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Trip Reports: Feb 3 - 10th Trip Report (1st time to Bonaire)
Bonaire Talk: Trip Reports: Archives: Archives 2000 to 2005: Archives - 2004-08-02 to 2005-05-08: Feb 3 - 10th Trip Report (1st time to Bonaire)
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Shelly Fischer (BonaireTalker - Post #16) on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 8:18 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Getting there and back (AIR JAMAICA):
Well, we flew Air Jamaica from Chicago O'Hare to Montego Bay, and from there caught the next AJ to Bonaire. Everything went well, flights were on time and luggage arrived with us and intact. Not so the return trip. We arrived at Flamingo airport at 2pm for our 4pm flight. Turned out the flight was canceled and we got picked up by an AJ flight that had been in Curacao around 6pm. At this point, we worried we would miss our connecting flight in Montego Bay on AJ. Turned out that our flight was again late. We were scheduled to leave at 8:10pm and it was more like 9:30pm. Didn't arrive at O'hare until 1am. Needless to say we will never fly AJ again. They were almost as bad as TACA was for us last year.

Accomodations (SunOceanfront Apartments):
This place had nice apartments. The building had 13 apts, and we were on the 2nd floor. Had problems finding it because we weren't given any instructions to get there. It was after 5pm when we rolled in, and the office was just closing. YIKES! What if they had been gone? We were thinking that we would have ended up having to find some other place to stay for the night. The apt itself was nice though. Had 2 good working AC units. Kitchen well stocked with utensils and cooking equipment. 2 bedrooms, 1 upstairs in a loft and 1 downstairs. We had 2 bathrooms and both of us could clean up after diving at the same time. This was Handy! Alan fell down the whole flight of stairs while wearing dive boots on the 2nd day there. No handrails! He almost took me out as I was coming up from the bottom of the stairs. Pool area and outside courtyard was nice. Buddy dive had a satellite dive shop on the premises for us to get tanks etc....

Truck Rental (AB Rentals):
We had a Mazda dual cab pickup truck that looked very nice, however didn't run well at all. Especially in the AM couldn't keep it idling hardly and it was an manual transmission. Needless to say, a very rough ride. On about day 6 it overheated at Bachelor's Beach. We did the dive and then took it back to the airport and got a new vehicle. That one was 100% better and we wished we had exchanged them sooner. The rental place did give us a hard time about switching though.

Food:
We didn't eat out too much because we had the kitchen in our apartment. The 1st night in Bonaire we ate at Coco's. Drinks were excellent and food good. Prices were very high however $60 US. We ate at Croccantino's on the 6th night. This food was good, but also very high priced. On the weekend we had Bobbejan's BBQ - excellent food and very cheap. Also handy for us because it was right next door to our apt. complex. We ate several meals there. It was actually the best food we had on Bonaire. (Not that the food was bad anywhere, I'm just very picky and don't like alot of things) We ate 2 meals at City Cafe too. This food was fairly good too and reasonably priced. One thing we noticed about Bonaire was service was really slow. We understood that this is the Island way, but waiting just as long for our checks as for the food.....jeez!

Diving:
We did all shore diving. I'm wishing we had lined up some boat dives, as we were exhausted all week and had only done 15 dives total. There was almost always surge and we really got beat up by waves and coral going in and out. Some sites were easier to do such as Oil Slick and 1000 steps. I think we were spoiled diving because of super easy shore diving in Roatan last year. Well, back to reality with shore dives!

Day #1 Diving ----> 1) Something Special - Checkout dive in the harbour. Nice dive with 1 hour bottom time. Saw some things we didn't see the rest of the trip - Queen triggerfish (1st time either of us saw this fish), Hawksbill turtle (1st time I saw one of these), also I saw a whitespotted filefish for the first time too. :-)
2) Karpata - saw trumpetfish, bluespotted cornetfish, trunkfish, scrawled filefish, butterflyfish, and puffers. Overall a nice dive too. Over 1 hour bottomtime. Surge bad on exit though. I almost cracked my head on the large cement slab here. I would have been one hurting unit if that would have happened.
3)Andrea II - Scorpionfish, glasseye snapper, barracuda, parrotfish, 2nd turtle of the trip (Hawksbill), rock beautys, trumpetfish. This site was rough and it was late in the day. Almost looked like it was on private property.

Diving day#2:
1) 1,000 steps. The steps weren't bad at all. Even coming up them wasn't bad with gear on. Saw cowfish, many flamingo tongues, 4 spotted drumfish, saw my 1st goldentail eel, lettuce slugs of several colors. Saw 2 silver fish flitting around the shallows. Neither of us had seen before. We think the were palomentas. This was the only thing they resembled in our fish book. We really enjoyed this dive alot. :-)

2)Witch's Hut. Not too bad an entry, however we ended up way off course when we came up. Surge was bad and we ended up basically climbing a 5 foot rocky cliff to get out of the water. OOPS! We were both a bit crabby after this one. :-(

3)Bachelor's Beach. Not what I expected when I think of a beach. You must walk down steps to get into the water. Was a nice dive though. Saw our first sharptail eel here. Also saw a tarpon about 6 feet long. WOW! Saw the 1st green moray of the trip here. Played around with a peacock flounder here and got some really nice pics of him. Harder getting out of this site then it was to go in.

