This is my first trip report, but my third trip to Bonaire, so please be tolerant. Our trip started with the typical AJ delay of flight. Standing in line at 5:00am in the Atlanta airport we, (my boyfriend and I), decided to take the calm low key attitude and wait it out. At 5:00am we were told we were not leaving, at 6:00am we were told we could get to Montego Bay and spend the night by 9:00am we found out we were going to make our connection and be in Bonaire at our original arrival time. Upon boarding the plan I attempted to sit in first class trying to explain to the attendant that she was holding my boarding pass upside down and was reading it incorrectly. Didn’t work they were too smart for that, but they did enjoy the new approach at my attempt to get first class. Then as we walked by the Exit Row seating I offered to not only take the quiz but the full written test to obtain those seats, once again, no go.

I was excited because I wanted to get to Rincon for Market day. It was on my “to do” list from Mary Mueller, a.k.a. the Bonaire connection. Upon our arrival Renee, from the Golden Reef, was waiting for us, and to the delight of my boyfriend she had a lighter. However, since he had not been to Bonaire in over 10 years he had forgotten about the wind. Such fun to see him perform contortionist acts on the parking lot of ABC rental, already added entertainment and we had just arrived.

Off to the Golden Reef which was a pleasant surprise. Since I had only stayed at Lion’s Dive my prior visits I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was perfectly adequate and nestled in Hato, a residential community. We loved having our coffee every morning on the porch, watching the flock of parrots fly through. Of course we had not adjusted to island time at this point, so still in rat race mode, we slung our bags into the room, grabbed our dive gear and headed to Buddy Dive to get tanks and do a check out dive. To our dismay we could not get tanks until the following day because we had to attend orientation, and purchase our marine tag. Orientation is only provided at 9:30 and 2:30 each day. By the way, I haven’t taken the other two marine tags off my BC, I’m wearing them like lift tickets, is this a fashion or diver faux paux?

Therefore, I said let’s head to Rincon, it was about 4:00pm but thought we could catch the last part of market day. However, somewhere in all this waiting and running around I picked up a Bonaire Nights and it said that market day was only the first Saturday of each month. I believed it and I am still confused about is it every Saturday or only the first Saturday of each month? Needless to say we headed to the room, the 3:00am waking hour and no real food had caught up with us. Therefore, we opted for an early dinner at Richards and bed. We didn’t have to make the required run to Cultimara because the Golden Reef had supplied coffee and some breakfast munchies, what a nice surprise. So we cleaned up and went to dinner. While cleaning up, to my dismay, or my recollection I identified I had packed a wonderful little flippy skirt to wear out but had not packed any undergarments. I usually don’t pack undergarments for vacation because I need freedom at least once a year however, I had not thought it out well, forgetting I had packed a “skirt”. At this point, sleep depravation and hunger had set in and I decided I was not changing and we were off to Richards. Before leaving I presented my dilemma to my
Boyfriend, who could not get past, “you didn’t pack any underwear”, and finally his solution worked, I would wear his. I had fun all evening showing everyone my boyfriend’s underwear. Not as funny now but seemed like a scream at the time, most likely due to sleep depravation. Dinner at Richards was wonderful as always and after one too many mango margaritas it was time for bed.

The next morning we were off to Buddy Dive for tanks and orientation. We never got in synch with the island time. Of course I blame it on the boyfriend, but it was my fault as well. The last two years when I visited I came with seasoned Bonaire visitors so they had the eating, diving, drinking, sleeping, eating diving, schedule down. After orientation of course, straight into the water, then off to our first dive site, then off to our second dive site, then oh my gosh it is after 4:00pm and all we have had is coffee and a piece of bread and cheese. So of course what do we do? We go back get cleaned up and head to dinner. I’m ready to pass out and because of the lack of conversation I think the boyfriend was too. I almost paid the person next to us to let me lick their plate but decided to wait it out. City Café was very tasty, and we enjoyed the sidewalk seating.

The dives of the day were Hilma Hooker and The Lake. My boyfriend with his PADI certification wanted to start our profile deep and work up through the week. Of course I have the drive through window SDI certification that you can get with $50 bucks and a shower so I was clueless to all this dive profile business. I think they sell the SDI certifications at Wal-Mart as well. Anyway, we enjoyed the ascent from Hilma Hooker probably more then the actual wreck itself. The baby angels on this trip were everywhere. I also got to see a baby trunk for the second time. They look like bumble bees and are wonderful to follow. The diving in Bonaire never lets you down. We decided after dinner to do a night dive from Captain Don’s dock. We all know about Charlie, I know about Charlie but still Charlie intimidates some of us. The couple coming out of the water before us or should I say the female was quite excited because apparently this was her first encounter with Charlie to which her husband found amusing. They had cut their dive short by about 40 minutes due to Charlie and Charlene’s escapades. So knowing Charlie and Charlene were waiting for us, off we go. I need to tell you that I am extremely frightened of the dark, not so much the fish, just the dark. Everything was fine at first, Charlie and Charlene at our sides but then I just started getting creeped out and discovered a new dive technique. You can ride you buddy’s tank like a Harley, ease your fears, and not even have to kick, and enjoy the night fish life. However, my buddy was not too keen on this dive technique. Still it was a beautiful dive and we, I, enjoyed it.

