The first person we spoke with was a group that drove up to the car rental place to find that their spare had been stolen and it was going to cost an additional $292 because they had not purchased theft insurance on top of collision. I told him "well, you can bet I'm getting theft insurance." He said, "Ya know, they also stole about $300 from us this time. This has happened so many times to us down here. That's it. We'll never come back here." I did not prod for details due to his state of fugue. From that time on, we followed the guidance offered from this website, purchased theft insurance (watch that waiver that states tires are not included-have her write it in that tires are included in the coverage), checked to see if the spare was still there an inordinate number of times, and had a great time. To be frank, we did decide to stick to sites located at resorts a lot for the theft reason and for many other reasons, ease, facilities for washing that we helped ourselves to etc.

what an awesome trip! we will go back! with kids, just ourselves, however! 18th palm, oil slick leap, bari, red beryl, night dive, cai on the wild side (near the conch shells) whoa! snorkeled the lac bay reef twice! oh man that was some exercise and heaven combined.

saw so much great stuff for so few dives. unbelievable. scorpionfish, dueling stick crabs (there's a name there), octopus, eagle and manta, turtle, shark, tarpon by the school, peacock flounder, huge spotted moray, spotted sea snake, cuddlefish, 15lb spotted spiny, a crab on a fan that i can't name he was covered in fur or spines so totally he looked like a coral, kindof.

what a great place. can't wait to go back. already talking about how our lives need more r&r to give our best at our workplace and at home etc etc yada yada; all the necessary justifications for spending the dough. gotta rest, dyin' out...love to talk more later. joe

This has been a really useful trip report - we are due in Bonaire for our first time in early November, and to be honest, all of the reports about car crime, CDW (whether to choose yes/no) Visa insurance etc. etc. were beginning to leave us feeling a little apprehensive about our planned shore diving! We've read some good advice over the last few days, and the ways to minimise these problems - common sense and more than a bit of insider knowledge, should hopefully make our trip a bit smoother.

Saz, When hubby and I go diving, we go in our dive gear to wherever we are going to do our shore dive, leave ALL the windows open in our truck, use a bike chain to keep anything attached to truck and so far, knock on wood, have not had any problems. We have been to Bonaire many times and have just this year bought a place of our own! Just use your head, don't leave anything in your truck that you wouldn't want stolen! Same as in the states, it's just hard to think of theft when you're in paradise, but you are aware now, so go have a great time and take lots of pics, I expect a trip report from you when you get back. You will love the island. Debbie

Saz,
When you pick up your truck or whatever you rent, be sure to take pictures or video tape it in front of the rental agency. Wait until you do the walk around of the vehicle and include the rental agency representative in your pics/video. There will be no misunderstanding when you return your rental. One more thing, make sure your spare tire is in place BEFORE you drive away.

We are inexperienced divers, so we took a while before we got the umphf to leave the beautiful resort on the wild side to go to the calm side (interpret: "less breeze") to dive. also, we were planning on being a little nervous about getting the equipment right etc. well, we tried to go to bon photo tours but missed the driveway and ended up in Toucan Dive shop and sat for the briefing and headed for the checkout dive. At Toucan, the checkout was guided (ours by Monique who was exremely cool) which, for us as beginners, was perfect. We dove as T-shirt divers, and that also was perfect, except it took a little extra time to get the weight belt right. Holy man: the first dive hooked us.

Fear-gone. respect for the dangers remained, but bonaire made us lifers i think. we immediately bought a package of some sort and dove twice a day for 5 days. at first the dives were deep to more fully appreciate the awesome nature of the steep reefs, the full blaze of coral. so the dives were short. toward the end of the week we did a couple of shorter dives- a guided dive off the Cai(number 59?) at the mouth of Lac Bay, from shore, and a shallower dive at 18 palm(loved that one; it is at the Plaza resort? right behind Toucan dive shop) these dives lasted about 100 minutes and we were still comfortable in T-shirts. But we only dove twice a day. We did not get close enough to the coral to scratch our legs or anything (ok, maybe a couple of close calls). we found we did not have to test the "no touch" rule; our bouancy sp? was good. we did a gentle night dive at red beryl (we entered the water when there was a little light left which made it easier) and saw species we did not see during the day(cuddlefish, octopus, and stick crabs?) This was fun. The whole dive scene was fun.

We went on a few dives with a master diver whose buddy was stuck with a head cold, and that made the night dive easy and fun. It also added confidence to doing the Cai dive which is an advanced dive which, again, was guided by Bas at Bon Photo Tours. He was very sharp and thoughtful. Watching him was a great education on movement in the water and breathing.

We stayed on the wild side and again, the constant 15mph trade wind was the most comforting thing i have ever experienced. it was a balmy wind: not hot and not at all cool. we could walk out in the middle of the night with nothing on, and be very comfortable sitting in the breeze. the wind never stopped. it was great. it got a little hot driving around inland (or just driving around anywhere) and that made it difficult to leave the beach. if the diving wasn't as good as it was, we may have never left the beach. that is the difference between the wild side and the calm side: the calm side has resorts right on the water where you can plop in the water with your dive gear on right outside your unit. we had to travel if we wanted to dive. we had great snorkeling in Lac Bay however. on our last snorkel we saw tarpon, a ray and a group of 4-6 giant parrotfish (real Hoovers) on top of so much else (lots of barracuda).

wearing down now. talk later.

Sorry Saz,

About the truck thing. we left some crap in the back of the truck like some sandals, a dry Tshirt, mask case, that we did not care about losing. the only thing we were kinda worried about was losing the spare or having a window broken out. Even with insurance, we did not want the real world hassle of doing the insurance claim thing and police report. who wants to waste a day with that bullshit (or part of a day-we only had 10 days) anyway, we lucked out. we also dove a lot of resort dives-why not? we used the wash tanks for gear and showers, and the dives were great. we did non-resort dives also, (oil slick leap was fun just for the leap off the cliff).

we spent a lot of money on bonaire and have to figure out how to spend less if we are going to go often. we are working on it, but are welcoming any suggestions.

have a good trip Saz. jot any questions you may have, i'd be glad to answer.