Thanksgiving week 2000 - Part I
Flights:
We had booked our flights back around June/July before Air Aruba went under; Saturday to Saturday, but the flights were still not a picnic. We were only able to get Miami connections out of NYC's LaGuardia airport instead of Newark due to others who had been planning their flights even further in advance. From Miami, we went to Curacao. Both of these were on American and their improved seat pitch program makes flying in coach downright comfortable to how bad it has been over the past few years…and we can’t blame the airline for the couple with the two screaming kids that constituted the rest of the passengers in our aisle on the return flight.
A long layover followed in Curacao…4 down, 6 back. Not a terrible surprise. The Bonaire connection was via an ALM puddle jumper. It only ran an hour late. BTW, I haven’t noticed it being mentioned, so I will: it’s a bit of an understatement to say that a Dash-8 is a bit tight on carry-on luggage space: there is enough room under a _pair_ of seats for your typical roll-on bag, but the overhead compartments were of the narrow, ~8.5" tall type. Our roll-on fit under our two seats and my soft sided Tamrac 610 camera bag just barely squeezed into the overhead after a few shoves and grunts. FWIW, I did notice that it looked like many of the other passengers carried small (and 'half full') duffels or backpacks that were able to deform to squeeze into the overhead compartments.
On the return, ALM’s 9am flight ran on time and we escaped from the Curacao 'In Transit' airport lounge and hit the downtown for ~4 hours...only to get inundated in what was apparently their annual Saint Nicholas celebration/parade! FWIW, we still had our $20 receipts, so we didn’t have to re-pay them when departing from Curacao.
On the way down, AA checked our baggage all the way through and ALM confirmed it. On the way back, ALM checked our bags only to Curacao and we were then stuck with it during our layover. Some people left it in the one lounge, but we got a full-sized car for ~$50 for the layover and filled its trunk.
Hotel Accommodations:
Stayed at the Divi Flamingo's Timeshares, due to a "freebie" certificate. Generally, they were in good shape, and as has been reported, Divi has just completed Phase I (hotel rooms, pool area, Chibi restaurant, etc) of a general renovation project...the Timeshares are the current project: new appliances, paint, etc. Our room didn't have a TV or phone, but did have a new stove & fridge. While there have been the noise of jackhammers this summer, it was quiet while we were there...at least from the workers. We did find that there's a lot of traffic noise present, predominantly heavy trucks at ~6am moving out of the port facilities, I guess. Plus racing motorcycles in the evenings. The Air Conditioner was a bit noisy and the weather was nice, so we were sleeping with it turned off and the unit's front & rear windows open...not that it probably would have mattered all that much. Biggest complaint with the room was the small size of the bathroom. The toilet & shower stall are walled off together and is a bit smaller than you find in a camper...you almost feel that you need to open the door to have enough room to wipe :-)
Overall, I'd say that the hotel was perhaps 25% full. Apparently, the hotels are caught in the squeeze with the shortfall in airline seats servicing the islands. There's talk in the newspapers that ALM might get bought out by a US Carrier…? Other guests commented that Thanksgiving week is usually much busier than it was this year.
Dive Operation:
Divi Flamingo had "Dive I" taken out by Lenny's waves last year, so all dive operations are out of what had been called "Dive II", on the North end of the property, although they're still using Dive I's compressor...we watched the diveboat haul tanks back & forth twice per day for filling. The UW photo shop that they used to offer is no longer; I didn't get a chance to ask why or what happened. Diveshop manager Sergio has been on staff for only ~5 months, which probably coincides with July 1st, when Stevo Schwartz (from Divi Tiara, Cayman Brac) took over as hotel manager. Stevo did tell me that he has new engines on order for the diveboats...John Deere's. They were having problems with one of the boats (Flat Top) not wanting to always start...we radio'ed in once for a jumpstart.
