This trip was my fourth to Bonaire with the added pleasure of having several friends go along. There were nine of us so we rented the Hamlet Sunset Villa. A very nice house on the Hamlet Oasis complex next to Captian Dons.

The trip started with an uneventful flight starting in Sacramento via Atlanta and Montego Bay. All flights were on time and no luggage was lost. The rest of our group were from New York, Alabama and Oklahoma.

The house was very nice and perfectly suited for a large group. It is in need of some maintenence but nothing that interfered with our trip. The reef right off of the front of the house was fabulous. We saw a seahorse, large tarpons, Octopi, eels galore and the usual reef fish.

Half of the group rented a pickup from AB and it was a good thing to have since we had so many tanks to lug around. We also had a mini van from Netty's. I had rented from Netty's before and was always pleased with the experience. This time not so much. The van was not in great shape, it kept stalling when going down hill (not that there are a lot of hills) and at some point we either lost the front license plate or it was stolen. Either way, I did not notice it. Where I live we do not have front plates so it never even occurred to me that it was missing. Well Netty had a complete fit at the airport. It was really quite embarrasing the way she was carrying on. I doubt that I would rent from her again.

Our first three dives were in front of our house, we did our check out dive, the afternoon dive and the night dive there. The night dive was awesome with the Tarpon hunting in our dive lights.
The next day we did the Hilma Hooker and 1000 steps. Old blue was a big hit as was Oil slick leap. We went back to Oil slick leap for a night dive and saw more Octopi than I have ever seen on one dive. I even had one crawling over my hand and running it's tentacles between my fingers looking for food.

The diving through out the trip was excellent. The vis was great and the sea life abundant. We did three dives on Klein and of the whole trip these were probably on the bottom of the list for over all quality. I was really quite shocked at the amount of damage from the hurricane. The other side of Klein that escaped most of the damage was nice but the vis was not as good as off shore on the main island and there was a bit of a current. We did however find a frog fish witch was the highlight of the trip.
We ate in for breakfast and lunch every day and then went out for dinner. Mangoes was a treat. We were celebrating a birthday for one of our group and our server went along with the joke and put some hermit crabs that we had brought on his plate so that when the meal was served, there were little crawlies climbing around on his dinner. What a hoot! And not to worry, the crabs were rounded up and taken back to the beach.
We also had a great meal at Rum Runners, Old Inn, and we ate twice at Pasa Bon Pizza. Really great pizza. The dining highlight was at Richards. We went there for a special anniversary dinner and I had called ahead to make reservations. Richard was there and took my call. We had a great table on the water. The service was excellent and the food was terrific. Richard himself sent over a bottle of champange to celebrate the anniversary.

I have logged over 300 dives in the Carib, diving Roatan, Caymans, Bahamas, a Nekton cruise and of course Bonaire and I must say that this was the best trip I have been on. The top side of the island is looking really good. The new business, and the face lifts being given to the older ones are really making the place shine.

I nearly called home and told them to put my house on the market cause I was'nt coming home :-)

Jim

Great trip report.It sure seems like you really had a fun filled trip!
Sorry to hear of your experience with Netty's. My friend, Joann has been using her service for years and has been very happy. Our last trip we got locked out of our van and she came within 15 minutes on her day off. I was pretty impressed with that considering island time and all.