oceancat
Contributor
Hi. We just got back from Bonaire last night and while I have the chance, I wanted to post our trip.
Travel: Flew AA from Boston to San Juan to Bonaire and back. LONG layovers in San Juan. We got a taxi ($25) to take us to El Morro Fort (it's a US Natl. Park) and walked to Old San Juan for lunch. Very pretty and a nice way to eat up 5 hrs. We stayed at Divi Flamingo and that was nice. Pools are nice, grounds pretty, rooms ok, food ok, but nicely located --5 min walk to town. We enjoyed Calabas, the house reef and the crazy tarpon feeding at night.
Diving: We were there Oct 15-22 and of course, as our luck has it with dive trips, had very weird weather. Even the locals said it was weird. The east side of the island ("wild side") was flat calm. We did 2 days of diving there--one out of a cove by indian inscriptions and the other by Cai. Saw tarpon schooling, sharks (2), turtle, southern stingray (2), interesting coral out of the indian inscriptions site, however, getting in and out can be a challenge with the wave action--not a dive for the less experienced. We did 2 drift dives with 'Larry's Wild Side', which was calmer than on the other side! But, I liked Larry and would go out again if conditions were "wild".
We did boat dives in the am with Divi and had a really nice day at Klein Bonaire--excellent coral, but they spent most of the time going up and down to the same sites we were shore diving in the afternoon, which was disappointing. I would have preferred more Klein. Because the waves on the west side (normally leeward) were kicked up for 4 days, it really dropped the viz. Our first 2 days, we had viz close to 80', the rest of the time, it varied between 30 (I kid you not--no better than New England on a good day) and 50' depending on the site. It also caused a lot of trash to be floating with you on the dives in the shallows. Although most rave about the northern shore dive sites, (Karpata, Oil Slick, 1000 Steps), I personally greatly preferred the southern sites with the double reef system. Hilma Hooker was awesome, as was Angel City. I was impressed with the variety and quantity of eel species and the large schools of critters. We also saw turtles almost every day, which was awesome. I enjoyed dawn diving--very neat to see the sun come up under water.
Food: Everyone raves about Cactus Blue and Cassablanca. They were ok. Cactus Blue had GREAT drinks though. We also ate at Wil's Tropical Grill and Donna's and liked those a bit more. The place I will rave about is La Guernica--mostly seafood, kind of spanish. WOW. We ate there 2x. We tried to eat at Bambu and could never get in (didn't make reservations--we aren't that organized), but they would send us over there and it was really tasty. Just FYI--Lost Penguin was sold and changing owners Oct 29 for those of you who go to Bonaire a lot.
Overall, in spite of the extremely weird weather, it was a good trip and got in lots of diving
Travel: Flew AA from Boston to San Juan to Bonaire and back. LONG layovers in San Juan. We got a taxi ($25) to take us to El Morro Fort (it's a US Natl. Park) and walked to Old San Juan for lunch. Very pretty and a nice way to eat up 5 hrs. We stayed at Divi Flamingo and that was nice. Pools are nice, grounds pretty, rooms ok, food ok, but nicely located --5 min walk to town. We enjoyed Calabas, the house reef and the crazy tarpon feeding at night.
Diving: We were there Oct 15-22 and of course, as our luck has it with dive trips, had very weird weather. Even the locals said it was weird. The east side of the island ("wild side") was flat calm. We did 2 days of diving there--one out of a cove by indian inscriptions and the other by Cai. Saw tarpon schooling, sharks (2), turtle, southern stingray (2), interesting coral out of the indian inscriptions site, however, getting in and out can be a challenge with the wave action--not a dive for the less experienced. We did 2 drift dives with 'Larry's Wild Side', which was calmer than on the other side! But, I liked Larry and would go out again if conditions were "wild".
We did boat dives in the am with Divi and had a really nice day at Klein Bonaire--excellent coral, but they spent most of the time going up and down to the same sites we were shore diving in the afternoon, which was disappointing. I would have preferred more Klein. Because the waves on the west side (normally leeward) were kicked up for 4 days, it really dropped the viz. Our first 2 days, we had viz close to 80', the rest of the time, it varied between 30 (I kid you not--no better than New England on a good day) and 50' depending on the site. It also caused a lot of trash to be floating with you on the dives in the shallows. Although most rave about the northern shore dive sites, (Karpata, Oil Slick, 1000 Steps), I personally greatly preferred the southern sites with the double reef system. Hilma Hooker was awesome, as was Angel City. I was impressed with the variety and quantity of eel species and the large schools of critters. We also saw turtles almost every day, which was awesome. I enjoyed dawn diving--very neat to see the sun come up under water.
Food: Everyone raves about Cactus Blue and Cassablanca. They were ok. Cactus Blue had GREAT drinks though. We also ate at Wil's Tropical Grill and Donna's and liked those a bit more. The place I will rave about is La Guernica--mostly seafood, kind of spanish. WOW. We ate there 2x. We tried to eat at Bambu and could never get in (didn't make reservations--we aren't that organized), but they would send us over there and it was really tasty. Just FYI--Lost Penguin was sold and changing owners Oct 29 for those of you who go to Bonaire a lot.
Overall, in spite of the extremely weird weather, it was a good trip and got in lots of diving