The Marine Park briefing & checkout dive was very abbreviated...no one were first timers. I was kind of surprised that we were allowed to go out on our own on the checkout dive without any staff. I also had forgotten about how they usually schedule these orientations after the first AM diveboat leaves, so I had more time than I thought I would to do my camera preparation that morning (not that I don't usually wake up at the first sight of dawn when on a dive trip anyway :-). No boat dives on Sunday.
Unlike some other Bonaire dive operations, Divi's standard is to run a 2-tank AM diveboat, which may or may not return to dock between dives. Be at the dock at 8:15am to do your gear setup; 8:30 departure. Back to dock by ~11:45. The PM boat is a 2pm 1-tanker. As usual, I passed, although I did get in some PM shore dives. Recommended dive profiles were 75fsw for 45 min (1st dive) & 50fsw for 45 min (2nd dive). Hooker was 20 minutes max bottom time, with a particularly attentive DM making sure that everyone ascended via the mooring and performed a full 3 minute long safety stop.
Weather:
Almost perfect. Overnight low temperatures were 79-80F, high ~86F and a reliable easterly breeze. Water temperature ran 82.3 - 82.8 F. Occasional rain...overnight, mostly, plus a couple of quick-to-pass daytime events, a few of which would be heavy.
The biggest problem was that it had been a rainy month and there was standing water around, so the mosquito's were out in force at sunset in the cafe's & restaurants at dinnertime. There were also pesky no-see-um's up north at Gotomer (flamingo sanctuary). Had several nice sunsets, including 2 good and 1 downright excellent sightings of the green flash…I hope the photos come out.
Food:
While our unit had a kitchen in it, we generally only use the 'fridge for soda/juice/beer/etc. I grabbed breakfast at Divi each morning and we generally went out someplace for lunch & dinner.
Dinners:
Den Leyman - still good.
Richards - still good.
Le Wok - 1st time here; would definitely go back.
Beefeater's - ditto. Another winner. BTW, don't split the crepe dessert...get one each! :-)
Blue Moon - nice food, but was disappointed due to poor table service
Lunches:
Subway - fair/okay. Useful to get a quick something 'to go'. We would have preferred the Sandwich Factory, but it appears that they went out of business.
De Tuin - a nice place downtown. BTW, they also offer an internet cafe here.
Swiss Chalet - home of the best Roshdie (sic) on the island :-).
Chibi Chibi - (at Divi) reminiscent of the Green Parrot. Fish below are already adapted to handouts.
FWIW, we didn't get over to China Nobo, which Bill & Cathy LaBarge had taken us previously.
Crime:
Nothing too much particularly obvious, but we didn't spend much time out on the shore dive spots on this trip or looking too hard. However, on Wednesday morning, on my way to breakfast, I found a Toyota RAV4 in our hotel's parking lot with a brand new busted out left rear window, courtesy of an overnight opportunist. There was a hotel beach towel and a pair of fins remaining on the back seat...the guess would have been that there was something more. I have a photo of one of Divi's security guards discovering the car, if that says anything.
Also, the “Swiss Chalet” restaurant was burglarized last week, a day or two before we ate there on Thursday. The thief who broke in got their stereo (w/CD's) camera...and stayed long enough to make himself dinner & washed it down with two Amstel beers! The break-in made the local paper (the hostess had a copy).
Divi has put up new 10ft tall fencing around much of their compound to restrict access, but with various gates here & there that lack locks, plus their parking lots being very close to the road, the compound is obviously still quite porous. They do have security guards on site, but they tended to hang out near the Casino's front door, instead of behind the Casino, such as where the aforementioned rental car window-smash occurred. We used the hotel's security lockbox in the room & practiced good security protocols as a matter of course.
Elsewhere, there still remains a plethora of buildings with bars on the windows, fences & walls with barbed wire (or cactus!) along their top and so forth. Current conventional wisdom is now to LOCK your car because the opportunists are stealing batteries & spare tires out of empty/open cars. Both rental cars that we used came with steering wheel "Club" types of auxiliary locks. Its all still very unfortunate to see.
(end of Part I...forgot to hit the "SEND" the first time :-) |
By H. Huntzinger on Friday, December 1, 2000 - 4:59 pm: 
