I am really busy at work but I wanted to get this in before too much time goes by... I'll break it down by day, hopefully the condensed version is OK.
Sunday 12th - we arrived after flying Continental from Denver to Newark (around 4 hour flight), had a 4-5 hour layover, then took the flight down to Bonaire. I met ScubaSteve001 and friends at the Newark airport, great bunch of people. 5 hours flew by! Anyway, arrived in Bonaire early AM, Buddy Dive had our shuttle ready and we were at the resort minutes after touching down. The Buddy Dive receptionist never even made us check in, simply asked our names, handed us a key and helped get our bags to the room. The room had not been cleaned yet but we were in awe that we got our room so quickly - and took advantage of it by sleeping for several hours. I woke up and snorkeled while my GF slept a bit more, we took the orientation at 9am and went for a dive on Buddy's Reef shortly afterwards. The house reef really is a great place to start your dive vacation, lots of fish and coral. We didn't dive the rest of the day, we were both pretty beat from the long trip from Denver to Newark to Bonaire. In retrospect, I wish I would have gotten another dive in at least, we had NO idea of the pending storm Omar coming...
Monday 13th - we started fairly early, had the free breakfast in our package - btw, if you stay at Buddy's, GET THE BREAKFAST ADDED IN! That was VERY nice when you wake up and want to get diving, the choice is already made and they will make you eggs/omlettes plus a wide array of choices for breakfast, saves lots of time not having to make choices about where to go. Anyway, we took a couple of nitrox tanks down south. I had read in BSDME that Tori's Reef was a good place and it looked good. We dove it, loved it so much we went back and got a couple more tanks and dove it a second time! The reefs really surprised me, I've made too many trips to Cozumel I guess. The corals, while not a colorful as Fiji, were very pretty and seeing both hard and soft corals in the Caribbean was a very pleasant surprise. We had a deal of 6 boat dives thrown in very cheaply so we decided to try a night boat dive later that evening. It was supposed to be at the main pier, but when we got on the boat they would not take us to the pier (even though we paid more to go there). The boat went over to Klein Bonaire but the boat hands said the currents were reverse of what they normally were, very dangerous... well, they headed the boat over to just north of Buddy's resort, everyone on the boat was pissed off - we had paid for a pier dive. My GF and I usually shrug things like this off, on vacation we just roll with the changes. Anyway, at the very end of the dive the whole thing paid for itself, a medium sized Octopus was out in the open for us, light blue, orange, and yellows she showed us, I was loving it! As usual, the DM wanted us to get out of the boat when he was tired of herding divers, but I had told him prior that I would get out when I was ready. We were right below the boat and in about 12 feet of water, I sucked my tank way down watching my Octo lady, what a great night dive.
Tuesday 14th - we woke up to thunderous crashes, went down to the pier to see what all the commotion was about - one of the 2 docks had already been smashed by the HUGE waves crashing in from Omar. Took a lot of people by surprise, and it got steadily worse. Buddy's put flyers on everyone's doors about not diving because of conditions (duh, I wasn't going to get in with those waves!). We decided to drive around the island a bit and enjoyed it even though the rain and wind was heavy. Later in the day they had shut the restaurant, dive shop and entire pier area down. From the restaurant later that evening we watched in vain as the waves tore out the second dock an continued to smash the first one. Sad...
Wednesday 15th - woke up to a very harsh storm going on, stayed pretty close to the room today. We tried driving around but the surge had most of town flooded, we did try to go north but the road from Oil Slick was impassable - they blocked it off early so no one could even try (not sure I would have even attempted it, but there ARE always those kinds of people <grin>). We made it thru the flooded parts of town to drive south just to see, several places the surge was going over the road and we didn't go too far, turned back home. Read books, partied a bit with some other guests at the Lions Den - no power, they were giving out free beers because the coolers were off anyway. There were some pretty good feeling people there!