Day #3 diving:
1) Windsock - Saw tons of morays here --> green, spotted, and goldentails. Saw 2 squids and black margate. Didn't get pics of these squids....too far away. This was a easy entry and exit.
2) The Lake - Very nice dive site. Saw alot of angelfish, black margates, coneys, groupers and morays. Saw my first black crinoid here and he had a little arrow crab friend with him. Saw my first banded coral shrimp here too.
3) Something Special - My 2nd attempt at a night dive. (1st was in Roatan and didn't work out for me). We went out at dusk so there was still some light. This worked for me because we knew this site well and knew the layout. Saw many morays, tuna, squid, and many sea urchins. Night diving is cool! Everything going to bed and/or coming out. No octopus though! :-(

Day #4 Diving:
1) Hilma Hooker - We got there early so as to beat the crowd from shore and by boat. I think there was only about 8 of us there at the time. We thought there would be more coral growth on the boat. Not the best wreck we've seen, but not bad either. We spent more time examining the reef I think.
2) Angel City - I think this was our favorite dive site. So many fish and the double reef. The 2nd reef is way better than the one closer to shore. Schools of fish everywhere on the 2nd reef. Saw many black durgons, jacks, black margates, and more. Saw lettuce slugs and flamingo tongues too. We saw our 1st octopus of the trip here on the 2nd reef. I think he thought it was nighttime because of the cloudy overcast day. We wanted to go here again, but the conditions were so rough that we never got back there. :-(

Day #5 diving:
1) Oil Slick Leap - I wasn't too thrilled about giant striding off a cliff into the water, but it wasn't bad at all. This was also one of our favorite dives. Saw a bunch of squids here and 1 even let us get some pictures. Many fish here and was easy to find our way back to entry site. Climbing the ladder out was actually easier than climbing a boat ladder because it was stationary. This was also a dive we would like to have done again.
2) Something Special - Yes we did this site a lot but it was nice to just walk outside our courtyard and hop into the water. Saw many morays, saw a ton of pederson cleaner shrimps and banded coral shrimps on this dive. Not sure why we didn't notice them all before here....I think we slowed down more on this dive. I played with the underwater camera alot on this dive going after macro shots. Got many good pics on this one.
3) Something Special - Night dive. Found an octopus in a gorgorian and played with him a while getting many pics. Saw 2 sharptail eels and many other eels. Some we weren't sure what they were...they had totally white heads. Saw about a 3 foot porcupinefish here too. Too far away for a good shot though. Much better night dive than the one prior to this.

Day #6 diving:
1) Bachelor's Beach - We stopped here again because our truck was overheating. We decided to dive this site again while the truck cooled off. Conditions much rougher this time. Wasn't a bad dive, but both of us were growing weary of the rough shore conditions. Mutually decided not to dive any more after this.

OVERALL IMPRESSION:
Was a pretty island and was nice to drive around and see the wildlife and sites. Diving was tough for us, but saw many new things here in Bonaire. We're thinking we should have lined up some boat dives, especially after talking to one of our fellow passengers on the planes home. She broke for fibula shore diving in Bonaire. After all our misshaps, we are thinking we were really lucky we weren't more seriously injured (Just a little beat up and sore). Some people were really friendly, but didn't seem as nice as what we've read on BT. We thought people were very distant except for other travelers. Weather wasn't nice at all....overcast and windy everyday. We really were hoping for one really nice day, but didn't get it. The bugs weren't as bad as what we read though. This was one really big plus! We were mostly covered at night, when they are the worst though. I'm not opposed to coming back to Bonaire, I will just do things differently next time. Different accomodations and boat dives for sure. I really hated to leave the last day and come home. I'm already wishing for the warm weather!

Once again here is the beginning of the pics from the trip. (Choose the Bonaire album)

http://community.webshots.com/user/littlenurse73

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Marcus L. Barnes (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #232) on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 8:47 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Interesting report. We've never expirienced a day on Bonaire without sunshine. We've never really had problems with surge while shore diving either. I wonder if the surge and overcast conditions are typical on Bonaire in the winter? We normally go in October. Our next trip is in April. It will be interesting to contrast sea and weather conditions to what we have been expiriencing for the last 4 years in October. Anyway, glad to read that you remain open to Bonaire as a dive vacation destination.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By John Rising (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #8) on Monday, February 14, 2005 - 3:08 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi Shelly,

Thanks for posting your experiences on your trip. I leave tomorrow for Bonaire for the first time. My dive buddy and I are flying AA. Hopefully we will have better luck with the flights. The trip was a toss up between Roatan and Bonaire since I knew nothing about either one and both sounded great. The only place I've dived before was Hawaii.

Your Bonaire post will be helpful for picking out dive sites and knowing what to expect for my trip. You have some great photos on your site, by the way.

When I return I'll post my experience. With luck I'll have some photos to post at my personal website http://www.risingphotography.com when I get back. It will be the first time I'll be taking photos while diving.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Andrea & Dave Bartlett (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #128) on Monday, February 14, 2005 - 12:55 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi Shelly, Not sure why but what little surge that we have found is worse up north in the afternoon and down south in the morning. It has been doing a lot more than normal raining and wind, that may be why you had overcast skies and heavier surge. Most resturants won't bring your check until you ask for it. They want you to relax and won't rush you out by bringing the check until you are ready. Try Bonaire again Please. It is a beautiful island with beautiful people.
Andy

 


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