Bonaire Trip Report 7/28 8/4/2004 Group of 8 from Yardley, PA & Madeira Beach FL. 6 of us Departed July 28th from PHL, after much delay and running around our Air Jamaica flight originally scheduled for 8:20 AM took off at 12:20 PM. Weather Delay from previous night Thunderstorms. Yup we missed our 11:30 connecting flight to Bonaire. Got stuck at the Holiday Inn Sun Spree in Montego Bay yeck. Air Jam picked up the tab. 2 of us traveling from Miami made the connection no problem. Eventually the 6 made it to Bonaire on Thursday 7/29 at 2:30 PM. Group consisted of me & my husband, my mom & dad, and my Brother and his girlfriend, and my aunt & uncle from FL. We booked a package with Caradonna tours thanks Tina! Our 3 bedroom unit at the Sand Dollar was perfect unit D-18. Nice & roomy and clean. We stayed in 2001 as snorkelers and loved it so we returned. Bonaire Dive & Adventures Michael & Office help Joan did the basic orientation as we arrived on Thursday, after much pleading (we were itching to get in the water). That afternoon we headed to Cultimara for basic weekly supplies. For Dinner we chose the Lions Den Burgers we remembered from 2001, and returned for just that. Great meal, fast island service. We saved our checkout dive for Friday morning. After our buffet breakfast at 7 am at house restaurant Mangos we headed to the Pier grabbed our weights and jumped into the Bari Reef for our checkout dive. Ahhhh that was perfect, everything you itch for when sitting in Pennsylvania reading bonairetalk from your cubicle. LOL. In any event we were a relatively new bunch of certified divers all of us under 50 logged dives. That first real day 7/30 we 2 total dives. We did Bari Reef from the Bonier Dive & Adventure Pier the Giant Stride is so easy, tanks are right there along with 3 rinse tanks, and a ladder to climb out. We also did 1000 steps by 2 PM Boat very nice. I must say the Boat that Bonaire Dive & Adventure used was not very diver friendly. Our previous dive travel took us to Cabo San Lucas & Guanacast Costa Rica, nevermind places in FL and this by far was the most uncomfortable boat I have been on. We were squished tight (13 + DM & Captain), leaving null room for gear assembly & water entry/exit. For Dinner we chose the waterfront restaurant at Buddy Dive there was some sort of annual BBQ bash being held by a large group we bought tickets for the buffet & enjoyed the free Rum Punch until 6 PM. Food was great. 7/31/2004 We did a 9 am Boat Dive on Captain Dons Reef at Klein Bonaire we hoped to find the legendary old Lagerback as big as a VW Bug no such luck. Tons of macro life very nice. That late morning we did Oil Slick by shore - lovely dive. Giant stride off the cliff, Early afternoon - Andrea II by shore as well a little tricky entry because of rocks on shoreline. Finally that day we had scheduled a Night Dive on the Pier with the shop for our group 6 of use wanted to go. We booked through Joan in the office the day before had to give her our passports, get a divemaster for every 4 persons + pay $20 pp. Fine with us. We get to the shop at 6:30 PM as requested it seems that we get a lazy divemaster. He learns that we have never done a night dive and refuses to take us our entire group. This reduces me to tears, as I had my heart set on this night dive for the past 3 years. Mr. Wizza (pronounced Pizza with a w), sends us away. His reasoning that you should do at least 1 night dive before the pier. Someone like the office help could have told us this the day before, when we had to submit our passports, I would have gladly did a night dive the day before. There was no other opportunities to night dive the pier before we left on Wednesday. Well what else was there to do - We did the Bari Reef at night as a group- saw an octopus very cool. I must say that after doing that 1 night dive on Bari, I felt not any more competent than I was earlier that day. Because of this disappointing incident, I would not dive with Bonaire Dive & Adventure again would try someplace different. Dont get me wrong every other incident we had was pleasant except for the Night Dive at Town Pier. 8/1/2004 Drove into Washington Slagbaai at 8:30 am nice day in the park. You must snorkel at Wayaka II , as there are 2 very friendly angel fish. Yes they want to be fed. The crusts from our Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches did the trick. They were right off the shoreline to your left if you are facing the water in 2 feet of water. We watched and played with them for a good hour. Great spot to relax lovely beach with shade provided by the cliff overhang. My husband dove (jumped) off the cliff at Boca Slagbaai. We ended up home at 3:30 PM ish several of us (no me) went out on an Afternoon dive on Bari Reef they LOVED this 4 PM Dive I dont know if it had to do with the Moon phase (Full Moon actually a Blue Moon), but there was tons of activity on the reef that afternoon. We will post UW pics with credit to my father Robert Kutsmeda. Stay tuned. For Dinner we went to the Mexican Restaurant in Town on the water (cant remember name), food was good, service was slow on island time. Got my order wrong took forever to re process. 8/2/2004 Toris Reef & Pink Beach in AM Pink Beach had a stingray. Bari Reef in the Afternoon tons of spotted Morays, some seemed to be mating. 2 of our group did a night dive on Bari again and saw the tarpon eating. The remaining went into town to the Rib Factory, on the water by Karels Pier very good ribs better than home. Great service. 8/3/2004 AM Front Porch (TugBoat New York) & Andrea I Turtle sighting. Great way to end the week of diving. In the late afternoon we drove to Lac Bay for pictures we wanted to eat at Kon Tiki but it looked dead. We drove back into town to the Rib Factory again yummm. 8/4/2004 We headed home without incident, no delays, and no glitches. Must say the encounter with each of our service providers was very nice. Telerin rental was great (we had 2 trucks reserved with our package). Bonaire Dive & Adventure has a nice setup with lots of construction going on next door (new apartment bldg & new location for their shop). They have a gear room that remains open from 8:30 am until 10:30 PM. Everyone upon check in gets assigned a diver # & corresponding hook in the gear room IF you want to do early morning or late night dives - take your gear to your room or lock it in a locker which line the walkway to the shops Pier. Let me know if I was unclear on anything. Email us at briggsjr@comcast.net, and I promise Choice Pictures will follow. My mom got my dad a Olympus C-5060 & Corresponding Olympus housing & flash right before we left. He went a bit crazy with 450 pics total. We are in the process of weeding through the junk shots. But I must say, not bad for first time underwater use.
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