Thursday 16th - woke up to no rain, the winds had lessened considerable but the surf still had some anger. The dive shop did open up the tank rooms so we could dive. During all this, they had moved the breakfast up north to just before the Oil Slick, I guess the family owns both and they provided us breakfast every day here so I thought that was awesome of Buddy's. Anyway, north road still blocked off, we walked down, the Oil Slick platform had been completely bashed off, the road was impassable from all the debris on the road just past the roadblock. We drove down south and good ole Tori's Reef was calling... the surf was a bit heavy but our plan was to fight the waves out to the reef and then it would be relatively easy to get back to shore, hoping the waves wouldn't beat us up too much. BAD PLAN! All that wave energy was creating a severe undercurrent and we almost didn't get back into shore! We actually made it into the water fairly easy, made it to the reef, and the current was not that bad on the reef. However, the viz was terrible, little white specks in the water, it was like it was snowing or diving in milk. We started into shore and very quickly noticed how hard it was to get into shore. We got near the mouth of the salt gate, and simply could not get close. My GF could not keep up, I got into the inlet but went back for her. Pulling her, I got her into the inlet and a wave crashed and I let go - in a second she was 20 yards back out, going out fast. I swam to her (I took the DM course and swim with an old pair of US Divers Blades, I *can* move if needed!). Pulled her in a second time until another wave bashed us, I let go and she simply could not keep up, started going out again. I can tell you I don't get scared much but I was scared to death at this point. I went out to get her a third time, thinking I am running out of gas, and so was she. I grabbed her, we got right to the inlet, I grabbed a rock, pulled her ahead of me, pushed her tank, then grabbed one of her feet and pushed as hard as I could - she went over the threshold and went into the inlet. I crashed against a rock, and someone grabbed my tank valve - it happened to be one of my newest friends, a guy from Canada (not ScubaSteve001 though). He and I took a wave or two and I just rolled over and told him whatever he was drinking, I was buying! Our Canadien friends were the only ones making any attempt at helping, there were about 5 trucks up by the road simply watching the show. When we made it in they all left - I mentioned this in another thread... i hope these bastards are reading this, all of them suck! Anyways, after my GF cried a bit and we got over our rubber legs, our Canadien friends said they dove way down south at the Lighthouse and there was no current. I convince my GF, we dove it and it was absolutely a beautiful dive, no current. I spoke to a guy who said he had 250+ dives on Bonaire, the current is always bad down there and never dove the lighthouse - this is a testament to the changes the hurricane brought on. We were done for the day at this point!
Friday 17th - there was no other place my GF would dive but the lighthouse so we dove it again early, it was again a beautiful dive. The fans and corals are awesome down there. Found a place somewhere about Pink Beach that looked easy to get in/out, I named it Julie's Reef (after my GF). The viz had come back, VERY nice to be back to somewhat normal diving. We got back and there was somewhat of a celebration going on at the beach bar, most everyone was there. I went for a night dive by myself on Buddy's Reef, no one seemed to want to go and I had one of those really special dives, just by myself. I never went below 45 feet, and literally did not fin that much, going very slow over every piece of coral. I had a 2+foot yellow and green snapper in my dive light the whole time - he must have eaten half the reef from my light. He would suck out fish from under about every piece of coral, started to get on my nerves because I tried to take pics of things and he would get in the way. I had one large tarpon shadow me for just a few minutes but never saw the school that I had been warned would follow my light.
Saturday 19th - we woke up EARLY to get breakfast and get a couple of last dives in. We figured we would stay shallow and with nitrox 18hours before flying would be OK. So, we dove Atlantis (down south) and drove a bit north of Buddy's for our second dive. The Oil Slick platform was gone so we ended up stopping at Witch's Hut and saw a couple of turtles, a sea snake (yes, a snake! The only other place I've ever seen a snake was Fiji), scorpionfish, and lots of others. Great way to end a dive vacation!
So, in summary... even with the hurricane taking a couple of days this vacation was a success to me. I see why so many people return to Bonaire, the freedom of shore diving is incredible and the corals and sea life is also awesome. The apartment/room at Buddy's was really very nice, but we found that the people at Buddy's were either neutral or downright grouchy. Maybe the hurricane had some to do with it but oh well. Not sure I would stay there again, took a look at DivrLiz's place, GRI, and it looks like a good place to be. I will probably stay there if I get back down to Bonaire. I will have to say that I didn't like the worrying about someone breaking into the truck. Yes, I played by The Rules by not locking it or rolling the windows up. I think it sucks that the local law knows this happens and does nothing about it. But really, this didn't have that much affect so before you start the flaming, it wasn't that bad. For those who didn't see the broken glass at the dive sites I say you didn't look though. At Witches Hut there was so much glass in the pulloff we had to be careful putting our booties/suits on.... your mileage may vary. In all, Bonaire is a special place but with the amount of tourist dollars going into that island, I would think some things would be different. My 2 cents, save your flames - I really am PRO Bonaire! Gotta get back to work, hopefully this is useful to someone!
