.
Truck Rental. We followed some advice on here and rented through Poppy and Telerin Car Rental. Booking was reasonably quick with a response to my initial inquiry within about 24 hours. Upon arrival there was someone waiting for us with a sign. We took a short drive with him to just outside the airport where the truck was parked. He hands you the keys and you're on your way. My advice is to immediately -- i.e., before you let him leave -- check the seat belts and make sure the truck will start. Neither the driver nor passenger seatbelt worked on the initial truck he tried to give us. I said that was a no-go and he gave us the small compact car that we rode in from the airport instead for the rest of the day. Poppy then arranged to swap out that car with a different truck later that evening. This truck was well-worn (140k+ kms) but worked mostly fine (e.g., one of power side mirrors didn't work). Would probably look at another company on the next trip. Total charge for 2 week rental including CDW was $851. Price without the CDW would have been $641. Not sure how that compares with other companies. Was fun zipping around in a manual transmission for a couple of weeks.
Dive Op. We used Dive Friends. It does not get more convenient than them and we'll use them again for sure. They have a bunch of locations, including one at Sand Dollar. (NB: One of the staff members we spoke with indicated that they would be opening two more locations in the not too distant future -- one at the new Marriott hotel by the airport and another farther south) As others have previously reported, Dive Friends has taken over the Bonaire Dive Adventures location at Den Laman, which is immediately next door to Sand Dollar, and was in the process of moving into their new digs while were there. As I said above, it's super convenient to access from Sand Dollar. You can get tanks 24/7 at this location and they also keep tanks down on the dock. This makes diving Barireef probably the easiest dive on the island: gear up, giant stride in from the dock, exit via the ladder, and you have rinse tanks waiting for you. If you're doing any boat dives with Dive Friends they will pick you up on this dock.
Beyond using the unlimited shore diving we did a few other things with them. First, because we were completely new to shore diving my wife wanted to do the 1/2 day shore diving course. This consisted of about 30 minutes of classroom instruction at their Yellow Sub location, a guided dive at Yellow Sub, and then a 2nd dive that we "led" at Cliff (their Hamlet Oasis location). It was good for us if for no other reason than it was guided practice at something we hadn't done before. As a result, it built confidence for me and, especially, my wife, who tends to be more anxious about these things.
We also did a night dive of Salt Pier, which is offerred on Wednesday nights (assuming there's no ship docked there). It was us, two other individuals, and the guide. Logic in doing the guided version (as opposed to on our own) was the same: we've done a half dozen or so night dives, so it's still new to us. This was a fun dive and having a guide meant we could relax a bit more and focus on finding things.
Last, we did 2 days of boat diving with Dive Friends. They go north a couple of times a week (Wednesdays and Saturdays, I think). The other days they go to Klein. We did one of each. They were fine dives but I don't think we'd do them again when we return. You're still doing all the work of a shore dive (i.e., hauling a tank and your gear) but you don't get the corresponding independence to dive at the pace that you (as opposed to the guide) want. Save for one sea horse that a guide pointed out, we didn't see anything on the boat dives that we hadn't seen on our own while diving from the shore. Dives consist of a ≈45 minute guided portion and then they get you back under the boat where you have up to 15 minutes to do your own thing. On 3 of the 4 dives, however, we were the only ones left in the water at the 55 minute mark (on the one dive that was different, the guide stayed down for the full 60 minutes, which I thought was nice in terms of signalling "it's okay to take the full time").
Some miscellaneous things that might be useful to others:
(*) We had water temperatures of either 79 or 80 degrees while there (according to our Mares Puck Pros). We both wore 5mm full suits. I run cold, so after the first couple of days I added a beanie and then upgraded a few days after that to a full hood.
(*) I wanted a really good sun hat that covers your neck and ears. When you're gearing up on location you'll spend a few minutes here and a few minutes there in the blazing sun. The shade that you normally retreat to on a dive boat probably doesn't exist. That adds up quickly and remember you're quite close to the equator. The tops of your hands also get a lot of exposure. I'll probably get some fingerless fishing gloves for future trips, but I'm basically albino white so others might not be similarly impacted.
(*) Bring a bunch of o-rings for tanks and something to use to remove old ones. This has been hinted at in previous threads, but the o-rings are often in pretty rough shape. The station where you analyze tanks is often very close to where they fill them and if that machinery is running it can be next to impossible to hear whether you have a leaker or not. After a few frustrating mornings with bad o-rings I started hooking them up to my first stage in the morning before we headed out (we would get fresh tanks the night before) and swapping out any bad o-rings.
(*) We were glad to be there for two weeks. It took us a good 3-4 days to find a rhythm that worked for us. We're pretty tired after even a couple of boat dives and that doesn't include the work of dealing with your gear each day. Don't get me wrong, the absolute freedom you get to do your own style of diving is 100% worth it, but just recognize that you'll be "working" harder than you do on other dive vacations. Having 2 weeks meant we could move at a slower overall pace and have a day where we only did one dive without feeling "bad" about it.
(*) The diving really is ridiculously easy.** I remember researching this trip and reading about how easy people say it is. I forwarded a number of these posts to my anxious wife to allay her concerns. What people write about this is completely and utterly accurate. Swim out to the reef, figure out if there's a current, start swimming against it, find a couple of things to remind you of when it's time to turn back into shore, go for a while, turn around, find the thing(s), swim in. Speaking of the swim in, keep your eyes open on the swim in from the reef. There were a number of really great things that we saw while transiting across a sand patch, including a ton of peacock flounder and an octopus that we watched in 7 feet of water for a good 10 minutes.
** We stuck primarily to the "easy" sites from the Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy book. Did maybe a few "intermediate" ones. Can't speak to the "advanced" ones.
(*) The quality of restaurants is, in general, quite good, but be prepared for service to be slow. Dinner at a restaurant is going to be close to a 2 hour investment. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for epic dining experiences (e.g., tasting menus), but I don't want them on my diving vacations. One way we got around this was to go to a place shortly after they opened for dinner, which got us faster service. We did some cooking in our condo because eating out got old and a hassle. If you're looking to split the difference between prepping your own meal and eating out, Van Den Tweel, the Dutch chain grocery store on the way to the airport, has some pre-made dishes that you can bring home to heat up that are good and reasonably priced. (Remember to bring a quarter so you can borrow a grocery cart) Our favorite meal was at La Cantina del Mar but all of the restaurants we ate at were above the bar (Rum Runners, Eddys, Blue Garden, Zazu Bar, Zenbar, Bistro de Paris, Wil's, Go Green).
Overall, we'll definitely be back to Bonaire. I can see why so many people love it down there. I suspect we'll do it again when we can be there for a full two weeks, but now that we know the lay of the land and what to expect, a one-week trip would easily be worth it for us as well. Hope this helps some of you out there a bit.
cheers,
RCB