The next day, off to Oil Slick, and I love the entry and exit. It looks a bit intimidating but is easy in and out. Then we headed to Salt City and Angel City. Angel City is always so full of life and just a sight. I try to time that dive after 4:00pm just because that seems to be the time the whole place is active. But you must realize we still have not got in synch with island time, so once again, we dive until after 5:00 with only coffee and toast in our stomachs. I come up from our last dive Angel City, yanking the regulator out of my mouth screaming at my boyfriend that if we don’t start eating a proper breakfast or lunch that I was going to most likely kill him. I swear the last few minutes of the last dive I saw the fish cooked on platters and not in their true habitat. Like the old cartoons with the abandoned island scene where two people see each other as meals. We agreed on our trip back to the room to get cleaned up for dinner that we would make eating our number once priority versus diving. Yeah right, we are on Bonaire, please, what were we thinking. On this long journey back, 10 minutes maybe, I reminded my boyfriend that it was extremely dangerous for him to take a menopausal woman out diving all day without food. He was flirting with death. As I said we were out of island time synch because at day three we still had not stopped by the store to get any snacks or substance for quick fixes. So, on the way back we stopped at the very adequate grocery next door to Mike’s chat n browse, and Lover’s ice cream. I bought several key things and some crazy things, once again operating in starvation mode. But the key thing each person must purchase is the Amstel Brights. I read about these in past trip reports and decided I must have one. Well, I had several and they seem to take the edge off of menopause.

The next day we were off to the web cam at Eden Beach. I had promised my friends at work a show at 10:00am and I didn’t want to miss it. Well, the day before we stopped by Eden Beach to get a look see, or at least I did. The boyfriend stayed with the truck and dive gear. I chatted with a few people from the dive shop and they pointed out the location of the web cam. Well, I don’t always pay attention to details so the next day we went under the wrong blue boat at about 10:00am. I couldn’t figure out why we were at 90 feet under the boat and no web cam. My boyfriend was smart enough to motion to go towards Eden Beach and move up to 60 feet. The current was screaming and we could hardly move. We finally reached the web cam at 10:45; I placed my tiara on my head and attempted to pose for 8 to 10 minutes. The current kept throwing me back into the boat. At one point when I attempted to moon my friends via web cam I was slammed back into the boat face first. My boyfriend spent the entire time trying to get behind something to block the current. We were at about 200 lbs of air so decided to come up. My friends did get a few pictures so it wasn’t a complete loss. We had lunch at Bongo’s that by the way does not take credit cards, and it was most delightful. Finally, a meal before 5:00pm, now we are starting to get the hang of this dive, eat, sleep, thing.

The next day we had a date with Dee Scarr. My boyfriend had dove with her 10 years ago and turned me on to her on my prior trip. I did a dive with her the prior year but due to my buoyancy skills it wasn’t as good as it could have been. This year I had it figured out and we stayed down almost two hours under Town Pier. We meet and Octopus, scorpion fish, but the most excitement was the eels. The ground seemed to be crawling with them. One of Dee’s friendly eels came out and another joined him. They started trying to one up each other on the food she had in her hand and the moray ended up getting slightly caught up in her BC. I refer to it as the eel dance festival. One minute it was on the floor of the ocean the next it was caught up in her BC secondary air lines. Dee did a beautiful job of relaxing, tilting her had back and turning her head, breathing lightly and the eel wiggled out of the predicament and went on his way. Of course the entire time I was using my new dive technique of riding my boyfriends tank link a Harley which proved once again to be a great dive technique for a nervous diver. We also had a very long interaction with an Octopus. I petted, touched, smelled, well you get the picture. Even though we considered ourselves experienced Dee still provided value. I recommend a dive with her just to learn and refresh ourselves on proper diving etiquette.

After our dive with Dee we grabbed a bite and headed to Karel’s bar, my favorite! We were visiting with locals and learning the language when the boat people arrived. One of the barefoot cruises came to town and they were in a festive mood. Well, the Amstel Brights were going down easy and the music cranked up and the dancing began. WARNING!! Do not dance with moist feet in Tevias. After several Brights I had no idea that the dancing was sloughing all the skin off of my feet. I danced the night away only to awaken to bloody clubs where my feet use to be. My boyfriend woke up still intoxicated ready to dive. I said to myself, can this be good? Of course it is good we are in Bonaire. The good side is we got to shop at the Superstore. A must stop for any visitor. It is Bonaire’s version of Wal-Mart. We shopped for an hour and made it to the check out with 4 pairs of shoes, well please how one pair could be enough, 3 for me 1 for him and various goodies that totaled $52. I tired to give the clerk more money but she said I had paid for everything. I was in heaven. Plus I had shoes that didn’t touch the open wound areas of my feet.