Sunday 12th - we arrived after flying Continental from Denver to Newark (around 4 hour flight), had a 4-5 hour layover, then took the flight down to Bonaire. I met ScubaSteve001 and friends at the Newark airport, great bunch of people. 5 hours flew by! Anyway, arrived in Bonaire early AM, Buddy Dive had our shuttle ready and we were at the resort minutes after touching down. The Buddy Dive receptionist never even made us check in, simply asked our names, handed us a key and helped get our bags to the room. The room had not been cleaned yet but we were in awe that we got our room so quickly - and took advantage of it by sleeping for several hours. I woke up and snorkeled while my GF slept a bit more, we took the orientation at 9am and went for a dive on Buddy's Reef shortly afterwards. The house reef really is a great place to start your dive vacation, lots of fish and coral. We didn't dive the rest of the day, we were both pretty beat from the long trip from Denver to Newark to Bonaire. In retrospect, I wish I would have gotten another dive in at least, we had NO idea of the pending storm Omar coming...
Monday 13th - we started fairly early, had the free breakfast in our package - btw, if you stay at Buddy's, GET THE BREAKFAST ADDED IN! That was VERY nice when you wake up and want to get diving, the choice is already made and they will make you eggs/omlettes plus a wide array of choices for breakfast, saves lots of time not having to make choices about where to go. Anyway, we took a couple of nitrox tanks down south. I had read in BSDME that Tori's Reef was a good place and it looked good. We dove it, loved it so much we went back and got a couple more tanks and dove it a second time! The reefs really surprised me, I've made too many trips to Cozumel I guess. The corals, while not a colorful as Fiji, were very pretty and seeing both hard and soft corals in the Caribbean was a very pleasant surprise. We had a deal of 6 boat dives thrown in very cheaply so we decided to try a night boat dive later that evening. It was supposed to be at the main pier, but when we got on the boat they would not take us to the pier (even though we paid more to go there). The boat went over to Klein Bonaire but the boat hands said the currents were reverse of what they normally were, very dangerous... well, they headed the boat over to just north of Buddy's resort, everyone on the boat was pissed off - we had paid for a pier dive. My GF and I usually shrug things like this off, on vacation we just roll with the changes. Anyway, at the very end of the dive the whole thing paid for itself, a medium sized Octopus was out in the open for us, light blue, orange, and yellows she showed us, I was loving it! As usual, the DM wanted us to get out of the boat when he was tired of herding divers, but I had told him prior that I would get out when I was ready. We were right below the boat and in about 12 feet of water, I sucked my tank way down watching my Octo lady, what a great night dive.
Tuesday 14th - we woke up to thunderous crashes, went down to the pier to see what all the commotion was about - one of the 2 docks had already been smashed by the HUGE waves crashing in from Omar. Took a lot of people by surprise, and it got steadily worse. Buddy's put flyers on everyone's doors about not diving because of conditions (duh, I wasn't going to get in with those waves!). We decided to drive around the island a bit and enjoyed it even though the rain and wind was heavy. Later in the day they had shut the restaurant, dive shop and entire pier area down. From the restaurant later that evening we watched in vain as the waves tore out the second dock an continued to smash the first one. Sad...
Wednesday 15th - woke up to a very harsh storm going on, stayed pretty close to the room today. We tried driving around but the surge had most of town flooded, we did try to go north but the road from Oil Slick was impassable - they blocked it off early so no one could even try (not sure I would have even attempted it, but there ARE always those kinds of people <grin>). We made it thru the flooded parts of town to drive south just to see, several places the surge was going over the road and we didn't go too far, turned back home. Read books, partied a bit with some other guests at the Lions Den - no power, they were giving out free beers because the coolers were off anyway. There were some pretty good feeling people there!
