Sperling Family Vacation 2003 : Bonaire, July 31 – August 10

This was our first trip to Bonaire. Rick and I are celebrating our 25th anniversary this year, and we decided to treat ourselves - Bonaire is a relatively expensive destination for us because there are no package tours or direct flights from Canada. I suppose this should have been a romantic getaway for just the 2 of us, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to leave behind our 16 year old daughter Erica. She has been a certified diver for 2 years and had yet to experience really great diving – the dives on our previous 2 family vacations were pretty sad (long stories!). So, partly for our own vicarious pleasure, we took our teen on our special anniversary trip, and never regretted it for a minute!

BONAIRE IN GENERAL
All you lurkers out there who have yet to take the plunge – do it! Go to Bonaire, and go soon! Every diver should experience this island at least once. It is unparalleled, in our experience. Bonaire is relatively expensive (i.e.compared to Cozumel), but you can do this trip on a budget. The definitive website www.infobonaire.com lists a number of budget accommodations. Dining is generally expensive, however, there are lots of great low-cost restaurants. Groceries can be pricey too, but you can save a lot by eating in. Look into private house rentals – if you can find someone who speaks Dutch, ask for help with a Dutch language internet search – we’ve been tipped that lots of people from Holland rent out their vacation properties at reasonable prices. If you do your homework, you can plan a budget vacation - the biggest expense will probably be your airfare which is on the high side.
CLIMATE – no one talks much about Bonaire weather, because it is consistently good. I was concerned that August might be too hot for me but the constant wind made it quite comfortable. I did get a few bug bites (no-see-ums?) in the evening, mostly under tables at open air restaurants, but only if I forgot to wear bug spray. Note biting insects love me, they didn’t bother Rick and Erica at all. I taste better.
WATER – delicious and safe! Reverse osmosis, pure as can be. The tap water is not cold because the pipelines are close to the surface of the ground. Keep a pitcher of water in your frig.
ELECTRICITY – we had a power outage for 2 hours late one evening – not a problem, that happens here at home! We always had hot water everywhere we stayed, but rarely used it.
GROCERY SHOPPING – If you are planning to cook most of your meals, I recommend you go to Bonaire Warehouse ASAP upon arrival and stock up there. Cultimara is great too, they have everything, probably a better selection of some items, but at slightly higher prices. I found the meat quite reasonable. Bacon and sausage were fantastic. We bought a block of boneless skinless chicken breasts, ~ 5 lbs/$8, which were large and kinda tough (I’d been warned by another BT’er!) but one night early in the trip, we thawed and poached them gently and stashed them in the frig for pick-up meals and snacks – plus I made a big batch of rice and homemade spaghetti sauce and hardboiled eggs. Add some bread, crackers, cheese, cold meats. The Dutch canned soups were awesome. We bought duty-free rum and vodka at San Juan airport. Heineken and wine are really reasonable on Bonaire. In the end, we ate “at home” as much for speed and convenience as cost savings. There is no such thing as fast food on Bonaire, you need to SLOW DOWN and accept that even KFC can take 20 minutes + when they are busy. So when we were anxious to be on the road to our next dive or adventure, we skipped the restaurants. Veggies are at a premium on the island – poor / inconsistent selection, and expensive . Salads are expensive in restaurants. That’s what I was craving when we returned from this trip!

my picture

sounds like someone(s) had a good time;)

diving needs "satiated" ;) yeah, that's a pretty good way to put it...and a much better vacation from that point forward - it's a bit crazy when you just can't wait to get in the water;)

nice report!

Hey Deb,

Sorry we missed you guys. I am still trying to get my trip report out. I finally finished going through the pictures.

Cris

That noise your just heard was a great big "whew" from southeastern Arizona. I was looking through your pics (a very nice selection) and wondered if hubby (Rick) and young lady (which I now know is daughter) were "together". There's no photos of you but i guess they just left the picture taking duties to you. Glad you had a good time....and apologies for my jumping to wrong conclusions. You mention rental houses, we rented at Lagoen Hills the last trip and are renting in Belnem this trip(next January). There are quite a few private rentals available and many sights are in dutch and english. Try searching for "vacation rentals bonaire" or take a look at http://www.bonairesite.homestead.com/.... it's got a fairly good listing of rentals. That's where we found the belnem place.

later
joe (the one who jumps to incorrect conclusions)

Deb, great report...I'm assuming you stayed at the Zale's condo at Sand$? (I recognize the furniture! LOL!)

Joe, that's OK, I did the same thing and came back to this thread from Deb's thread where she posted the pics to see who was who! I'm always the one taking the pics as well...I hate having my picture taken!

joe that's a dead link

Duh
I messed up when I copied the link. It doesn't have the three dots after.
try this
http://www.bonairesite.homestead.com/