We tried diving at the south end of the island, Sweet Dreams but the current was really tough and we were there for easy diving so we moved north. Pink Beach was most eventful. After a beautiful dive, as we came up into the sandy areas octopus and seahorse hunting. I gave up on the octopus sighting and had my head in the soft corals, when I decided to do a buddy check. One thing I remember from the drive through window certification. And to my surprise there was my boyfriend walking an Octopus. The Octopus had blown up in defense mode and was trying to walk across the ocean floor. He was so clumsy and eyes appeared to be opened wide. Within a minute he reached his den never to be seen again. That was a thrill for both of us.

We did a drive through Rincon in torrential rains. The strangest rain storm came up and we got to experience flash floods in the Rincon area. This was after a dive in Nucove which I do not recommend. The entry and exit are almost impossible with the hard corals. The dive was okay but I’m afraid I was so distracted during the dive worrying about how to get out and what did I impale my self on getting in that it just wasn’t a favorite dive. Also, the drive of 20 minutes on pretty rough rocky terrain caused us to anticipate a better event.

The whole trip we got in about 18 dives which were sufficient. We wanted some time to explore the island. We did a road trip to the end of Lac Bay road and I loved the mangroves. I was too much of a weenie to go in and snorkel, plus we didn’t want to leave our gear unattended. So we will save that for next time. Someone tell me, do you snorkel or dive the mangrove area?

We decided to go low key one day and snorkel with Renee. This is a MUST DO. Sometimes I underestimate snorkeling but realized it was truly enjoyable. We saw so many things, squid, school of baby barracuda, and even a baby octopus, that I will never visit Bonaire again without spending at least one morning snorkeling.

Of course I spent the last day shopping while my boyfriend napped. Also, since I have this undying love for Bonaire and sincere hope of residing there sometime in the near future I decided to stop by an Accounting Office and check out the career situation. I am an accountant by trade and wondered could there be a need on Bonaire. Each day we passed Cactus accounting, and I decided why not go in and chat about a career on the island. I met Stephen Rosario who was very friendly and candid. Apparently, there is a need on the island for accountants. He asked if I could start working half days the following week. My head reeled my heart jumped and then visions of poverty danced in my head. I told him I would rather wait until he had a full time position and make the move and commitment to stay long term. I still haven’t heard from him yet but I have managed to get my resumes sprinkled across Bonaire. I hope to be more aggressive with my search on the next visit, now that I know it is a possibility.

Anyway, the whole trip was everything I wanted hoped for and loved. I am addicted to the island, but I know I am not alone. If anyone is interested my boyfriend will be completing his guides on “Travels with Sybil” and “Always feed a menopausal woman” in the near future.

HELP! Just got off the phone with AJ (6/11/05 @1:00pm ET) and was informed that AJ no longer flies to Bonaire.

Also, All American Airline flights from Nw York to Bonaire are listed as overnight flights with total travel time of from 31 to 35 hours.

Anyone have more recent information

Mitch

Hi Mitch - I think it depends on your day of travel. The Saturday flights are still happening, but I think they cancelled their mid-week flights. Do you have an existing reservation for mid-week?

Carlea

Mitch, try from Miami to Bonaire, also try getting to Aruba or Curacao, then take Bonaire Excel.

I fly out of Atlanta so maybe you could do NY, ATL, Miami, Bonaire all in one day. This is flying American Eagle from Atlanta on.

I had the same problems looking for flights in October. I left my notes at work but found the days you could make all connections in one day. If I remember on Monday I will send the information to you.

Liz at www.goldenreefinn.com is a great help for these issues. Also found out they are trying to get a charter from Ft. Lauderdale to Bonaire non-stop by this fall.

Kay, what a fun trip report to read :-) thanks for sharing! I sure do miss Bonaire . . .

Kay, so once a year you go commando and chose Bonaire?? Excellent...haaa

Kay, Any photos of you wearing your boyfriend's underwear? Enquiring minds want to know....

Great report, from one menopausal woman to another!!!!

I loved the report Kay! I guess it helps to be 'of the age' to fully appreciate it. I know I'd get spooked by Charlie, so I don't do night dives, but I never thought of piggybacking for security - nah! I'll wait on the dock with the amstels!