Thursday 16th - woke up to no rain, the winds had lessened considerable but the surf still had some anger. The dive shop did open up the tank rooms so we could dive. During all this, they had moved the breakfast up north to just before the Oil Slick, I guess the family owns both and they provided us breakfast every day here so I thought that was awesome of Buddy's. Anyway, north road still blocked off, we walked down, the Oil Slick platform had been completely bashed off, the road was impassable from all the debris on the road just past the roadblock. We drove down south and good ole Tori's Reef was calling... the surf was a bit heavy but our plan was to fight the waves out to the reef and then it would be relatively easy to get back to shore, hoping the waves wouldn't beat us up too much. BAD PLAN! All that wave energy was creating a severe undercurrent and we almost didn't get back into shore! We actually made it into the water fairly easy, made it to the reef, and the current was not that bad on the reef. However, the viz was terrible, little white specks in the water, it was like it was snowing or diving in milk. We started into shore and very quickly noticed how hard it was to get into shore. We got near the mouth of the salt gate, and simply could not get close. My GF could not keep up, I got into the inlet but went back for her. Pulling her, I got her into the inlet and a wave crashed and I let go - in a second she was 20 yards back out, going out fast. I swam to her (I took the DM course and swim with an old pair of US Divers Blades, I *can* move if needed!). Pulled her in a second time until another wave bashed us, I let go and she simply could not keep up, started going out again. I can tell you I don't get scared much but I was scared to death at this point. I went out to get her a third time, thinking I am running out of gas, and so was she. I grabbed her, we got right to the inlet, I grabbed a rock, pulled her ahead of me, pushed her tank, then grabbed one of her feet and pushed as hard as I could - she went over the threshold and went into the inlet. I crashed against a rock, and someone grabbed my tank valve - it happened to be one of my newest friends, a guy from Canada (not ScubaSteve001 though). He and I took a wave or two and I just rolled over and told him whatever he was drinking, I was buying! Our Canadien friends were the only ones making any attempt at helping, there were about 5 trucks up by the road simply watching the show. When we made it in they all left - I mentioned this in another thread... i hope these bastards are reading this, all of them suck! Anyways, after my GF cried a bit and we got over our rubber legs, our Canadien friends said they dove way down south at the Lighthouse and there was no current. I convince my GF, we dove it and it was absolutely a beautiful dive, no current. I spoke to a guy who said he had 250+ dives on Bonaire, the current is always bad down there and never dove the lighthouse - this is a testament to the changes the hurricane brought on. We were done for the day at this point!
Friday 17th - there was no other place my GF would dive but the lighthouse so we dove it again early, it was again a beautiful dive. The fans and corals are awesome down there. Found a place somewhere about Pink Beach that looked easy to get in/out, I named it Julie's Reef (after my GF). The viz had come back, VERY nice to be back to somewhat normal diving. We got back and there was somewhat of a celebration going on at the beach bar, most everyone was there. I went for a night dive by myself on Buddy's Reef, no one seemed to want to go and I had one of those really special dives, just by myself. I never went below 45 feet, and literally did not fin that much, going very slow over every piece of coral. I had a 2+foot yellow and green snapper in my dive light the whole time - he must have eaten half the reef from my light. He would suck out fish from under about every piece of coral, started to get on my nerves because I tried to take pics of things and he would get in the way. I had one large tarpon shadow me for just a few minutes but never saw the school that I had been warned would follow my light.
Saturday 19th - we woke up EARLY to get breakfast and get a couple of last dives in. We figured we would stay shallow and with nitrox 18hours before flying would be OK. So, we dove Atlantis (down south) and drove a bit north of Buddy's for our second dive. The Oil Slick platform was gone so we ended up stopping at Witch's Hut and saw a couple of turtles, a sea snake (yes, a snake! The only other place I've ever seen a snake was Fiji), scorpionfish, and lots of others. Great way to end a dive vacation!
So, in summary... even with the hurricane taking a couple of days this vacation was a success to me. I see why so many people return to Bonaire, the freedom of shore diving is incredible and the corals and sea life is also awesome. The apartment/room at Buddy's was really very nice, but we found that the people at Buddy's were either neutral or downright grouchy. Maybe the hurricane had some to do with it but oh well. Not sure I would stay there again, took a look at DivrLiz's place, GRI, and it looks like a good place to be. I will probably stay there if I get back down to Bonaire. I will have to say that I didn't like the worrying about someone breaking into the truck. Yes, I played by The Rules by not locking it or rolling the windows up. I think it sucks that the local law knows this happens and does nothing about it. But really, this didn't have that much affect so before you start the flaming, it wasn't that bad. For those who didn't see the broken glass at the dive sites I say you didn't look though. At Witches Hut there was so much glass in the pulloff we had to be careful putting our booties/suits on.... your mileage may vary. In all, Bonaire is a special place but with the amount of tourist dollars going into that island, I would think some things would be different. My 2 cents, save your flames - I really am PRO Bonaire! Gotta get back to work, hopefully this is useful to someone!
