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Trip Reports: Sand Dollar - July 28th - Aug 4th. Group of 8
Bonaire Talk: Trip Reports: Archives: Archives 2000 to 2005: Archives - 2004-08-02 to 2005-05-08: Sand Dollar - July 28th - Aug 4th. Group of 8
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #6) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 5:02 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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 & Adventure’s 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 Mango’s – 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 Don’s 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. Don’t 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 don’t 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 – Tori’s Reef & Pink Beach in AM – Pink Beach had a stingray. Bari Reef in the Afternoon – tons of spotted Moray’s, 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 shop’s 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.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Susanf (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #831) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 5:38 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I think I can explain about the night dive at the pier.

First of all, a lot of people think they can handle a night dive and it turns out they freak out.

Add in the conditions at the Town Pier, and you have a recipe for disaster. Just because your group is small, don't assume you'll be the only group there. It can get VERY tight under there, often there's more than one group at the same time, the sand gets stirred up. Goodbye visibility, hello fin in the face. Where's my mask?!?!?

It's also shallow and for people who haven't quite mastered their bouyancy, with a full aluminum tank, it can be nerve wracking. For those who have mastered their bouyancy, having a bunch of beginners bouncing off them and the pilings, knocking off the coral and tube sponges, kicking their cameras, stirring up the sand and making photos impossible, it's also nerve wracking.

I dove at the town pier a few years ago during the day with Dee Scarr, and I found it a bit stressful even then, what with the shallowness and the pilings being fairly close together with lots of stuff growing off them making the passage between even narrower. Then the tug started up and scared the bejebus out of me... but presumably they don't do that at night. :-)

Take away visibility, add inexperience, and you can become a weapon of mass destruction. It's a LOT different from night diving in a big open area.

The divemaster wasn't lazy, he was prudent.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Susanf (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #832) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 6:04 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Oh, but I'm being remiss: That was a great trip report!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Linnea Wijkhof-Wimberly (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #746) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 6:26 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

They will fire up the tug or other boat engines at night. Sometimes I think they do it deliberately, as they run them for 5 minutes or so and then shut them down. The first time it happened to me I headed to the bottom and made sure I was under the pier. I have given up the town pier dive for that reason and because of the crowded conditions as noted by Susanf. I plain don't like herd diving. That's why I stopped going to the Nikonos Shootoffs, people would get in front of you while you were trying to set up a shot and spook your subject trying to beat you to a picture.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #7) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 6:37 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Ladies - Understood - that the pier can be & is intimidating for new divers - but why allow a new diver to get excited in anticipation of it, and allow them to book it?
They should have told me no from the very beginning - when i started emailing them 6 months ago.....

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #8) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 6:44 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

sunset.bmp

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Susanf (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #833) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 7:19 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jacki,
As to that I can't say - if they were clear on your level of experience, they probably should have said no earlier. It may be that the "front office" people don't really have a feel for what the divemasters live with every day, and their only responsibility is to say "yes" to the potential customer.

Linnea, I know what you mean - I went to the bottom and to the other side of the pier in record time - that thing is LOUD! We'd been nearly underneath it when they started it up, I think they were watching the bubbles and timed it that way.

Jacki, that is a gorgeous photo, what a sunset!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #9) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 8:31 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #10) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 8:40 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Lets try this again.....
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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #11) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 8:49 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #12) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 9:54 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #13) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 9:55 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #14) on Saturday, August 7, 2004 - 10:00 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Tom Cousino (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #809) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 6:53 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks for your report.

Understand your disappointment regarding the night dive. I believe the others were correct, the front office is not trained to say "NO".

I agree with the dive master's decision, I would not feel comfortable escorting inexperienced divers on their first night dive at the pier either. It is nearly impossible to keep track of one dive partner when the crowd is there. Imagine trying to guide and ensure the safety of six. It must have frustrated him as well, to be scheduled to lead a dive which normally earns good tips (a major part of a dive master's income), only to find out at the last minute that he should for the safety of the divers, as well as the marine growth cancel the dive. I commend him for his unselfish action.

Hopefully, for your next trip you will have experience in night diving and are able to add the Pier to your logbook. I feel it is worthy of one dive, all the better if it is scheduled later in the evening when most of the "Herd" (correct definition) is out of the water.

I have had better experiences with the Pier during daylight hours while taking a "Naturalist Course". Saw more marine life and there was less of a crowd to deal with . Still had that "THRUM, THRUM, THRUM" of the tug that can be distracting.

Bari Reef, by the way is one of my favorite night dives on Bonaire.

Your father's captures are great. More please.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #16) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 12:41 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #17) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 12:43 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #18) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 12:46 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #19) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 12:48 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #20) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 12:49 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #21) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 12:50 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #22) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 12:53 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #23) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 12:57 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cynde (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #11894) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 2:21 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jacki, great reports and pictures, glad to see you were able to post them (checked my email before I checked this thread!)

Cynde

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Susanf (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #837) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 5:11 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Great photos, Jacki - hmmmm - I have to go make some chocolate chip cookies... :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Carole Baker (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3901) on Sunday, August 8, 2004 - 10:17 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks, Jacki! cb

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kelly Lott (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1536) on Monday, August 9, 2004 - 9:28 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jacki, great pictures, great trip report!

Remember though that the divemaster is just supposed to "escort" the group... not be completely responsible for a group who have never night dived before... that didn't come out right, but I hope you get the gist of it. It is still helpful to them if you are at least comfortable in the water at night, not everyone is. With the shallow water, and the pilings so close together, there is a very narrow margin for error. You want to be completely relaxed in the water, so you can see the cool stuff without being nervous...

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By DARLENE ELLIS (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1117) on Monday, August 9, 2004 - 11:33 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Great report and nice pictures!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #24) on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 10:14 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks for all the kind words - I got a couple more pics. I am kinda glad we didnt do the Pier, from all the stories I have been hearing.
Turtle.jpg
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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jacki Briggs (BonaireTalker - Post #25) on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 10:17 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

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