What is Charlie? I am new and have not heard of Charlie and more importantly how cantankerous is Charlie? I love the underwater life, but my spouse is not all that fond of big fish that follow him around so I would like to prepare him since we are staying at Capt'n Dons.

Charlie is a large tarpon and has a friend, known as Charlene, who usually swims with him. I have never heard of ANY problems with them other than them taking divers by suprise when they are not warned! Francee at Bon Bini dive used to include him in her dive briefing! They love to swim with divers because the lights show up prey. I also think that Charlie thinks all divers are part of a large tarpon group that are so poor at swimming they need looking after. Charlene has bumped Bob by mistake once, I am still not sure which of them was the most scared.

Charlie and Charlene get very, very close to the point you feel there wake. But they are harmless. However, they look big, very big!

A few times on our last trip, we saw 6 to 7 tarpon swimming back and forth together at the Habitat house reef. It was pretty cool when the whole group of them circled around us, even not as a night dive.

I'm not a big fan of night dives: I'm not afraid, but I feel like we're tipping the odds in the favor of the hunters and upsetting the balance of nature a bit, not to mention scaring the pants off the poor little fish just trying to survive another night cowering under a coral head, whenever I shine a light towards one and see him finning desperately trying to get out of the beam. And I don't even use that powerful a light - the things some people bring down I'm surprised there aren't more fish dying of heart attacks.

Also this last trip there was a group of about 5 very small juvenile drums (they may even have been high-hats, they were so tiny it was impossible to tell) in one spot. Every day we went back there, there were fewer, until they were finally all gone. They don't tend to be wanderers, and I wonder whether they may have become easy targets given the number of Digital Shoot-Off divers at the Habitat that week with their huge strobes and fancy camera rigs...

Hilarious and informative report Kay! Thanks for sharing your trip! You reminded me that I still have to do a snorkel with Renee, see the mangroves, etc., etc. After only one trip there, I have so many things left to do!

We enjoyed a wonderful night snorkel with Barry and Sherry Baker and Charlie and Charlene at the Divi one evening last week. Joe and I "met" Charlie a few years ago on our first night snorkel and our foot tracks are still enbedded in the sand on the Divi Beach!! LOL!! We had NO idea what "it" was, but "it" was huge and we beat feet (and fins) out of the water immediately! Michael Gaynor informed us we had just "met" Charlie...we all laughed very loud and breathed a sigh of relief. I could have sworn it was a five foot, 100 pound barracuda who was going to devoir us in one gulp.

Now we know who he is and we got to meet Charlene this trip for the first time, too. It was so much fun swimming with the both of them. We were watching them "chow down" with our flashlights lighting up their chow/feeding line for them. Interesting to say the least.

Great report, Kay! We were probably down on Bonaire the same time you were. Was that you I met at Bonaire Airport with the color boarding cards in our hands?? I was over by the palm tree and you thought you were taking to your significant other but it was really me, instead??

Arrived home at 2:00 a.m. last night. Will do a trip report later on. AJ was perfection going down but some bumps in the excursion coming back....all in all they were pretty good, tho. I really hope they return to Bonaire. Need to start a letter writing campaign to AJ to keep them on our route to Bonaire! Ayo. Carole

Great trip report!!! I really enjoyed your sense of humor!! Or was it really reality that I associated with???

Carole B., very easy that it could have been you instead of my significant other that I was ranting on to. My significant other has a talent for disappearing or just tuning me out. Can't blame him these days. We flew out of ATL on May 14th and out of Bon on May 21st. I heard they were paging "Mr. Holden", not my boyfriends last name while I was in the ladies room. I told him that loaning me his underwear came with stipulations.

Darlene, I'm sorry, I don't think I am that humorous so unfortunately it was the reality you must have associated with. {;\

QUOTE:"SDI certification that you can get with $50 bucks ... I think they sell the SDI certifications at Wal-Mart as well."

LOL! Us NAUI people feel the same way about PADI! I'm up to Rescue Diver in PADI, and a lot of the stuff in PADI Advanced and PADI Rescue were covered in my NAUI Open Water Cert 25 years ago.

Kay you are that funny, excellent report and a joy to read. You are now hooked and should be planning your next trip.

Cool report. We also did the Angel City "Dive at 5" our last trip to Bonaire in April. Mind Blowing fish activity.

This is a great trip report! Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for the info on Charlie & Charlene I will let the family know. The kids will be very excited to meet them. I can't wait to try out that new dive "technique" from Kay to increase my bottom time! heh

Hey Susan! No FAIR!!!

I've already got Susan! You can't be Susan!!
How will people tell us apart??

Great report and fun to read. Thanks for posting.
Debbie

Kay - great report!! I just now had a chance to get on BT and read it!!!

And the Rincon market day is every Saturday morning until about 1:00. The big one is the first Saturday of the month. It is a bit confusing!!!

Susan F - LOL!!!